When it comes to those cracking fake trailers made for the intermission of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s failed cinematic experiment, Grindhouse, only Rodriguez has bother to make one a reality thanks to the oddly dull Machete (technically Hobo With A Shotgun counts too – but that’s another story). However, for ages, genre stalwart, Eli Roth claimed that he too was going to expand his seasonal slasher preview, Thanksgiving, to feature length too and after quite a long wait, that time is finally here.
However, while Rodriguez tried to recreate almost all the moments from his trailer wholesale while diluting the impact in the process, Roth has taken something of a smarter route.
Instead of trying to recreate the scuzzy, Grindhouse aesthetic, Roth instead has approached his holiday themed slice and dice with the notion that the “original” movie has been deliberately lost thanks to being too extreme and this Thanksgiving is a glossy remake by people who remember seeing the notorious first film (which actually never existed at all) at a formative age. Has Roth succeeded, or is Thanksgiving just another turkey?
Things are getting chaotic at the Right Mart sore in Plymouth, Massachusetts as Black Friday has started one day early due to store owner Thomas Wright, under the suggestion of his unscrupulous second wife, Kathleen, opening the store on a public holiday.
Thanks to a string of occurrences, things go disastrously wrong and the ensuing stampede of a horde of self-obsessed consumers cause multiple deaths and incredible carnage.
A year later, the town has attempted to move on, but Wright doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson, hoping that opening the store again on Thanksgiving will go toward bringing the folk of Plymouth closer together once again. Horrified by a decision that practically wears a shirt with the words “Yay Capitalism” written on it is Wright’s daughter, Jessica vehemently opposes this decision as she and her friends were present during the previous year’s tragedy.
However, someone out there hates this move more than her and is willing to goes to any lengths to show it as a mystery fruitcake dresses up in a pilgrim outfit, dons the mask of a town founder aptly named “John Carver” and starts taking bloody revenge of those he holds responsible for the Thanksgiving sale riot.
Unfortunately, because they managed to sneak into the store early that night, the killer has added Jessica and her friends to his list and tags them all in posts he makes online after every gruesome kill. Who could be behind such vicious kills that sees its victims carved like so much Thanksgiving turkey and can Jessica figure out their identity before she finds herself at the killer’s table?
It’s been a hot minute since Roth last furnished us with a feature planted firmly in the horror genre, but thankfully (pun intended) it seems his years of making disposable thrillers and even a kids film haven’t dulled his edge and as a result, Thanksgiving may have the most balls-out fun opening of the year.
Deploying his talent for writing obnoxious side-characters, frenzied bloodletting and wanton gore, the riot that opens the film is both shockingly brutal and hysterically violent as people are trampled, throats are torn on broken glass and skulls are cracked by ramming shopping trolleys. It’s a magnificent orgy of destruction that mirrors other such scenes of glorified carnage such as the spring break massacre in Piranha 3D or the pre-credits sequence from the Dawn Of The Dead remake and, slightly annoyingly, is the strongest scene in the film.
That’s not to say that the rest of Thanksgiving isn’t good – in fact it’s an immensely enjoyable ride that sprays laughs and outlandish gore in multiple directions – but it’s kind of strange that Roth elects to play entirely within the realms of the modern slasher instead of trying to screw with it in any kind of innovative way. As a result, it feels a little like a more traditional version of what Radio Silence recently did with the last two Scream entries (without the 27 years of continuity, of course) and Patrick Lussier’s rambunctious My Bloody Valentine remake from 2009 and it’s obviously having loads of fun as it refuses to take itself too seriously. Also, as a modern day slasher, John Carver is a surprisingly forward thinking killer who utilises all sorts of modern conventions to perpetuate his crimes, from social media to tranq guns – of course, he’s not above using more traditional implements like a honking great axe, to achieve his goals. You can’t beat the classics, eh?
However, despite the fact that the red stuff flows as freely as cranberry sauce, there’s a slight sense that the years have indeed mellowed Roth a bit and while the bisections and decapitations are as full-on as any gore hound could ever hope for, a particularly notorious scene from the faux trailer in involving a knife, a trampoline and a cheerleader doing the splits (you know the one) is reconfigured to be slightly less provocative. However, many other familiar moments are worked in, including a showstopping moment involving a most unorthodox thanksgiving meal you could imagine and the axing of a turkey mascot in full view of the entire town.
The cast features a nice mix of meat both fresh and familiar with Patrick Dempsey appearing as the overworked chief of his beleaguered town, Hostel’s Rick Hoffman showing up as the owner of the Right Mart and Gina Gershon pulling cameo duty to stunning effect, but while the younger cast attack their stock roles with gusto, you kind of get the feeling that they’re not all getting the joke as much as the older players are.
Still, Roth keeps things moving at a fair old clip and makes amusing use of the Boston accent, especially with the characters that noticably edge into asshole category and it’s impossible to gate a movie that features a killer operating under the nom de plume of John Carver and who thinks to feed a victim’s cat after garotting them until their fucking head falls off.
Regrettably, Roth kind of overthinks the ending which leads to the climax feeling rushed, chaotic and more than a little muddled, but an unsatisfying final fifteen minutes is nowhere near enough to derail everything that’s come before and for a fun, bloody and undemanding Thanksgiving at the movies, we should be thankful that Roth can still cut the horror-themed mustard, not to mention other such seasonal condiments and the occasional throat.
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