• Director: Eli Roth
• Written by: Jeff Rendell Eli Roth
• Starring: Patrick Dempsey Ty Olsseon Gina Gershon, Nell Verlaque

Holiday Treats

In honor of America’s overlooked holiday, this month I’m reviewing Thanksgiving-themed horror movies.  I decided to start with one of my favorites: Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. This brutal commentary on consumerism from one of the modern masters of gore has all the genre standards for a slasher.   I’ll get into how those, and how they’re put together with Roth’s eye for artful, skin-crawling violence paired with dark humor, makes this a classic.

Eli Roth’s Long Holiday

Thanksgiving started as a fake trailer for the movie Grindhouse, released in 2007. Almost immediately after release, fans heard rumors of this fan-favorite concept becoming a feature. A few years later, Roth revealed in an interview he was working on the script, but six years after that, it was still a work in progress. Finally in 2023, Roth started filming. 

Was it Worth the Wait: Spoilers Ahead

Yeah, I love this movie. It’s fun, satirical, and gory.  In Plymouth, Massachusetts, a mob is gathered outside a store before a Black Friday sale. Jessica, the teen daughter of the store’s owner, makes the brilliant decision to let her douchebag friends in early.  Because they are in fact, the worst, they taunt the waiting shoppers, leading to a full-scale riot.

As the frantic shoppers rush the store, the employees try to open the doors before anyone gets crushed. They can’t get there before the glass shatters, resulting in the first casualty: a store security guard with glass in his neck.  Amanda Collings, the wife of the store’s manager, is trampled and then hit in the head with a cart by two shoppers arguing over cheap waffle irons, while her husband tries to deal with the chaos.

One of the teen friends, Bobby, tries to help, but he also gets trampled, and his arm shattered, ending his glory days as a star pitcher. The cold open ends with Patrick Dempsey’s Sheriff Newton watching the chaos in horror, then firing his gun in the ceiling to try to end the madness.

One Year Later

The store is getting ready for another sale as the town is still recovering from the madness. Jessica and her friends, Scuba, Yulia, Gabby and Evan (named in order of least to most offensive) are dealing with the aftermath in their own way.

Bobby, the injured athlete, has returned from ghosting everyone for a year, and Jessica’s new boyfriend is a smart-but-sleezy new addition to the group. These two add some additional suspects to the list and round out a sizable cast.

After they get a text from “John Carver” depicting an elaborate dinner table with place cards with their names on them, bodies start piling up. The killer, a man in a pilgrim outfit and retro plastic mask, kills an overzealous shopper first. I don’t know that this kill is my favorite, but it’s up there. This character is terrible and watching her get sliced, frozen to a door, and then bisected… Well, I didn’t hate it.

Carver’s other victims include a cowardly security guard that ran away, and most of the teens on the list, including a couple from a rival school. They get to redo a scene from the original “fake” trailer in a more artistic, but less shocking, way. After an attempt on Jessica leads to her narrow escape, Yulia meets her end when she’s thrown on a table saw that’s clearly missing some important safety gear. After this, they put together a desperate plan to draw out Carver involving baiting him with Jessica’s family at the Thanksgiving Day parade

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

Carver, in a clown costume, has his own plan; only his involves a dead mascot and smoke bombs. In the mayhem, he tranqs and then makes off with Jess, her family, and Scuba.  In one of the longer and tenser sequences, Carver makes Jess’s stepmom into the centerpiece for his table. If you saw the original trailer, you know how this part ends. 

Roth saves the gore for the main course: Thanksgiving dinner, where Carver has gathered the bodies of his victims, as well as those he kidnapped, including Evan and Gabby.

Without lingering too long on the grisly details, dinner is a lot. In addition to the “bird”, Evan, the worst of the teens, gets a fitting end for exploiting the tragedy for social media clout. Before things can escalate to the rest, Scuba and Jessica escape with Carver hot on their heels.

