Released: 17 November 2023
Director: Eli Roth
Distributor: TriStar Pictures / Sony Pictures Releasing
Budget: $15 million
Stars: Nell Verlaque, Patrick Dempsey, Gabriel Davenport, Tomaso Sanelli, Jenna Warren, Jalen Thomas Brooks, and Rick Hoffman

The Plot:
After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired Killer (voiced by Adam MacDonald) terrorises Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan.  

The Background:
In 2002, Eli Roth made his directorial debut with Cabin Fever, a surprisingly successful (if divisive) low-budget horror film that nonetheless started his ascension up the horror ranks as a figurehead for a modern take on the genre. Quickly becoming (in)famous for splatterpunk and “torture porn” productions, Roth got to work with one of his idols, noted auteur Quentin Tarantino, on the movie Grindhouse (ibid and Rodriguez, 2007), producing a fake trailer for a Thanksgiving-themed slasher movie. Plans to expand this into a full-length movie began almost immediately, though the production was delayed when Roth got side-tracked with other horror projects. Filming finally got underway in January 2023, with the principal cast being announced soon after, with Roth aiming to up the ante with the shocking gore and lean into the shock horror that made his career. As of this writing, Thanksgiving has barely cleared $12 million at the box office but the critical reception has been largely positive; critics lauded the film as a throwback to “grindhouse” cinema and for creating an engaging horror atmosphere, with a particular (if expected) celebration for the gore, though others took issue with the pacing and predictably nonsensical execution of the plot. 

The Review [SPOILERS!]:
We don’t have Thanksgiving here in the United Kingdom for…obvious reasons…so I’ve always felt a bit of a disconnection with the famous American tradition. Much like the Fourth of July, it’s a celebration I always feel I’m missing out on as I love a good excuse to sit around and stuff my face with food, so I was a little wary of Thanksgiving simply because I just didn’t have that investment in the holiday (or the concept), and the visual of a John Carver/pilgrim-themed killer didn’t strike me as very intimidating. Still, the trailer intrigued me as a throwback to the mindless slashers of old and I’ve enjoyed a lot of Eli Roth’s work, so I was wiling to give the film a shot, if only to fill a spare day with a cinema trip and to have a Thanksgiving-themed review to link back to year after year. The film begins with a lengthy cold open that establishes not just the core group of characters for the movie – principally the influential Wright family, their daughter Jessica (Verlaque), and her group of friends – but also the inciting incident for the entire plot of the movie, that being a chaotic Black Friday sale at Thomas Wright’s (Hoffman) bustling mall, RightMart. The scenes of the townsfolk yelling and shoving and growing increasingly aggressive to enter the store and grab their reduced purchases (and be in the first hundred shoppers to nab a free waffle iron) are particularly striking as they’re all-too-realistic in this day and age, where “Black Friday” lasts about a week and people really do fight, trample over each other, and act like complete assholes just to get a cheaper coffee maker. This subject could be a horror movie all on its own, but it acts as a prelude to the focus of this film, establishing animosity between Jessica’s jock friend Evan (Sanelli) with football rival Lonnie (Mika Amonsen), an unrequited love triangle between Jessica, her boyfriend Bobby (Brooks) and lovelorn loner Ryan (Milo Manheim), and showing Jessica’s resentment towards her stepmother, Kathleen (Karen Cliché), who is partially responsible for the ensuing violence as she insisted on opening the store that night.

