Thanksgiving (2023)

November 18, 2023 9:46 PM

After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts - the birthplace of the infamous holiday.

After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes 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.

Eli Roth originally made a fake trailer for "Thanksgiving" for the 2007 Grindhouse double feature. However, along with Hobo with A Shotgun and Machete, it's now an actual feature length film featuring Patrick Dempsey, Gina Gershon, Ty Olson (The Chronicles of Riddick), Milo Manheim (School Spirits), Joe Delfin (The Expanse), Rick Hoffman (Hostel) and Lynne Griffith (Black Christmas).

posted by miss-lapin (4 comments total)

The reviews of this are largely positive boast 83% currently at Rotten Tomatoes. I saw it last night and my response is a bit more mixed. Overall yes it's silly gory fun.

Nell Verlaque (Jessica) left me complete cold, which is a very unfortunate quality in a lead actor while minor characters like Joe Delfin's MacCarty and Jordan Poole as his henchman steal scenes. I'm hoping the blu will have some deleted scenes with them.

The kills are brutal and creative. If you enjoy gore, this will probably make you happy. The plot is more than a little meandering and many of the characters are little more than caricature. But more than once the film got me to jump, which is a pretty rare feat.

So basically, it's good enough that I wish it lived up to its full potential-particularly with a more charismatic lead. But still, it was a lot of fun and has made my annual Thanksgiving watchathon along with Blood Rage and The Last Thanksgiving.
posted by miss-lapin at 10:05 PM on November 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

Popping in to say that small town outside scenes were filmed in Port Perry, Ontario, where my in-laws live. (That town also stands in for Hallmark Christmas movies a lot. In fact, so many small towns in Ontario stand in for small town America in those things.)
posted by Kitteh at 4:41 AM on November 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

Horror has gotten so conceptual, so focused on big themes and subtext and meta commentary, that it turns out a true believer making a straight up slasher with a completely straight face and a lot of energy is a total fucking blast.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:17 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

This was apparently just added on Netflix, and I was excited to watch it. I'm an old school defender of the polarizing Eli Roth, but I'll admit recent entries like Knock Knock and The Green Inferno were not on par with his early work. This, though, was a lot of fun; it wasn't as funny as I'd hoped (Roth's best films are filled with witty dialogue; the humor here is mostly situational), but the set pieces are intense, the plot is surprisingly clever and involving, and the kills are indeed pretty great. I agree that the characters are one dimensional (I kept getting Jess and the other brunette confused, they seemed interchangeable), but that wasn't a big deal, really. Good stuff.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:38 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]