When the Weinstein Company gambled on Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s goal of reviving a disgraced type of movie for Grindhouse in 2007, they turned up snake eyes. Audiences weren’t interested in the vintage aesthetics of the double feature, which included Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Tarantino’s Death Proof, as well as a series of fake movie trailers directed by Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, and Jason Eisener.
Roth’s contribution to Grindhouse was a promo for Thanksgiving, a cheeky and unremittingly violent nod to holiday-themed slashers like Halloween, Black Christmas, Silent Night, Deadly Night, My Bloody Valentine, and more. Now, over 15 years later, the feature arrives to offer more of the same, only it isn’t styled as a throwback to the grindhouse era.
A year after a deadly Black Friday stampede at a superstore in Plymouth, Massachusetts, an Instagram account named “TheJohnCarver” begins taunting and tagging people connected to the accident. Soon, a John Carver-masked ax murderer begins picking them off one by one, and the fresh-faced teens most haunted by the previous year’s events—including Jessica (Nell Verlaque), the daughter of the superstore owner (Rick Hoffman), and Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks), the former star baseball player (and Jessica’s ex) who went M.I.A. after the stampede—now fear that they’ll be sacrificed for the killer’s most bountiful harvest.
Unlike its faux trailer from Grindhouse, this Thanksgiving is a slasher for today, slickly made, coolly mean, and with a satiric bite. The film looks shiny, runs at an impressive clip, and its kills become gradually more shocking without ever lingering on their gruesomeness. One victim’s ears are stabbed with corn-cob holders, and another gets their head smashed by a meat tenderizer during an Instagram Live stream. And the way in which Roth cuts quickly away from these bloody sights effectively plants a knot in the audience’s stomachs.
The killer punishes his victims for their greed, which is of a piece with the script’s commentary on unchecked consumerism. In a classroom scene, a teacher acknowledges America’s genocidal original sin, but Roth and screenwriter Jeff Rendell aren’t out to make anyone feel guilty for the unfortunate historical significance of celebrating Thanksgiving. Rather, they’re in the business of piling on gore in inventive ways, and lacing it all with refreshingly dark, cruel humor.
That humor may be what’s most refreshing about Thanksgiving, which is unburdened by the irony and self-awareness of Scream and its ilk. The film doesn’t derive its humor from the words that spill from the mouths of fourth-wall-breaking characters, but from the absurdity of the situations that they find themselves in. It’s a slasher that’s clever without being cleverer than thou, with characters that are just distinct enough for them to be entertaining grist for the horror mill, and with thematic subtext that’s broad and accessible. You could say that Roth has made the Panera Bread of horror movies: one that’s just good enough if you’re hungry for it.
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