Thanksgiving review
Eli Roth attempts to tackle the missing piece of holiday horror…a great Thanksgiving slasher movie. It was worth the wait.
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Thanksgiving
Directed by Eli Roth
Screenplay by Jeff Rendell
Starring Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman and Gina Gershon
Thanksgiving Review
You have to go all the way back to the spring of 2007 to find the origins of Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. It was one of the fake trailers in the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse double feature. We’ve already seen feature length films made from two of the trailers (Hobo with a Shotgun and Rodriguez’s own Machete). The feature length version of the movie drops the retro aesthetic but does recreate some of the moments seen in the original trailer. It (forgive me…) carves out its own feel…and the result is something everyone has been waiting on for a long time. A classic Thanksgiving slasher movie.
It’s turkey day in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The local RightMart is going to get ahead of the Black Friday madness by opening on Thanksgiving. An ensuing riot leaves several dead and one masked killer with an axe to grind. The carnage begins a year later as Jessica (Nell Verlaque) and friends become the target of the vengeful pilgrim.
Thanksgiving accomplishes a lot of things. It’s funny and gory…often at the same time. There is a fine whodunnit to watch unfold…providing plenty of suspects and withholding clues until the right moment. A great cast tries to survive the holiday while a clever without winking script keeps a lively pace. Most of all…Thanksgiving is an old school slasher movie. Despite the modern technology and Gen Z characters…Eli Roth’s movie is, at its core, a throwback to the heyday of the post-Halloween slasher craze.
It’s a shame that we didn’t get it back then. We could have grown up without experiencing the void that has been the great Thanksgiving horror movie. For whatever reason the holiday sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas has always drawn the short straw when it comes to holiday horror. The holidays that sandwich it have always provided fertile ground for slasher stories. After watching Eli Roth’s take on turkey day…it’s hard to understand why the day struggled to find appropriate representation for so long.
Roth fills the screen with Thanksgiving joy. From his masked killer to his murder weapons. There’s a parade and family dinners and, yes, Black Friday. If there is something about the holiday that you hold sacred…Roth probably drenches it in blood. There are gruesome kills here…the kind that make you smile when you get to watch them on the big screen. Roth may lean heavily into seasonal trappings…but what he’s really done is sneak a brutal, classic slasher into mainstream theaters. Creative kills with holiday tropes are a highlight of Thanksgiving…but it has a lot more going for it.
This is a whodunnit…as classic slashers often were. Given the carnage of the film’s opening department store massacre…there is no shortage of potential killers. The movie focuses our attention on a few of them…but reminds us that it could be anybody. It’s a solid whodunnit that makes a case for enough people to keep you guessing. It also features some post-reveal fun. This is where a lot of movies drop the ball…Thanksgiving delivers.
As mentioned, Roth has assembled a great cast to maim and torture. Patrick Dempsey is the most recognizable face. He plays the town’s sheriff who is trying to stop the killer. It’s good to see him back in horror after his great turn in Scream 3. Rick Hoffman is the owner of RightMart…he’s more complex than you’d expect from the archetype of the selfish cause of disaster character. He’s also Jessica’s father. His new fiancé Kathleen (Karen Cliché) is a driving force behind some of his worst decisions. Nell Verlaque is our final girl, Jessica. Her ex-boyfriend Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks) lost a lot in the previous year’s riot. His return to town complicates things for Jessica and her new boyfriend Ryan (Milo Manheim). Addison Rae, Gabriel Davenport, Jenna Warren, and Tomaso Sanelli round out Jessica’s friend group (read: potential victims).
The story does a good job of getting across characters without overwhelming the movie with relationship drama. It gives us enough to understand everyone’s place…but doesn’t slow things down. We have heads to chop off, after all. It’s a nice balance of delivering enough character moments to be suspicious of (or fear for) each person as needed.
Thanksgiving doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It leans into classic slasher sensibilities to deliver a classic holiday horror film. It’s funny and bloody in equal measure. Featuring a worthwhile whodunnit and all the turkey day love you could ask for. Destined to become a Thanksgiving classic…and it’s not even by default.
Scare Value
Thanksgiving is an old school slasher movie set in modern times. It’s also the best Thanksgiving horror movie ever. Ok…so that isn’t as big of an accomplishment as it sounds…but we’ve been waiting for a movie to claim that title for a long time. We’ve waited for Eli Roth to bring us Thanksgiving for 16 years. It was worth the wait. Roth gives us a turkey day classic. A fun, bloody slasher whodunnit that celebrates everything about the holiday.
4/5
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