While the aggressive insanity of holiday shoppers is something I’ve seen before, I’ve not seen it depicted in such startling black comedy, or violent gore. Despite the best efforts of security guards Manny (Tim Dillon) and Doug (Chris Sandiford), store manager (and close friend of the Wright’s) Mitch Collins (Ty Olsson), and resident sheriff Eric Newlon (Dempsey), the townsfolk are riled up into an incessant mob when Lonnie spots Jessica and her friends entering through a side door and taunting them from inside the shop, causing the crowd to trample Doug to death, one shopper (Nicholas Reynoldson) to slit his throat on a shard of glass, fighting and arguing over items, and the brutal death of Mitch’s kind-hearted wife, Amanda (Gina Gershon). The film then jumps to a year later; thanks to the mysterious erasure of the shop’s CCTV footage, no arrests were ever made, Bobby left town after the riot broke his famed throwing arm, allowing Ryan to move in on Jessica, and many of the townsfolk – led by an embittered Mitch – stage regular protests against RightMart and the Wright family. Jessica and her friends have largely moved on; they’re still friends, despite indirectly causing the riot, though they’ve vowed not to talk about the incident, even Evan, who tried to go viral with his live stream of the bedlam. Of them all, it’s main character Jessica who feels the impact of that night the most; not only does she carry the shame of having the Wright family name, but she feels responsible as she was the one that led her friends into the shop before opening time. Her guilt is compounded by feelings of rejection, as Bobby left and ghosted her for a year, and her mourning for her birth mother, who died prior to the film, which is matched only by her resentment towards Amanda for creating a rift between her and her father. It’s all very paper-thin characterisation, for sure, but it’s more than her friends get throughout the film; still, Jessica isn’t the most compelling protagonist or very believable as a high schooler, with her near-supermodel beauty and largely dull performance that honestly had me mixing her up with her friends Gabby (Addison Rae) and Yulia (Jenna Warren), the former being completely disposable and the latter only gaining prominence once her blunt and aggressive Russian father, Boris (Frank J. Zupancic) makes an all-too-brief appearance.

It didn’t take long into Thanksgiving for me to make a couple of immediate comparisons; the general concept of a masked killer stalking “teenage” victims is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), while the more modern iteration, with the sexy cast who feel responsible for a tragedy, harkens back to I Know What You Did Last Summer (Gillespie, 1997). It’s this latter comparison where my thoughts on the rest of Jessica friends land: Gabby is basically a forgettable blank slate who doesn’t even add to the body count, much less the plot; Evan is a loud-mouthed jock who bullies other students into doing his assignments and whose first instinct is to puff out his chest and antagonise others; Yulia is another warm body on the screen who is brutally offed just as she’s about to become interesting; and “Scuba” (Davenport) doesn’t become anything other than a slightly more level-headed jock until the third act and even then he doesn’t have the good sense to get eviscerated to help raise the stakes. The group are united in their desire to move on from the Black Friday massacre and their dislike of Ryan, an awkward kid whose lust for Jessica is readily apparent. Even after Jessica relents in the time jump, having been burned by Bobby’s disappearing act and become grateful for Ryan’s dependency and affection, the group struggles to accept him. Similarly, they’re largely dismissive of McCarty (Joe Delfin), the son of a gun store owner who’s constantly badgering them to come to his party-come-orgy and sell them firearms, something both Scuba and Jessica are vehemently against because of the escalation of gun violence in high schools and Jessica’s past experiences with guns. Still, as forgettable as many of Jessica’s friends are, the film does a good job of setting many of them up as red herrings; since his baseball career was delayed and endangered by the riot, Bobby has a great motivation for revenge, as does Evan, whose constant lashing out paints him as unstable, and Ryan, who’s constantly portrayed as being a little “off” and forceful.

When a mysterious masked individual known as “John Carver” starts tagging them in ominous Thanksgiving-themed social media posts and the bodies start piling up, the group scrambles to find information that may help identify the killer. Each of them is questioned by Sheriff Newlon for more details on the massacre and Jessica even accesses her dad’s personal computer to view the backup CCTV footage, which not only identifies Carver’s potential victims but also casts more suspicion on Ryan. Joined by an equally suspicious and somewhat rude new deputy, Bret Labelle (Jeff Teravainen), Newlon has been haunted by that night for a whole year, frustrated at a lack of tangible leads and frantic to protect Carver’s potential victims. It quickly becomes apparent that Carver is targeting specific individuals from the riot, including mouthy waitress Lizzie (Amanda Barker) and Manny, and he delights in taunting Jessica and her friends by tagging them in explicit content on social media, something the press and the townsfolk quickly react to. Since the film takes place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the veritable birthplace of Thanksgiving, John Carver masks and costumes are everywhere, easily allowing the killer to blend in and his ability to set up fake streaming locations and mask is IP address constantly throws Newlon off the scent. The movie makes a point of showing Carver at work in his hideout, an abandoned, very 1970’s style house, sharpening his axe and obsessing over his wall of photographs and newspaper clippings and declarations of revenge. A silent killer who communicates only through online taunts.kr a voice modulator, he stalks his victims and toys with them and is both surprisingly creative and surprisingly emotive with his body language. When he comes for Manny, he makes a point to spare and even feed his cat, and he’s always shown handling his axe in a merry way and exploding in a rage whenever his prey escapes him. Sadly, I don’t think the film leans into the anonymity of the killer as much as it could; Thanksgiving is approaching fast so there could’ve been more paranoia and suspicion with randomers dressed as John Carter, but this only really happens during the parade, where Jessica and her friends work with the cops to set a trap for the killer.

