Thanksgiving (2023) Review - Director Series
Back in 2007, Eli Roth created a fake trailer for a fake film called Thanksgiving. It played on the Grindhouse double feature of Quentin Tarantino’s Deathproof and Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror.
A few fake trailers played between the two feature films as a throwback to the double bills of exploitation-style films from the 1960s and 1970s. One of those films was the aforementioned Thanksgiving, from QT friend Eli Roth.
In 2010 Roth announced he was going to write the film with The Last Exorcism creator Jeff Rendell. Then he announced he was going to write it with Rendell and Clown (2014) creators Jon Watts and Christopher Ford.
Thanksgiving was put on the back burner, Roth said it was not ready. He then began production on the upcoming film Borderlands, based on the popular video game.
It was announced in January of 2023 that Thanksgiving was moving forward with Roth directing. Eli left Borderlands to begin working on his passion project. Many speculated he was fired off of Borderlands.
Likely because he departed The Meg after creative differences. However, this was not true as reported by Deadline. Roth left two weeks of reshoots for Deadpool filmmaker Tim Miller.
Thanksgiving takes place in the small Massachusetts town of Plymouth. On Thanksgiving, the store RightMart is getting set to open. Eventually mass panic breaks out over a group of kids who are able to get into the store before it actually opens.
In the chaos, multiple people die including the store manager’s wife played by Gina Gershon. A year later a man in a John Carver mask begins to kill everyone they believe is responsible for the deaths a year earlier.
It was refreshing for Roth to come back to a genre he is well versed in. After two movies being outside of horror, with the previous one being at least family horror. But Roth was back with an original horror idea where his career started.
It might not feel original though, the film follows well-known story beats, especially for a slasher. That doesn’t mean that the journey is not fun while we walk the familiar path.
The strength of Roth is his imagination and creativity when it comes to the kills. For us sicko horror hounds there is plenty of gruesome kills for everyone to gleefully enjoy.
Setting it in Massachusetts also works because the entire cast is a bunch of “Massholes” that we like to watch get murdered. As well as setting up the story with most of these people being the cause of two deaths because of greed.
It was only a matter of time before someone made a film aimed at the people who go insane over Black Friday deals. Too many horror stories of people getting hurt or killed over people losing their minds over a waffle iron on sale.
Roth even makes a joke about a waffle iron being a hot-selling item at the RightMart. These possessions that people if people cannot afford in the first place, clearly they don’t need them.
It was the perfect setting for a film set on Thanksgiving. Giving motivation to the killer, killable characters, and taking aim at a societal issue. Material greed is a societal problem, right?
It’s a slasher that won’t bring new fans to the genre, but the sickos love it, and that’s who Roth made it for.
[Spoiler Alert] The fact that Gina Gershon was supposedly pregnant is hilarious.
3.5/5 Stars
