Thanksgiving (2023)

Directed by Eli Roth

Wait wait wait, this is the second of two holiday-themed slasher movies coming out in the same month, barely a week apart? Was this planned or just a huge coincidence? At least Thanksgiving, a very creative title by the way, is much closer to the holiday it’s named after than It’s A Wonderful Knife, so it feels a little more appropriate to see it in a movie theater knowing that the holiday is less than a week away. Anyway, you might be familiar with the story of Thanksgiving, which is that about 15 years ago a series of fake trailers were made for a movie called Grindhouse, trailers playing on the exploitation days of yore with titles like Machete and Hobo With A Shotgun. Thanksgiving was one of those trailers, a movie with a premise so absurd that it was a literal joke and following the original film by more than a decade. It’s not a recipe for success, but I did like both Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun, so let’s see if Thanksgiving is quality or just another turkey.

During the Thanksgiving day opening of a Black Friday sale at RightMart, a series of terrible tragedies occur after local high schooler Jessica and her friends sneak in early to the store and accidentally set off a chain of events at the shopping center. One year after this horrible event, the town of Plymouth Massachusetts has largely moved on and tried to brush this incident under the rug in preparations for the new year’s Thanksgiving festivities, something that Jessica is too haunted by last Thanksgiving to attempt. Things get even more complicated when a mysterious killer emerges wearing a stylized mask of John Carver, the first governor of Massachusetts, who proceeds to start targeting people involved in the RightMart tragedy. With the bodies piling up and the clock ticking, Jessica and her friends try to figure out who is behind this string of murders, before they end up next on the chopping block.

Something that grabbed me right away about Thanksgiving was the simplicity of the setup. There’s no time loop, no dimension-hopping, no self-aware nonsense or gimmick, just a traditional slasher movie whose only aim is to be a good traditional slasher movie. It feels strange to call that a breath of fresh air, but here we are. At my core, I’m a simple man, and I prefer something simple done well to something complex done poorly, so my feelings on Thanksgiving all come down to how well it does what it sets out to do. I’m overjoyed to say that I really dug Thanksgiving, it’s a great example of an absurd premise handled correctly, and a lot of that comes down to the decidedly old-school method of execution.

To put it bluntly, Thanksgiving is an extreme film. Not just in terms of violence, but also in terms of its satirical and comedic edge that gives this movie a wicked sense of humor and bite. This is particularly clear at the beginning of the movie, which features a depiction of Black Friday shoppers that’s as depressing and maddening as it is accurate, and the satirical jabs at businesses that operate on Thanksgiving and the customers who patronize them don’t let up. Along those same lines, the pitch-black comedy is a welcome addition.

While it has some elements of comedy and satire, Thanksgiving is at its core a horror movie and works hard to shock and disgust you. I’m not joking, the violence and gore are intense and sometimes hard to watch, and I applaud the extremes that Thanksgiving was comfortable exploring. Beyond gore, there is plenty here that works. I’m a big fan of the understated sound design, the music never overwhelmed the sequences it was in, and as importantly, Thanksgiving knew when to let a scene be quiet, breathe, and build tension. Additionally, I liked the visual design of this slasher, it’s simple and weird, and that mask kind of hits that uncanny valley for me. It’s certainly helped by how everyone in universe is taking the killer seriously, and while the acting here isn’t mind-blowing, it’s more than good enough to sell this story, this killer, and this world.

What sticks with me about Thanksgiving is how messy this movie is, in a good way. I’m not just talking about gore, it’s also realistically messy narratively, with certain things happening that are neither exactly following tried and true slasher movie tropes but also not consciously averting them for the sake of averting them. The ending isn’t completely neat and tidy either, which does help make this seem more like a horrible time in a real person’s life rather than a story checking off boxes because that’s what movies should do. All in all, I really enjoyed Thanksgiving, it’s a throwback slasher that manages to avoid a lot of things that make older slasher movies tough to watch while serving up plenty of gore and mayhem. It certainly isn’t for everyone, but if you are into these kinds of movies, you’ll have a great time.