The Nitty-Gritty [SPOILERS!]:
I must give props to Thanksgiving for being a throwback to the slasher films of old; it’s like a weird blending of the late-70’s and early-00’s style slashers, a genre of horror we really don’t see all that often these days, especially on the big screen. While it doesn’t really provide anything we haven’t seen before in the likes of the Halloween, Last Summer, and Scream (Various, 1996 to present) franchises, with the film explicitly borrowing from them to characterise its leads, main killer, and frame the mystery of John Carver’s identity, it does do a few interesting things with the premise. The first (and most obvious) is the Thanksgiving setting; snow falls, an elaborate parade rolls through town, John Carver masks are sporadically found around town, and the killer’s modus operandi is intrinsically linked to the holiday. Not only does he dress like a pilgrim, don a John Carver mask, and generally favour an axe, the killer arranges their bodies around a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner table, thrusts corn sticks into Yulia’s ears, and takes this theme to the next level when he bastes and roasts Kathleen, stuffing her and serving her before his bound and gagged victims. Another element I enjoyed was the incorporation of social media; Jessica and her friends are glued to their phones more often than not and Carver taunts them through social media, live streaming the aforementioned macabre dinner and ultimately being ousted on social media. Another aspect I enjoyed was that the killer doesn’t kill indiscriminately; if he’s met with opposition or obstacles that aren’t on his kill list, he simply renders them unconscious with a dart gun and spares them, with only one accidental victim coming as a result of his actions (though it’s a doozie and involves a car accident that, while smaller in scale to Final Destination 2’s (Ellis, 2003) iconic carnage, is none the less gruesome in its execution).

That seems to be the perfect segue to talk about the film’s kills. The opening sequence sets a high bar and I’m sure will go down in history infamy as one of the all-time great horror openings as rabid shoppers trample over each other and clutch at their products even as they’re being beaten or bleeding out. Naturally, it’s Amanda who comes out the worst in this scene, getting her neck broken by two clashing trolleys and then part of her scalp torn off when her hair’s caught in the wheels. John Carver’s first victim, Lizzie, endures a fair bit of torture as she’s splashed with water and partially frozen against a freezer door, tearing the skin from her fingertips and cheek before she’s unceremoniously split in two by a rubbish bin and her bottom half (guts and all) is displayed outside the RightMart. Manny’s end is more simplistic in comparison, with him being stabbed and then having his head severed by a wire, but Yulia’s death is the obvious highlight. Held at knifepoint by Carver, who’s confronted by a gun-wielding Scuba and Jessica, Yulia is suddenly and violently disembowelled by a buzzsaw. While this is an admittedly gory and brutal kill, it does feel quite random; without an earlier scene to establish that Yulia’s house is undergoing renovations, it lacks some of the punch it might’ve had if this instrument had been established earlier. Similarly, while Lonnie is offed by a sudden and impactful head twist, his cheerleader girlfriend, Amy (Shailyn Griffin), makes up for this with a creative kill where she’s repeatedly stabbed while bouncing on a trampoline. Although Kathleen makes a good go of escaping from Carver, she’s impaled by a pitchfork and shoved into a massive oven, which cooks her alive in unspectacular fashion, though Roth’s gross-out sensibilities quickly rear their head when she’s served to Carver’s other victims and Carver bashes Evan’s brains out, on livestream, with a meat hammer. Unfortunately, again, I feel we were denied a few more victims; sure, Carver lops off a kid’s head with his axe, but there was really no reason for Gabby, Scuba, or Thomas to live, especially as they weren’t all that memorable to begin with, ridiculous moustache or not. I was sure that Scuba was going to meet his end when he fought Carver to cover Jessica’s escape, but he made it out with only a flesh wound and the others were just rescued offscreen by the cops, denying us a higher body count and more gore.

