Review: Thanksgiving (2023)

Thanksgiving (2023)

Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual material

Score: 3 out of 5

Thanksgiving is a movie that feels like a remake of itself. Specifically, a 2000s Platinum Dunes slasher remake, rather appropriately given that the film began life as a fake trailer for the 2007 film Grindhouse homaging the retro holiday slasher flicks of the '80s, with a mix of depraved and gory deaths, phenomenally stupid characters, and low-budget sleaze. It's an idea that has been bouncing around in director and co-writer Eli Roth's head for years, and even as he went on to make other movies, he never gave up on the idea of turning it into a feature film the way that Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun, two other fake trailers attached to Grindhouse, had been. The film he and co-writer Jeff Rendell ultimately made feels like a film that's ultimately, after sixteen years, wound its way from being an homage to '80s horror to being an homage to '00s horror, the decade in which Roth cut his teeth as a filmmaker, filled as it is with elements of that era's slasher flicks that now seem old enough to be nostalgic in their own right. It homages a lot of the trailer's more memorable scenes, but wraps them in a package that's at once darker and grittier but also slicker and more polished, with a big-name cast (a mix of veteran actors like Patrick Dempsey and Gina Gershon, Disney Channel stars like Milo Manheim, and influencers like Addison Rae) paired with exactly the kind of violence you'd expect from a filmmaker who was once considered one of the leading figures behind the "Splat Pack" of ultraviolent 2000s horror movies. Most importantly, it's a movie I enjoyed, even if I'll be the first to admit that it's no classic, or one of Roth's best. It's a fairly by-the-numbers whodunit teen slasher cut from a very post-Scream cloth that doesn't have a lot of surprises, but does have some solid thrills and chills that I suspect are gonna ensure that it gets rewatched a fair bit by horror fans around the Thanksgiving holiday.

Set in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the film opens with a Black Friday riot at RightMart instigated by a mix of the store's owner Thomas Wright deciding to open early on Thanksgiving night and a group of teenagers, including Thomas' daughter Jessica, managing to sneak in early and provoke the crowd outside when they see them. Three people die in the ensuing stampede, a security guard, a shopper, and the wife of the store's manager, while the high school baseball team's star pitcher Bobby gets his arm broken, killing his sporting dreams. One year later, a killer in a Pilgrim costume and a mask of the Plymouth Colony's first governor John Carver is hacking up people connected to the "FightMart" riot, on a quest for revenge. Now, the teens, along with the local sheriff Eric Newlon, must figure out who's behind the murders before they're the next to die.

It's a simple slasher plot of a sort that we've seen a million times in the last twenty-five years, and it was honestly a fairly predictable one. The killer's identity is telegraphed pretty early on, it wasn't much of a surprise when the big reveal came, and the main plot was rather boilerplate once you scratch the surface. You've got a lot of archetypal teen horror movie stock characters (the aggro jock, the sexy best friend, the shifty boyfriend, the cool geek because it's 2023 and unpopular nerds don't work anymore, the girl who you know is gonna make it to the end and defeat the killer) who largely stay within their lane, as well as adult supporting cast members who are there to serve as cannon fodder and/or suspects. The plot involving the store's greedy management was established in the first act but never really built upon after. It's not altogether completely disposable from a writing standpoint, but this is still a teen slasher movie, and you don't watch these films for particularly in-depth plotting and characterization unless you see an A24 plate on the opening credits.

No, you watch because you want the goods. You want stabbings, decapitations, dismemberment, mutilations, and more, all vividly displayed on screen in ways that earn this movie an R rating. And when you've got the guy who made Cabin Fever and Hostel behind the camera, that's what you're gonna get. This movie comes alive when it's time to kill, and it doesn't care how ridiculous it gets with the bloodshed. The deaths range from the deadly serious to the awesome to the comical (one death in the opening Black Friday scene involving a man literally shopping 'til he dropped had me in stitches), but no matter what, when John Carver is doing what his name suggests, that's when it felt like Roth was most invested in the material. There's one lengthy chase scene late in the film, climaxing with one of its best and most gruesome kills, that I think is gonna go down as one of the classics. The gore is plentiful, and it is icky and gross.

The cast was surprisingly good for a movie like this. Nell Verlaque may not have had much of a character to work with as Jessica beyond "the final girl", but she did it well, in particular giving great "scared face" whenever she was confronted by the killer or realized that her friends were in danger. Patrick Dempsey made for a good authority figure as the sheriff, and if you're wondering how Addison Rae did, she actually wasn't bad. Finally, the actor playing the killer was wonderfully hammy after the big reveal, and I wouldn't have accepted anything less given the kind of movie this was, delivering the most ridiculous dialogue ("this Thanksgiving, there will be no leftovers!") with the straightest face without even once winking at the camera. On every technical level, this movie was at the very least competent, and never wore out its welcome.

The Bottom Line

Thanksgiving could've stood to have a bit more meat on its bones story-wise in order to make the parts between the kills more interesting, but the kills were plentiful and grisly enough, and its other qualities competent enough, that I could forgive it. Even if it's just from lack of competition, I see this sticking around as a go-to Thanksgiving/Black Friday horror flick.