Everyone has their favorite Halloween movie and certainly their favorite Christmas movies, but when it comes to movies centered around Thanksgiving there’s really not much to choose from. Many would say Planes, Trains and Automobiles might be the best and only selection that feels like an authentic Thanksgiving movie and that’s pretty much it. It’s rather odd that we don’t have many Thanksgiving movies and maybe it’s because once Halloween is over we tend to overlook it and get ready for Christmas and who can really blame them? The holiday is an important day of the year for millions of people and instead of watching football, eating food and Black Friday shopping, we need rush of more movies centered around this time of year.
Nevertheless, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (which is Eli Roth’s mock trailer of the same name from Grindhouse from 2007) has been a project in the making going back all the way in the late 2000s. Fans of the horror genre obsess over Roth’s work but the casual viewer might not a clue who he is. His most famous films in Hostel and Cabin Fever are praised by many but the last number of years Eli Roth was in a subpar state. The Green Inferno, Knock Knock and Death Wish were critical and commercial failures and despite the enthusiasm and buzz circling around Thanksgiving, the level of apprehension was a major factor.
In the best imaginable, Thanksgiving delivers the goods. It gives you the holiday festivities and the perfect opportunity to shine some bloody thirsty gore for the slasher fans. Eli Roth, while not known for super innovative storytelling, finds his element in this narrative that speaks well for his sensibilities. Thanksgiving is ultra-violent, super campy, oddly humorous and the perfect movie for the holidays.
When you ask the average film fan who their favorite director is, most won’t say Eli Roth. It’s nothing against his quality of work but it’s mainly because he only makes films that are targeting a niche audience. He makes certain movies that only a small number of people would rush out to see opening night. He’s also yet to make a movie that draws in a larger demographic, which again speaks to the types of movies he makes. It’s an acquired taste. That said, Thanksgiving might be his directing effort to date. But like every other Eli Roth movie, his biggest weakness really comes down to the scripts. The one attribute one must remember when reviewing Thanksgiving is that it’s based on a trailer for a fake movie. So in essence, Thanksgiving is being adapted from a trailer. However, it never justifies a weak script and unfortunately Thanksgiving has a weak script. Eli Roth is never going to make a movie that’s going to take home an Oscar for its writing, but the inherent structure of Thanksgiving’s script is by far the weakest aspect of the film. The performances do come across as stilted from time to time and it’s not innovatively thought out.
Having said all that, what Thanksgiving does provide is maybe the most fun that the slasher genre has had to offer in years. Thanks to the 2018 reboot/sequel of Halloween and the latest Scream movies, the slasher genre has been giving new life and while none of them have been super groundbreaking they’ve been a wonderful reminder how much fun these movies can be and while Scream VI might be years best slasher flick, Thanksgiving might give Scream VI a run for its money. Thanksgiving is the embodiment of an 80s slasher film, but with a splice of a 2000s horror movie. Eli Roth dispatches creative and ruthless kills, illustrious violence and gore and one of the most wild openings to a horror picture in recent years.
Thanksgiving might have just become the best and definitive Thanksgiving movie but also serves as the perfect movie to watch around Halloween. It strikes at both cords and it pulls it off well. It’s great to see Eli Roth return to a genre and a world that he feels more comfortable in and it just goes to show that there’s still plenty of room for new and exciting slasher films to exist.
Zane's take at the Cinema's 