‘Thanksgiving’ movie review: Eli Roth throwback slasher film ticks all the Turkey Day boxes

NOW STREAMING ON:

Eli Roth‘s outrageous fake trailer from Grindhouse is now a feature-length film as Thanksgiving hits cinemas across the Czech Republic this weekend following its stateside debut last week. This one ticks every last one of the holiday horror boxes as it becomes both an instant Thanksgiving classic and director Roth’s best film to date.

Thanksgiving wastes no time in delivering pointed social commentary horror, opening with a Black Friday bloodbath as crazed shoppers in Plymouth, Massachusetts invade a Best Buy-like electronics retailer in search of savings and trample each other to death. This over-the-top sequence recalls the Spring Break piranha attack in Alejandro Aja’s Piranha, and sets the tone for an outrageous horror-comedy with bite.

One year later, a killer wearing a John Carver pilgrim mask gruesomely slays a local waitress who participated in Black Friday carnage. As the bodies pile up, Plymouth police clue into the fact that those involved in the deadly stampede are now being picked off one-by-one, and stage a Thanksgiving parade featuring key members in an attempt to lure out the killer.

Central to Thanksgiving is a group of teens who accidentally played a role in the bloodbath themselves, and discover that they’re now in the sights of a killer. Jessica Wright (Nell Verlaque), whose father Thomas (Rick Hoffman) owns the store, was ghosted by star quarterback boyfriend Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks) after his arm was crushed during the riot… could he be back with a vengeance?

For those who fondly remember Roth’s grisly Thanksgiving faux trailer, which was filmed in Kladno, outside Prague, as the director wrapped shooting Hostel: Part II in the Czech Republic, this full-length features a number of familiar gags. Along with the pilgrim-masked killer and Turkey Day parade violence, there’s also the trampoline mishap and baked turkey surprise. But this feature film isn’t quite as grisly as the earlier short, even as it goes entirely over-the-top.

The young leads here are engaging enough to drive Thanksgiving through its Scream-like premise as we attempt to guess the identity of the killer, especially Verlaque in the central role but the adult cast lends the film a little more credibility than we might otherwise expect. Chief among them is Patrick Dempsey as the Plymouth Sheriff, who lends the film some gravity as it threatens to go overboard.

Only in Thanksgiving‘s extended final sequence, as it turns from comedy-horror to action-thriller with the reveal of the killer, does the narrative start to run out of steam. Until then, however, what might otherwise be a routine slasher film is elevated to a form of self-aware mastery with the cast all playing it straight, but the director and audience in on the joke.

Best of all is Thanksgiving‘s breathless incorporation of every last Turkey Day cliché, from the Thanksgiving parade to the family dinner to the Black Friday rush, along with a healthy does of pilgrim-and-cornucopia imagery as Roth throws everything possible at the audience. This is the Halloween of Thanksgiving movies, and will challenge Planes, Trains, and Automobiles as an annual must-see movie.

Thanksgiving represents the third movie based on a fake trailer screened with from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez‘s Grindhouse double feature following Rodriguez’s Machete, starring Danny Trejo, and Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun, with Rutger Hauer. It’s also easily the best of the three. Only Rob Zombie‘s Werewolf Women of the S.S. and Edgar Wright‘s Don’t have yet to be adapted into feature-length films.

Thanksgiving

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Jason Pirodsky

Jason Pirodsky has been writing about the Prague film scene and reviewing films in print and online media since 2005. A member of the Online Film Critics Society, you can also catch his musings on life in Prague at expats.cz and tips on mindfulness sourced from ancient principles at MaArtial.com.

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