Naturally, a primary concern of Thanksgiving is the killer’s identity. A resourceful, meticulous, and well-armed individual, it’s clear that “John Carver” has been preparing his revenge to the letter, utilising numerous disguises and even smoke and flash grenades in his bloody campaign. I will say that, while I had my suspicions about many of the film’s red herrings, I was impressed by how well the film established that any of the potential suspects, from Ryan to Bret to Bobby, could be the killer. Weighed down by her guilt, Jessica readily provides Newlon with printouts of the CCTV footage and even the names of potential victims and suspects, reluctantly agreeing to use herself and her friends as bait to lure out the killer, only for all their planning to result in more bodies and their abduction when the killer easily attacks the Thanksgiving parade. Strapped up and facing a live execution, Jessica only escapes thanks to McCarty handing her his father’s spiked ring beforehand, which she uses to cut through her binds (why she didn’t just take the small knife he offered her earlier is beyond me). Thanks to Scuba covering her escape, Jessica flees through the woods and comes across Newlon’s downed and injured body, taking his gun and pursuing Bobby, who appears the be their killer, into a warehouse full of parade costumes and props. With Bobby in custody, Newlon comforts Jessica and prepares to take her home, only to be rumbled when she notices the same bramble debris on his shoes that she has. Newlon then dramatically reveals that Amanda was pregnant with his child and planning to leave Mitch for him; when she was killed in the massacre, he assumed the John Carver guise and took his revenge, manipulating Jessica into identifying those he deemed responsible. Thanks to Bobby’s intervention, Jessica slips away, and a final chase ensues through the warehouse, with Newlon stalking, taunting, and screaming for them while wielding an axe. Despite his persistence, the two ultimately prevail when Jessica inflates a parade balloon and blows it up with a musket, seemingly immolating Newlon, though his body isn’t found, and she’s left haunted by nightmares of his burning form. While the execution of this reveal was done well, I feel the finale was lacking since we completely lost the iconography of the killer; instead of it being intimidating mute John Carver chasing Jessica, it was a crazed sheriff, uniform and all, which felt a bit odd considering how hard the film worked to establish its pilgrim killer as a threatening force.

The Summary [SPOILERS!]:

I wasn’t expecting much from Thanksgiving, but it did surprise me; of all the Eli Roth films I’ve seen, this is easily his most mainstream horror, being a throwback to a bygone genre of slasher films that’ve largely been relegated to straight-to-streaming features these days. Given the execution of Thanksgiving, it might not be hard to see why that’s the case; the film is as predictable and nonsensical as you’d expect of the genre in many ways, offering little we haven’t seen from hundreds of other teen-revenge-slasher movies in the past beyond its Thanksgiving setting, and owing a huge debt to the likes of Halloween and I Know What You Did Last Summer for its narrative, direction, and presentation. The film is almost like a satire at some points, being so absurd that it’s laughable, while paradoxically playing most of it completely straight, resulting in a somewhat inconsistent execution held up only by the surprising effectiveness of its killer and moments of gruesome gore. Roth exercises incredible restraint here, only drawing on his trademark brutality in the third act, which is a shame as I think Thanksgiving would’ve been bolstered by the kills being more over the top. I can’t help but think the film botched the finale, too; I think it would’ve been better if Bret had helped Jessica at the end and then Newlon had come in to check on her, jacket zipped up and hiding the pilgrim outfit, so he could’ve at least chased her and Bobby in an unmasked version of his John Carver persona. Instead, the ending lost the menace and anonymity of the killer, leaning a little too heavily into the finale of Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980) and losing its identity in the process. Still, I commend the film for breathing new life into old concepts and daring to revisit this kind of slasher film; we don’t see it very often and the Thanksgiving aesthetic and aspects of modern society help to keep the film’s head above water, making this a decent enough time if you’re having a few mates over for a slasher marathon.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Thanksgiving? What did you think to the concept and the visual of a pilgrim-themed killer? Did you guess the killer’s identity or were you surprised by the final reveal? Which of the kills was your favourite and what did you think to the characterisations of the protagonists? Do you also think Black Friday has gotten too crazy in recent years? How are you celebrating Thanksgiving this year? The comments section is down below so feel free to use it, or share your thoughts on my social media.