It should come as no surprise, to regular readers of The Cult Archives, that I fucking LOVE Troma Entertainment. Lloyd Kaufman is a movie-making monster genius and I will die on that hill.

So imagine the unholy joy when word dropped that one of their most gloriously unhinged creations is clawing its way back from the deep fat fryer, with a trailer already out there flapping its greasy wings.

That’s right, degenerates, Poultrygeist 2: Dawn of the Chicken Dead is real, and it looks like it’s been marinating in more gore than you can shake a Toxic Avenger at.

This time around, the madness kicks off with a full-blown poultry pandemic (because of course it does). A tech billionaire, presumably bored of ruining social media, decides to resurrect a failed fast food chain and unleash a lab-grown synthetic chicken on the unsuspecting masses. Because nothing bad has ever come from messing with food science in a horror movie, right?

Enter our heroes: a ragtag crew of fast food workers stuck on the world’s worst shift, battling everything from ravenous Karens to aggressively horny rodents, all while a mutant chicken zombie outbreak turns the workplace into a biohazard buffet. It’s corporate satire, body horror, and a late-night fever dream all thrown into the same microwave, with the timer set to explode.

The film is helmed by Mercedes the Muse, who writes, directs, and produces, with Kaufman and Michael Herz onboard as executive producers, because if you’re going to resurrect poultry-based nightmares, you bring the original mad scientists with you.

Mercedes has made it clear this isn’t playing it safe, promising a film that gleefully stomps past good taste and leaves a few permanent scars on your brain along the way. Exactly what you want from anything wearing the Troma badge.

The cast is a beautiful mix of chaos agents and cult royalty, including Sadie Satanas, Knotty Peach, Vada Callisto, and Christina Von Eerie, alongside Troma legends like Mark Torgl and Debbie Rochon, plus Kaufman himself, because of course he’s not missing this circus.

Rochon has already been singing the praises of the production, highlighting Mercedes’ ability to wrangle chicken zombies like a battle-hardened farmhand. She also gets to tick off a very specific bucket list item, locking lips on-screen with Torgl, the original Melvin from The Toxic Avenger. Romance is alive. It’s just covered in slime.

On the effects front, the film doubles down on practical carnage, with creature work handled by Eric Fox (Tales of Halloween, Kuso) and Sean McGrath, ensuring this thing oozes, splatters, and probably smells like something you shouldn’t touch.

Poultrygeist 2: Dawn of the Chicken Dead is set to premiere as part of Troma-Thon 2026 at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater on July 17–18, with more screenings expected to follow.

Long story short: the chicken is back, it’s angry, and it’s probably carrying at least three new forms of cinematic disease.

God bless Troma.