Blumhouse’s Thanksgiving Carves Up A Slice Horror Comedy Classic

I didn’t have high hopes for Thanksgiving. I’ll admit a part of me thought this couldn’t possibly be any good and would be a naked attempt to claw at the underserved Thanksgiving audience. I’m also not terribly into horror comedies. I see the merit in Tucker And Dale Vs Evil, Happy Death Day, and Cocaine Bear. Ready Or Not and Shaun Of The Dead are fantastic. I have seen two of those movies more times than I care to admit. It’s with that pitiful spirit I went into the screening. To my surprise, I laughed loudly, cringed, and worried for my Final Girl and thought Eli Roth’s gross-out film will be a turkey-time watch for horror fans every year.

There is nothing subtle about Thanksgiving. It shamelessly borrows from teen slashers like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It wants all the Gen X’ers to remember the diabolically silly Happy Birthday To Me. Thanksgiving also is kind enough to signpost exactly what nasty bit of gore is coming and then dares you to look away. It’s ridiculous, absurd, disgusting, and a bloody good time.

Movies like Thanksgiving aren’t sly or tricky. They aren’t trying to fool anyone with the mysteries of the killer or the mechanics of the kills. Thanksgiving’s one intent is to amuse. To that end, this film hits all the right tones. There is something refreshing about a movie that knows exactly what it is and delivers on that promise.

Roth’s Thanksgiving started as a joke. A goofy, gory trailer sandwiched between the two parts of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse. That, like every other part of Grindhouse, took aim at its penchant for over-the-top grotesquerie. Roth, who had forged a name as the crown prince of torture porn, seemed to gleefully laugh at his reputation, but there was enough imagery in the trailer to make us brace for visceral impact. Sixteen years later, we finally got the punchline. Out today, this unabashed bloodfest is everything we thought it could be but never expected to actually get.

The titular trussed-up turkey-human, the sliced-up cheerleader, and the beheaded mascot are all ripped directly from the original trailer, as well as a whole host of other nasty surprises that left the audience groaning, squealing, and laughing in equal measure. Nervous tittering and flying hands filled the theater, not because we couldn’t imagine what was going to happen, but because we knew and couldn’t bring ourselves to watch. Such is the charm of this holiday delight.

Screenwriters Jeff Rendell and Roth aren’t creating a character study on small-town America. Nor are they worried about establishing the link between trauma, grief, and violence. From beginning to end, this film is a joke, a nod, and a wink. It panders to tropes and expected mainstays. As much as that sounds bad, it’s a plus.

The film opens with a Black Friday sale gone very wrong. It is graphic and horrifying because anyone who has been out on that dark day knows it looks exactly like that. Even a cursory glance at Reels or TikTok reveals humanity at its worst. One big name bites it early in a supremely inventive way, and the rules are established very quickly. A greedy guy and his new wife are responsible for something terrible. Someone is pissed and getting even.

Pretty people along the way are put in danger because of said pissed-off person. There is no shortage of suspects. The manager who was forced to work lost his wife, played by a game Gina Gershon, in a shopping cart scalping. A security guard gets trampled, a shopper gets stabbed, and our star pitcher got a gruesome compound fracture in his throwing arm trying to save a life. It’s pretty gnarly stuff and sets the tone.

An unlikable jock, Evan(Tomaso Sanelli), jumps up on the checkout counter and live streams the entire thing while his friends and our protagonist Jessica (Nell Verlaque) look on in horror, hide, and fend off rabid shoppers. That video comes back around one year later when everyone in the video starts getting killed brutally by a dude in a pilgrim costume and a John Carver mask. I love a good mask, and this one is spectacular. Carver, the first governor of Plymouth Rock, makes for nifty anti-establishment commentary, and his slightly Guy Fawkesesque vibe hammers that home. There is just enough normalcy to make it weird, and that plastic hair-don’t get me started on how freaky it is. I’m still not sure why it bothered me so much.

There is something inherently anticapitalist about a film that opens with a Big Box tragedy and continues with a white male puritan who slices up a piece of holiday cheer. Thanksgiving will undoubtedly spawn a bunch of sequels, and Carver will join the ranks of unforgettable slashers.

The cast is good; Verlaque is a likable heroine. Patrick Dempsey’s Sherif Newlon is expectedly dreamy. The group of kids and Jessica’s dad, Suits alum Rick Holland, all know their assignment and work hard to deliver. When everyone is in on the joke, it elevates even the basest of humor.

Thanksgiving is blunt force trauma as opposed to surgical strikes. The town is literally being torn inside out, and bodies, or parts of bodies, are displayed precariously on sto. Yet, nobody but a bunch of teenagers and a few outmatched police officers seem to care. I guess in this town, the lower half of bodies are left lying around everywhere. Likewise, most of the lines are groaners. They feel intentional rather than lazy. They are all like a good dad joke you wish you wouldn’t laugh at but find yourself peeing a little because it’s just so dumb but just so funny.

This film requires absolutely nothing from the viewer but a sense of humor. In fact, the dumber you think it will be, the better off you will be. There is a place for silly movies like this. Not everything has to be intelligent, smart, insightful, or psychological. Sometimes a good fart joke is what you need. Thanksgiving is a great fart joke. It’s gross, completely human, unavoidably funny, and doesn’t linger too long in a large room. Please do yourself a favor and see it in a theater with an audience. The crowd experience is worth it.