Every major holiday has a slasher film associated with it, with an iconic serial killer now because of this film. While there have been Thanksgiving-themed horror films, none of them were quite in the same vein, let alone the same league. Slashers tend to focus on iconic dates – holidays, anniversaries, and important dates to the characters in their stories. This is because they act as a built-in excuse for a group of characters to gather, who might not otherwise be around one another.
When one thinks of Christmas and slashers, Black Christmas and its two reboots come to mind, in addition to Silent Night, Deadly Night. Halloween obviously has Halloween as a long-running franchise. Valentine’s Day, April Fools’ Day, and even New Year’s all have their respective films. For Thanksgiving, the most “iconic” one was Thankskilling, which featured a murderous turkey. Now, thanks to a fake trailer from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving has come full circle. While two other fake trailers have been released as films – Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun – one film stood out as the most interesting, never mind traditional, slasher that felt in line with Death Proof. That was Thanksgiving.
With the original trailer filmed and released in 2007 and designed to showcase the so-called “money shots,” it was necessary for Eli Roth and his team to step back and take a macro look at the story as it was laid out. The bones were there, including a handful of named characters and deaths that became infamously iconic. The questions became, “What do we keep, what must we keep, what can we reinterpret, and what has to go?” In order, some of the major answers include the killer’s costume, the time of year, the infamous trampoline death, and the “turkey scene.” In many ways, though, those major aspects fit every single question in some way. For example, the “turkey scene” dropped the intercourse aspect but reinterpreted the service portion – a character was killed and turned into the main course for a group of hostages to look on in horror. The trampoline death altered how the character met her fate, taking what was a case of extreme sexualized violence and toning it down.
For the same reasons, the story had to be made up whole cloth, since the trailer offered a glimpse of a story, but only enough to allow the trailer to feel coherent. In Thanksgiving, we start one year before the main story, during which RightMart, a superstore, is preparing for Black Friday on Thanksgiving, and the insanity that ensues, which sees several people die. For this scene, ignoring the rest of the movie that follows, viewers are left with a sense of horror because of the gruesome reality of it. Consumerism has resulted in people killing one another. However, in most of those cases, the people were a bit more aware of what they were doing. Here, it was their callous disregard for their surroundings that resulted in three people dying and severe injuries to others. A year later, the town has essentially moved on without there being any consequences, major or minor, beyond some unintentional karma.
The main character is Jessica Wright (Nell Verlaque), whose family owns RightMart, who was present the night of the chaos with her group of friends, Gaby (Addison Rae), Evan (Tomaso Sanelli), Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks), Yulia (Jenna Warren), and Scuba (Gabriel Davenport). Another person on the periphery in the prologue, who ends up becoming closer to most of the group during the main story, is Ryan (Mil Manheim). Jessica’s father, Thomas (Rick Hoffman), and his new wife, Kathleen (Karen Cliche), have dealt with the situation in different ways. The former, by trying to reconsider how he handles his store, by meeting the safety of his employees and customers with the impassioned desires of the latter, the latter by ensuring they’re not held liable by any means necessary.
The killer, a man dressed in a John Carver mask, begins his hunt by targeting those whom he pegs as most responsible for the disaster – including Lizzie (Amanda Barker) and Manny (Tim Dillon). But the killer’s target soon becomes Jessica and the people around her, hinting that there is more to their motive than simple, direct revenge. The group suspects that the killer is targeting them because of the death of one particular person, Amanda Collins (Gina Gershon), leading them to briefly suspect Mitch Collins (Ty Victor Olsson), the former manager and Amanda’s widower.
With the deaths slowly mounting, growing closer to Jessica in particular, fear begins to grip the town – exacerbated by a public attack during their annual Thanksgiving Parade.
As a slasher film, Thanksgiving had two paths to take because it was coming off a notorious, but popular trailer. It could lean into Eli Roth’s known repertoire, such as excessive gore and deeply flawed characters, or it could sacrifice that depth for what it would be labeled as, anyway, a shallow slasher film.
I was quite impressed that Roth leaned into his characters and how the incident at RightMart impacted them, or in the case of some, how it resulted in a blasé attitude. Jessica, in particular, was heavily affected by the riot and the deaths and has spent the past year feeling guilty for any part she might have played in it. Most of her friends have all but ignored it, justifying their lack of direct culpability for the chaos. While the killer feels it’s his right to play judge, juror, and executioner, we as the audience are left with the nagging question: “What would we do in that situation?”
Other major actors who appear in the film include Sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey), charged with figuring out who the killer is, and members of his department, Deputy Bret Labelle (Jeff Teravainen), Detective Peter Chu (Russell Yuen), and Mayor Cantin (Derek McGrath). Amy (Shailyn Griffin) and Lonnie (Mika Amonsen) take on the infamous roles of the young couple who sneak away to the gym with the trampoline, and Lionel (Neil Robles) is the unfortunate Turkey-costumed victim at the parade.
A sequel has been greenlit, and while it was initially slated for a 2025 release date, with the appropriate time for its release having come and gone, it’s almost guaranteed that the film will come out in 2026 if it maintains a schedule. Thanksgiving planted its flag firmly among the greats, as far as I am concerned, and I look forward to seeing what they can pull out of their bag for a second go around.
Lloydd Marshall Books 