In the horror movie world, the torture porn subgenre of movies causes the greatest divide between a die hard horror afficionado and a normal person. Watching visceral, vile physical pain inflicted on regular people isn’t my idea of entertainment, or most people (I hope?). As such, Eli Roth, The Hostel director, is probably more known by people through his small fun acting parts (like the Bear Jew and Wet T Shirt contest emcee) instead of his directing efforts. Thanksgiving isn’t going to make me go back through his directing history, but it does give me hope that Roth might have finally bridged the gap and found crossover horror success. With a side of mashed potatoes.
Thanksgiving opens on a fateful early Black Friday (actually Thanksgiving night) in Plymouth Massachusetts, where bloodthirsty sale shoppers create a riot at the local superstore that takes the lives of a few unfortunate people. A year later, the town is simultaneously morning the year before, and fearful for what happens this Thanksgiving. Jessica (Nell Verlaque) is pissed her dad Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman), the superstore owner, is going forward with another early Black Friday opening. The store has to deal with not only insane shoppers but protesters like Mitch Collins (Ty Olsson) who lost someone the year previous. Trapped in the middle of all of this is sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey), who’s trying to keep the town together and safe despite all riff raff, including a new wrinkle: a killer wearing a John Carver mask eliminating key perpetrators of the previous year’s tragedy.
If Roth just gave us a 20 minute short film called Black Friday Massacre, I would have been delighted enough. Roth’s frenzied mob of customers sets the perfect tone for his movie: fearful and funny. Any minor guffaw by one of the guards or policeman spins the crowd into a frothy violent Boston Mass rage, ready to punch the next thing that gets in their way. From there, this bubbling violence slowly pushes to its volcanic surface where it erupts into one of the great sequences of the year, filled with incredible, over the top kills done with a wink and double middle fingers in the air. And how does the violence all stop, with a gun shot of course! Cue credits, and the audience’s immediate investment after a sublime delirium of horror comedy mayhem.
And since we’ve never really had a Thanksgiving slasher before, Eli Roth has carte blanche to do what he wants with the next hour. He basically takes your standard horror characters and plot, and just Thanksgiving’s them. Every piece of that cornucopia dinner table and its customs gets used in some sort of bloody setpiece. No notes on the killer’s name: John Carver is perfect. You won’t be able to see Thanksgiving Day parade’s the same again, that’s for sure. Roth also really thought his kills out too, if the Thanksgiving attack wouldn’t probably be enough to murder somebody, he has a bigger, more crazy death coming for them to deliver the over the top lunacy this slasher is going for. The last 30 minutes I must’ve looked like a maniac, leaning forward and cackling with glee at each creative new way Roth murdered one of the main characters, including a fantastic sendoff for the main villain.
For those who don’t know, Thanksgiving started as a fake trailer in a 2007 double feature, Grindhouse. There’s your IP movie producer! Go back and make the movies from fake trailers from all those films, including Don’t from Gridhouse as well, and all 3 Tropic Thunder fake trailers, especially Satan’s Alley. But maybe skip Simple Jack.