‘Sorry, Jessica. This year, there will be… no leftovers…’
Eli Roth is not a director I’ve ever really warmed to. The Hostel films are mostly depressing. Cabin Fever is deeply unpleasant (and not in a fun way). Even the films of his that I have enjoyed (The Green Inferno, Knock Knock) often come with numerous caveats, almost as if Roth’s films are sometimes good in spite of him, not because of him. Happily, Thanksgiving is not just Roth’s best film – it’s also a great horror film generally…
We begin with a Black Friday sale at a small town superstore managed by Mitch Collins (Ty Victor Olsson). As the atmosphere in the sizable and unruly queue reaches fever pitch, Collins’ teenage daughter Jessica (Nell Verlaque) arrives with a group of friends and enters the store before opening time. Things get ugly when those in the crowd see Jessica and her friends and promptly start a riot which leads to at least three deaths and much Final Destination-esque carnage. It’s a gleefully bloody opening scene that sets the tone for everything that comes after. Cut to a year later and a mysterious figure dressed as a pilgrim (complete with John Adams mask) starts stalking those involved with the accident at the store with violence and impunity.
Thanksgiving started life as a fake trailer for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse project in 2007 (and is the third one of those trailers to subsequently receive a full release along with Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun) and has had a long gestation period in the interim. Following in the grand tradition of horror films named after holidays (Halloween, Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, Christmas Evil etc), this is Roth’s love letter to the slasher subgenre and the grisly picture that he paints ensures that this one will endure in much the same way as many of the aforementioned movies have. Whereas Hostel and Cabin Fever are mean-spirited, unpleasant movies, Thanksgiving remembers what makes slasher films so fun in the first place. Gruesome murders. A devilish mystery. Watching annoying teenagers being hacked to death. And so, as with Knock Knock, Roth has created a film that is very much entertain first, engage brain second. And that is absolutely fine in this particular subgenre. Roth is a horror scholar if nothing else and he draws from everything from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Scream here via other classic 80s revenge slashers The Prowler and The Burning.
Thanksgiving marks the moment in which Roth has finally created something that is close to flawless. Hugely entertaining. Hugely violent. One of the best out-and-out slasher movies released in years.
