Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A series of loosely connected skits that spoof news programs, commercials, porno films, kung-fu films, disaster films, blaxploitation films, spy films, mafia films, and the fear that somebody is watching you on the other side of the TV.
Kentucky Fried Movie is a gloriously anarchic sketch comedy that launched Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker's career and defined a particular strain of rapid-fire parody humor. Novelty earns a 4 — its freewheeling, anything-goes format and willingness to skewer every genre simultaneously was genuinely singular for 1977, predating and inspiring countless imitators. Cinematography gets a 3 for competently mimicking multiple genre styles as part of the joke. Plot is inherently weak by design — it's a loosely stitched anthology with no narrative throughline. Acting is serviceable sketch work, more energetic than polished. The ending, like much of the film, simply stops rather than concludes, leaving little sense of payoff.