Carver Unmasked – The Killer Revealed

After escaping, Jessica discovers Bobby in the Carver costume; as she confronts him, the Sheriff intervenes so she can escape.  In the aftermath, the Sheriff and Jessica go back to the station. While there, she recognizes plant matter on the Sheriff’s pants, plants he only could have gotten from chasing her as Carver.  It’s a good reveal, especially after all the red herrings and teased suspects.

She outsmarts him by stealing a phone from evidence bags and live streams his explanation. Just as he is about to overpower her, Bobby busts through a window and saves her. The chase is on again, this time with float vehicles from the parade. Jessica manages to shoot out a helium tank inflating a giant turkey incinerating Carver…maybe.

After a tearful reunion with her dad, Scuba, and Gabby, and shots of a suspicious looking masked fireman, there’s one last scare that, while a dream, leaves the door open for the return of John Carver.

About The Killer

Carver looks great; the mask is creepy, and there is even a burned version that ups the intensity. The physical acting was mostly done by Alex Armbruster, but Dempsey wore the mask in the dinner scene. I think it’s significant that Dempsey chose to be Carver here; it’s the pinnacle of the Sheriff’s revenge. Having both sides of the character, the Sheriff and his killer alter ego, come through in this moment is vital.

End Major Spoilers

Smart Slashers

Slashers have a bit of a bad rep, especially in the post-Elevated Horror landscape. The genre conjures up images of half-clothed co-eds tripping into generic masked men with gardening tools, and extra sex scenes instead of a plot.  As a fan of low-budget horror and someone who grew up in the ‘80s, I love slashers. Judging Thanksgiving on some loose subgenre standards, it’s close to perfect.

You get a masked killer, with motive for revenge, racking up a decent body count. He’s no Jason, but it is his first time, in a small town, with unconventional weapons. He starts with an axe and adapts from there.

There are a lot of ways to kill people in horror movies, but after watching probably hundreds of movies, it’s really about the victims. Good slasher victims should be relatable and tragic, like the Scream kids tend to lean towards, especially in first and then newer movies. Or, they should be the kind of people you enjoy watching die, just a little bit.

In Thanksgiving, the victims fall into the latter category; some more than others. The heavy anti-consumerism themes and the callous disregard for human life shown during the shopping riot doesn’t make me root for Carver, but I get his motivation.

As for the targets of his wrath, they try to make smart decisions, but since Carver has the upper hand, a lot of their planning is useless.  

Grindhouse Vs Thanksgivng

Thanksgiving has a few scenes that are pretty close to the original Grindhouse trailer and a couple more that are inspired by, but not exact replicas.  The greatest hits are there but modified. I don’t want to say they’ve been toned down, but the movie version of Thanksgiving is more accessible to audiences. The trampoline sequence is more dramatically shot in the movie, but it loses some of the shock and horror in that moment. The tonal changes work well overall, but I would be interested to see what the full Grindhouse version would have been like.

Final Thoughts

If you’re not afraid of a little gore, Thanksgiving is a perfect holiday slasher. It’s darkly comedic with some over-the top blood gags that lessen the impact of the more brutal deaths. It’s also got some great scares and tons of suspense, even when you know the character is going to die.

The characters are well-rounded enough to enjoy watching. No one makes any overly stupid decisions, and Jessica (Nell Verlaque) and Scuba (Gabriel Davenport) have some nice emotional moments.  Jessica also has one of the best terrified faces I’ve seen.

There are a couple of characters that kind of fade out halfway through the movie or get lost in the shuffle, but by then everything is escalating quickly so it’s a minor thing.

Carver should be a more popular slasher; he’s brutal, but economic. His targets are chosen purposefully, and while not every kill fits the crimes of the victim, enough do to make me happy. There’s also a humor about it, or at least I hope there is; otherwise, I’m due back in therapy.

Thanksgiving is available on Netflix

Check out my other horror movie reviews:

• Happy 20th Birthday Saw
• Deer Camp ’86