Until now, I have only understood Thanksgiving to be a source of psychological horror. Don’t get me wrong, that’s plenty enough horror for me or anyone else, especially in the Trump era. Politics at the dinner table isn’t just volleys of anger any longer; now it comes with headslaps, eyerolls, and “where the f*** did you get that from?!” Remember when we at least accepted the same set of facts before arguing about them? *sigh* Good times. *sigh*
So, yeah, here’s a film with a Thanksgiving axe murderer, but did you hear what Uncle MAGA claimed about border security?!
The scene is Thanksgiving evening at a Right Mart [read: Walmart] in Plymouth, MA. The crowd is getting unruly in anticipation of doors opening. The atmosphere is almost as ugly as the accents brandished by the locals. It’s hard to evaluate who is to blame for the carnage about to go down. Certainly Right Mart owner Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman) is at least partially responsible for deciding to open on Thanksgiving itself. All the ugliness is exacerbated when Thomas’ daughter Jessica (Nell Verlaque) gets in the store ahead of the opeining … at which point her meathead friends taunt the crowd from within the store.
Suddenly these are ideal riot conditions.
I counted four deaths – including Gina Gershon – and injured pitching am in the chaotic shopping riot that followed. The scene was extremely well handled. For a riot, we know exactly what happened, when it happened, where it happened, how it happened, and why it happened. Good luck filming such with any fidelity, amateurs. One of the reasons I truly enjoyed Thanksgiving is that for all the gratuitous carnage, there were -I think- as many accidental deaths as murders.
Fastforward a year later and -suddenly- there’s a dude in a John Carver (first governor of the Plymouth colony) mask
carving up key participants in the riot that occurred the year previous. Can Sheriff Patrick Dempsey set aside his sexiest man of 2023 title to investigate the murders or what?
It’s not like we’ve lacked for the mask murder format; we just had one last month in Totally Killer. The gimmick here is that John Carver has set a live stream of a dinner table up on a web cam and the placeholder cards all indicate intended victims of the violence to follow. You’ve been warned.
Speaking of being warned, Thanksgiving is not just a horror film; it’s an Eli Roth horror film at that. Eli Roth doesn’t sugar coat horror; if there’s “horror” in the description of an Eli Roth film, HORROR is what you get. There will be a sight or two that will turn a stomach. Only the most veteran of horror aficionados need apply here.
This man, Patrick, was rated the best
As sexy, above all the rest
To celebrate, it seems
He lived out some dreams
By headlining a massive bloodfest
Rated R, 106 Minutes
Director: Eli Roth
Writer: Jeff Rendell. Eli Roth
Genre: The holidays suck just a little more now
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of horror
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of Thanksgiving
