Thanksgiving – Carves Up a Feast of Scares (and Laughs)

In 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez released Grindhouse, a collaborative double feature throwback to the exploitation films of the 1970s. As part of the presentation, fellow filmmakers were invited on to make fake trailers to run before the double feature, with one of the most popular being Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (NSFW). Following Grindhouse’s debut, two of the five trailers were expanded into feature length films: 2010’s Machete and 2011’s Hobo with a Shotgun. However, since then, there’s been little movement on adapting the others. Now, after 16 years, the real Thanksgiving is finally here, but was it worth the wait?

In the wake of a deadly Black Friday riot, the residents of Plymouth, Massachusetts find themselves on the menu this thanksgiving, as a mysterious serial killer starts picking them off one by one. What begins as a series of seemingly random killings soon gives way to a larger, more intricate plan. Meanwhile, the slasher genre has seen a resurgence over the last 5 years between 2018’s Halloween and last year’s revival of the Scream franchise, by injecting new blood into an old formula, and Thanksgiving sure does inject a lot of blood! By design, it feels like the type of old school horror film reminiscent of the kinds of forbidden films one would discover at Blockbuster Video as a kid. In capturing that nostalgic spirit, the film fully embraces those classic horror tropes. The characters are broad archetypes, the mystery is filled with deliberate and obvious red herrings, and the plotting often serves as an excuse to get to the next kill. Roth knowingly revels in those tried-and-true horror conventions, taking them to their extreme. It is never not self aware and intentionally leans into these genre trappings to maximum gory and comedic effect. By mixing the whodunnit mystery and self-aware humor of the 1990s slasher subgenre through the ultra violence and gory gags of the 1980s slashers, he delivers arguably his best film, and one of the best slashers in recent memory.

Where Roth’s past horror films often crumbled under a cast of unlikeable characters and a reliance on mean-spirited shock value, Thanksgiving finds a healthy balance that maintains his sensibilities but with a stronger grasp on tone. While the characters are archetypal, the core cast of teens is likeable and Roth reserves most of his ire towards the less likeable townspeople. His direction for the film’s suspense sequences is effective, utilizing negative space and the geography of his locations to keep set pieces dynamic and thrilling. The shock value of the gorier set pieces and mean-spirited kills are cushioned by its consistently tongue in cheek tone. While they’re over-the-top enough to shock, they do not rise to the disturbing levels. As with the best slashers, the kills alternate between crowd pleasing moments and ones that ratchet up the tension. Characters making dumb decisions in horror films is an inevitability but it’s a fine line between that causing enjoyment and frustration, however, Thanksgiving straddles it well for the most part. As it begins to unravel in its third act, the film’s embrace of tropes starts to strain. To a point, audiences are willing to go along with the obvious if the framework and mechanics of the plot are engaging, which was the case for the majority of the runtime.

In the end, Thanksgiving is a nostalgic ode to the slashers of old, blending a modern sense of self awareness while still delivering on the gory spectacle that horror fans are looking for. While it slightly falters as it approaches the finish line under the weight of its own plotting, it is still a wonderfully entertaining crowd-pleaser of a film and one that is sure to keep the slasher resurgence running strong for many years to come. Who knows, audiences could be looking at the start of the next iconic horror franchise.

Now that most of the Grindhouse trailers have been adapted, the ball is in your court Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie!

still courtesy of CTMG

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Alex Josevski

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