Thanksgiving (2023) TriStar/Horror RT: 107 minutes Rated R (strong bloody horror violence, pervasive language, some sexual material) Director: Eli Roth Screenplay: Jeff Rendell Music: Brandon Roberts Cinematography: Milan Chadima Release date: November 17, 2023 (US) Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Tomaso Sanelli, Gabriel Davenport, Jenna Warren, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Milo Manheim, Karen Cliché, Rick Hoffman, Gina Gershon, Ty Victor Olsson, Jeff Teravainen, Russell Yuen, Derek McGrath, Tim Dillon, Chris Sandiford, Mike Amonsen, Shailyn Griffin, Amanda Barker, Joe Deflin, Jordan Kyle Poole, James Goldman. Box Office: $31.9M (US)/$46.6M (World)
Rating: ****
I have been salivating for Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving ever since I saw the faux trailer in the Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse way back in 2007. I’m glad it finally came to fruition. Even better, it’s every bit as gory and nasty as I could have hoped for if not more. It’s a nifty throwback to the Golden Age of slasher flicks (i.e. the 80s) with a heaping helping of blood, guts and brains. It definitely earns its R rating.
Now let me tell you what it’s NOT. It’s not elevated horror like you’d get from A24. It’s not one of those supernatural deals rife with ineffectual jump-scares and bad CGI (i.e. the Insidious films). And while it’s funny at times, the humor is not of the ironic, self-aware variety. I’d say it’s more satirical with its pointed criticism of toxic consumerism. How else would you describe Black Friday? I don’t know who’s worse, the customers doing battle royale for a smart phone or the store owners who open the doors when people are supposed to be having Thanksgiving dinner with their families? Based on what happens in Thanksgiving, I’d say both.
Like all slashers worth their weight in fake blood, Thanksgiving opens with a tragic event that serves as the catalyst for a revenge-motivated killing spree on the anniversary of said tragedy. In this case, it’s a deadly riot at a Plymouth, MA Right Mart (kind of cross between Wal-Mart and Best Buy) on Thanksgiving night. The owner Thomas Wright (Hoffman, Suits) couldn’t have planned for it worse if he tried. What idiot hires only two security guards, one of whom takes off when the s*** hits the fan, on the biggest shopping night of the year? The crowd waiting outside starts out ugly and only gets worse from there. When all is said and done, people are dead, injured and traumatized. A year later, somebody wants revenge.
The horror centers on a group of high schoolers including Wright’s daughter Jessica (Verlaque, Big Shot) whose star athlete boyfriend (Brooks, Walker) ghosts her after suffering a career-ending injury in the melee. Somebody starts tagging them in cryptic Instagram posts depicting a table set for Thanksgiving dinner. Each setting has a place card with their names on it. People around them start getting killed off in gruesome ways by a psycho dressed as a pilgrim. The murders have the local police, headed by Sheriff Newton (Dempsey, Scream 3), baffled and the entire town on edge. It’s up to Jessica and her friends- bffs Gabby (Rae, He’s All That) and Yulia (Warren, The Young Arsonists) and football players Evan (Sanelli, Detention Adventure) and Scuba (Davenport, Don’t Sell My Baby)- to unmask the killer.
There’s only one thing about Thanksgiving I’m a little disappointed in. It doesn’t use the same aesthetic as the fake trailer. I think it would have been cool if it looked more like a grindhouse movie, but it didn’t make me enjoy it any less. I LOVED IT! While it borrows ideas from 90s horror staples like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, its sensibility is firmly rooted in the 80s with its myriad of holiday-themed horrors like My Bloody Valentine, Graduation Day and New Year’s Evil. We even get a sprinkling of 70s-era horror with an idea right out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Trust me. You’ll know it when you see it.
Director Roth doesn’t shy away from showing us the killer’s handiwork either. Thanksgiving is mad bloody! The kill scenes are awesome. The makeup effects are top-notch. Here are a few of the highlights: two decapitations (lots of blood spurt), victim gets cut in half, victim gets head bashed in with hammer, victim gets disemboweled by buzz saw, victim gets impaled through back of head, victim gets stabbed through trampoline and victim gets cooked alive in oven. That’s on top of the carnage in the Black Friday riot. All of it is shown in blood-red detail. For that, I am truly thankful.
What can one say about the acting in a slasher movie like Thanksgiving? It’s pretty much what you’d expect. The girls are hot and can scream loud. The guys are handsome and not too bright. Verlaque does a good job as Jessica, a great final girl and the only character with any apparent brain activity although it still takes her the whole movie to identify the killer. Now I could sit here and tell you I figured it out long before the big reveal, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Roth, following the slasher playbook to the letter, gives us a long list of possible suspects. He had me guessing for a while and I had somebody in mind, but I was wrong. However, the killer is somebody else that I considered. Whatever, I had a great time playing the “guess the killer” game. That’s my second favorite thing about the slasher genre.
Roth has a pretty good track record as far as horror movies go. His credits include Cabin Fever, Hostel I & II and The Green Inferno. Thanksgiving is most definitely his piece de resistance. Working from a screenplay by Jeff Rendell (they collaborated on the story), he has fashioned a new slasher masterpiece. He has made the definitive Thanksgiving horror movie, the only holiday that didn’t get the slasher treatment in the 80s (well, that and Arbor Day). I plan to watch it every year from now on along with my other annuals- The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Thanks again. Eli. You’re the man!
TRIVIA NOTE: Thanksgiving comes from TriStar, the same studio that released the controversial Christmas slasher flick Silent Night, Deadly Night in November ’84. Let’s hope they don’t disown this one too.
