Thanksgiving, 2023.
Directed by Eli Roth.
Starring Rick Hoffman, Gina Gershon, Patrick Dempsey, Milo Manheim, Addison Rae, Nell Verlaque, Karen Cliche, Jenna Warren, Mika Amonsen, Tim Dillon, Chris Sandiford, Tomaso Sanelli, Jeff Teravainen, Jordan Poole, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Amanda Barker, Joseph Claude Dubois, and Russell Yuen.
SYNOPSIS:
After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday.
Swapping the grindhouse aesthetic and tone seen in 2007’s fictitious trailer for an opening act comprised of outdated, deadly Black Friday comedy and a narrative resembling a mashup of Halloween and Scream, Thanksgiving works best when co-writer/director Eli Roth (penning the screenplay alongside Jeff Rendell) embracing campy humor or gratuitous levels of violence.
It’s also understandable that to turn a profit, creating the story in a modern setting with current technology is more appealing, but too much of Thanksgiving is also a serial killer on the loose mystery played too straight with an assortment of characters, teenagers and adults, interchangeable from the next one. That also might be fine if one is here only to see helpless victims carved up, but considering a sizable portion of those deaths have been lifted and tweaked from that fictitious trailer, it hardly feels fresh or exciting (save for one or two gruesome kills that pleasantly go all out on the gore and guts.)
Wearing its influences on its sleeve (and giving away much more than that, depending on your horror knowledge), Thanksgiving begins with a nod to the original Halloween, then transitions into a family dinner with a Walmart knockoff store manager (Rick Hoffman), his new significant other (Gina Gershon), high school daughter Jessica (Nell Verlaque) and her boyfriend before the lovebirds leave to join several other friends, getting into trouble before a 6 PM Black Friday opening of the store. At the gate, waiting to be let through the front door, Eli Roth introduces viewers to other characters who will become involved in the gruesome in-store mayhem. Meanwhile, there isn’t much security here, with most of the police work coming down to a local sheriff played by Patrick Dempsey.
The teenagers find themselves at the center of literal murder over toaster ovens and other appliances (an entire sequence that, while funny to an extent, is something South Park did much better years ago when the concept was fresh), recording the bloody carnage only for it to go viral and make their town of Plymouth Massachusetts the talk of the Internet.
One year later, the store is set to open up on Thanksgiving for Black Friday, because fear can’t win, only capitalism. Also, at least there would have been a thematic hook to hang onto if Thanksgiving had continued using that as a source for social commentary, but from there, it’s about a John Carver masked killer arriving and wreaking havoc, murdering those directly involved with last year’s incident one by one while starting a social media DM group chat warning of who is next to die and sharing snippets of the sadistic holiday themed plans.
Again, the killer’s identity will be known to anyone who has seen John Carpenter’s Halloween, but perhaps that’s also intentional, with Eli Roth actively not wanting viewers to care about the mystery aspect or who these characters are so they can roll with the stabbings and beheadings on display. However, if this is the case, even a reasonable 107-minute running time is too much for a story that regularly falls into caring too much about this nonsensical story.
Admittedly, by the time the climactic showdown arrives, Eli Roth has a handle on Thanksgiving, mixing in outlandish holiday-themed one-liners (some from the fake trailer) with fittingly over-the-top performances and multiple helpings of gore. It also comes too late, long after the tone has been rendered a confusing muddle and footage has been unimaginatively recycled and altered to fit this version.
There is also no denying that the slasher kills are disturbingly fun to watch, but it’s all stuffed into a film that’s unsure if it wants to fully assume the tone of its fictitious trailer or spend time keeping the mystery engaging for those who haven’t figured it out.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
SEE ALSO: Eli Roth: Ranking the Films of the Horror Icon
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
