Review of: Thanksgiving

It’s amazing how far Eli Roth has come in 16 years. I have never been a huge fan of his body of work. Cabin Fever is fun, Hostel exists, and I have watched too many cannibal films to care much about Green Inferno. Oddly enough, I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t do much for me. I’ve always found his acting work in Inglorious Basterds to be top-notch, over-the-top, and out-of-the-park bliss. But, I feel like Roth, who has a plethora of horror knowledge, finally figured it out and hit his directorial stride with this film.

What Tarantino usually does with his films is play off of lesser-known cult classics. Roth does the same here. He finally takes his time to Tarantino out a proper amalgam of horror tropes, classics, and forgotten B-movie slashers. Tarantino always makes them his own, and I feel like Eli has done the same for the first time in a long time. He brought back the old and made it new—his new.

There is all the essence of black comedy you would find in Black Christmas or Silent Night Deadly Night. The story plays out very similar in feel to My Bloody Valentine as far as the love story. The killer’s plot borrows liberally from Happy Birthday To Me. You get scenes that closely resemble those from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” There’s a sequence that reminded me of Maniac mixed with Slaughter High and a classic end sequence that was pure Nightmare On Elm Street. But the difference was that I never felt like, ” Oh, I have already watched this, and I am not having a good time.” No, quite the opposite. I felt like it wasn’t new, but it was fresh and fun.

The opening Black Friday scenes weren’t too far from reality while still being extreme and overblown enough to separate the all-real ideal. People are like this. They do these things. They expose their darker sides.

The gore was on point. It bordered on ludicrous and campy but also was visually pleasing. It didn’t make you look away but still made you squirm in a way that Eli has been well known for. Watery faces sticking to iced doors, turkey basting of the hot mom, and the severed heads. All the severed heads you could want.

The tried and true metalhead in his early 20s always comes to the rescue. Here, he gets all the praise I can dish out—from being the one guy with all the weapons to kicking the young guys off his yard for not knowing Black Sabbath and Dio, to having a Helloween patch on his battle vest. If I didn’t know better, this might have been me in this film. If I wasn’t so old, I could have played that part.

I’ll also give a shout-out to the young cast for doing exactly what they needed to do. They hammed it up but kept it reeled in enough to show they knew exactly what they were doing here. Patrick Dempsey stands out simply because you are not expecting this from a guy who did Grey’s Anatomy for so long. He shows up and takes the role Michael Biehn played in the original trailer. I am not even mad about it.

In the end, this is a well-executed and fun throwback to the bygone era of slashers that time has forgotten. The House On Sorority Rows and the Burnings, if you will. It’s worth your time and money, and I really hope this gives Roth the chance to spread his wings into other territories. Yes, I know he has had a prolific career. But I feel like he is finally grasping his strong points without just coming off as carbon copies or cheap imitations. I don’t want to give away too much as slashers are all about the setups to the big kills culminating in the illustrious “Reveal.” If your motive reveal sucks, then your slasher is nothing more than a paper cut. This one gouges to the jugular.

His humor, for me, hasn’t worked this well in a long time. His horror hasn’t been this visceral while still having mass appeal in quite a while, and maybe this will open doors for him and allow him to start breathing life back into his own ideas. Perhaps even pushing some boundaries he doesn’t know he has yet. Or maybe…… it’s just another slasher that will go well with other holiday-themed slashers. Will it be a classic in another 20 years to fit between Halloween, but before Christmas Evil, and New Years Evil? Who knows. Only time will tell. But I guarantee this will be a much better option than Thankskilling.

Thanksgiving is in theaters for the holiday season 2023, and I hope it gets at least a few weeks to run its course. It deserves it, as you probably won’t find a more fun horror film coming up for quite a while. If only we could get that Werewolf Women of The SS full length……