Thanksgiving Review: Eli Roth’s Faux Trailer Becomes A New Slasher Classic

In 2007, Eli Roth pitched Thanksgiving via Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse opus, filming a faux trailer that played in between the two topline director’s entries in the experimental double feature. It was a grisly mix of low-grade visuals, cheap kills, and a concept that had long felt outdated. Now, 16 years later, Roth’s is the second faux trailer to be made into a full-fledged feature (Danny Trejo’s Machete being the first). Like its predecessor, Thanksgiving is a recipe for success, and it should take its place among the greats of the Holiday Horror subgenre. Thanksgiving is special in the way all good slashers are — it’s funny and gruesome, with a trashy B-movie energy and a solid whodunit at the center of it all.

Thanksgiving takes place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with everyone giving their best Masshole accent and enough local flavor to give the film a real solid sense of place. In one particularly tragic Black Friday sale, a riot breaks out at Right Mart, and several people die in ridiculously brutal ways. One year later, as Thanksgiving approaches and Right Mart prepares for another sale, someone in a Pilgrim mask begins taking revenge on the people who participated in and caused the riot at Right Mart. Those include a group of high school friends, the owner of Right Mart and his daughter, Jessica (Nell Verlaque), and a slew of other locals.

Depending on who you ask, Thanksgiving is the first horror film Roth has directed since his 2013 cannibal extravaganza The Green Inferno, and it’s a welcome return from the director who cut his teeth on early aughts classics like Cabin Fever and Hostel. Instead of trying to break the formula, though, Thanksgiving leans into the typical slasher rule book, and it’s all the better for it. It’s a proven recipe, and it’s certainly fitting for the holiday at the center of the film, which hasn’t had a true mainstream horror movie like Halloween, Black Christmas, or My Blood Valentine.

Yet, Thanksgiving takes things a step further than a typical strait-laced slasher. Roth’s pulp sensibilities allow for outrageous kills and absurdly diabolical humor. He finds just as much glee in death as he does in the social dynamics of a small Massachusetts town. The script, penned by Jeff Rendell, manages to balance the darkness with a hyperbolic outlandishness, from the satirical riot at the beginning of the film that feels all too real to a town that makes Thanksgiving, a controversial holiday if there ever was one, its entire personality. It’s a welcome change of pace for horror, which, as of late, has been flooded with self-serious legacy sequels and humorless video game adaptations.

Thanksgiving isn’t perfect. The film’s third act starts strong but peters out as it limps to a conclusion. The killer reveal is just twisty enough, but experts in the genre may be able to discern who it is. For those who loved the original Roth trailer, it may feel a bit too polished, even when it recreates some of the iconic moments, including a wicked beheading and a trampoline scene that will make you want to avoid that piece of equipment for quite some time. With enough room left for John Carver to return, it seems likely that we could see the return of some of these characters. Despite the film’s high body count, there are quite a few survivors. Fortunately, that doesn’t take any of the fun out of it, and, for those who say Thanksgiving isn’t a fun holiday, Roth and his collaborators challenge you to not have a good time.

Thanksgiving releases in theaters on November 17. The film is 106 minutes long and rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual material.