Eli Roth delivers a solid slasher flick that features some truly incredible practical FX and killer stalking sequences.
PLOT: After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday.
REVIEW: I still remember seeing the original Grindhouse in theaters back in the summer of 2007. The experience was unlike any other and one thing that left an indelible impact on me was the fake trailers. As a massive fan of slasher movies, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving really stood out. His intention of finally giving us horror fanatics a slasher set at Thanksgiving (Blood Rage aside) played like gangbusters. And there were rumors for years that Roth would expand it into a full-length feature film. Thankfully, over 16 years later, this plan has finally come to fruition.
Given that the original trailer was pure exploitation, it was smart of Roth to evolve the story to modern day. I’m not sure how well some of the elements of the trailer would have played to audiences today, but I’m grateful for the moments that were recreated here. The movie mostly follows Jess as she’s haunted by the tragedy that happened one year prior on Black Friday. When a mysterious killer shows up and starts killing off people who were there for the event. It’s pretty stereotypical slasher fare.
I was honestly shocked at how good the cast is here. You’re not getting any schlocky acting, it’s all decent performances. Even TikToker Addison Rae does a good job. But Thanksgiving fails to create any interesting characters with those actors. I couldn’t tell you the name of anyone outside of Bobby, and that’s because they repeat his name ad nauseam. And no one really has a distinct personality as they all seem to just fall under the “high school teen” umbrella. I suppose this makes this slightly more realistic as they don’t follow strict archetypes but it’s still an odd choice. Especially with the Final Girl being so weak. Actually, the only person that stands out is the killer.
John Carver works as a great villain and I really hope we’re able to see more of him in the future. Like Ghostface, it doesn’t always have to be the same person behind the mask, so there’s a lot of potential there. And I quite liked how he used various Thanksgiving utensils as murder weapons. It allowed for some creative kills, which is where the film excels. There’s a particular death involving a garbage can that blew me away. And the practicality involved will have gorehounds fiending.
One of the biggest issues I usually have with an Eli Roth movie is the dialogue. But with Jeff Rendell taking on scripting duties, and Roth helping with the story, this may be the secret formula. The only characters with dumb jock dialogue were the dumb jocks and the humor was decidedly higher brow than expected. Thankfully though, Roth really shows up in the director’s chair. This is a movie that will need to be studied to catch all the slasher references.
As a big slasher fan myself, I can’t deny that the pacing falls flat at times. Hell, the kills are so spread out that I was genuinely shocked when we got to the ten-minute mark with no bloodshed. There are lulls that manage to drag the whole film down. Thankfully the stalking sequences here are rife with tension. And boy there are a lot of them. If there’s one thing I think is always drastically missing from slashers, it’s stalking sequences. Many films just end at one or two but this gives us our money’s worth and they’re all effective.
I love a good “whodunnit” and they really make sure to stick with the mystery for a long time here. But anyone who’s watched a horror film before is going to pick out the killer fairly quickly. That’s a little disappointing as I think so much of the fun is trying to figure out who it is but it’s just so painfully obvious that none of the red herrings really do much to alter suspicion.
Overall, I rather enjoyed my time with Thanksgiving. The cast was shockingly good and the kills were incredibly impressive. John Carver is a modern-day killer that I hope really gets a chance to shine in more movies. And I hope this also serves as a guide for how to do practical effects and do them effectively. Because these are genuinely some of the best gore gags of the 21st Century and they should be celebrated.
THANKSGIVING IS PLAYING IN THEATERS ON NOVEMBER 17TH, 2023.
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