Tags:
Film: Thanksgiving
Year: 2023
Director: Eli Roth
Writer: Jeff Rendell
Starring: Patrick Dempsey, Nell Verlaque and Gabriel Davenport
Review:
This was a movie that like other horror fans, first became a thing we knew about due to the faux trailer for Grindhouse. There were rumors that this was coming out and they turned out to be false. That is until now. I was excited when I saw this was being shown and went the Sunday before the holiday to see it at the Gateway Film Center.
Synopsis: after a Black Friday riot ends in a tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday.
This starts on Thanksgiving. We have Sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey), who is new to town. He befriended Mitch Collins (Ty Olsson) and his wife, Amanda (Gina Gershon). This is edited together with another families’ celebration. Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman) owns a successful department store in town. He wants Mitch to open the story Thanksgiving night to start the Black Friday sale. This pulls him away from his family. Thomas is celebrating with his daughter, Jessica (Nell Verlaque), her boyfriend Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks), Thomas’ fiancée Kathleen (Karen Cliche) and even the mayor. Jessica and Bobby leave to go to the movies with friends.
These friends are Gabby (Addison Rae) and Evan (Tomaso Sanelli), who are a couple. There’s another in Yulia (Jenna Warren) and Scuba (Gabriel Davenport). Evan talks about getting in a fight with a guy from a rival high school the day prior. Their drive takes them by the store that Jessica’s dad owns. Evan needs a new phone so they take an employee door in. This turns out to be a disaster when the crowd gets too rowdy. It leads to multiple deaths and Bobby being hurt, potentially ruining his baseball career.
The movie then shifts one year into the future. I’m taking it that Jessica, Gabby, Evan, Scuba and Yulia are all now seniors. Bobby has disappeared. Evan videoed the tragedy and it went viral. This bothers Gabby and Jessica. We see a man in a John Carver mask. This is a real pilgrim that came over on the Mayflower and he’s iconic to the area. This person in the mask is mad about the video that Evan put up and what went down at the store. It isn’t shown here, but it will be soon.
Things have also changed a bit. Since Bobby disappeared, Jessica is now seeing Ryan (Milo Manheim). He and Bobby didn’t get along. We approach this year’s Thanksgiving and people are upset that Thomas is offering the same sale again. It feels insensitive to what happened the year before, Mitch among them who agrees. Thomas is set to film a commercial with this family at the restored park for John Carver. The problem is that someone vandalized the room that belonged to this historical figure. This is just the start of the problem as people who were involved in the riot are being killed by this masked man. The target seems to be Jessica, her family and her friends.
That is where I’m going to leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that this feels like a late run slasher to me. There is a good amount of comedy mixed in here. We have a group of unlikable characters, for the most part, and the kills are over the top. I get the vibe that is what we’re rooting for. To see what the killer will do next like you’d get in this sub-genre as I was saying.
Now that I’ve set that up, I want to start with the tone. This feels like the director and co-writer of the story, Eli Roth, getting back to form. There are ‘bro’ type characters that we are mostly following. I didn’t like them, but they felt like people I’ve gone to school with. Gabby and Yulia are superficial and not given much depth. Evan never redeems himself for me. Scuba did as we went on. I did like Jessica though. There are others like Lonnie (Mika Amonsen), who is the jerk high school athlete from the other school or like a diner waitress in Lizzie (Amanda Baker) who are rude. Olsson was fine but he disappeared for long stretches. Dempsey works as the sheriff. Gershon has a cameo. I’ve realized that I’ve discussed acting here for the most part. I think that even though I don’t like most of the characters, they work in the confines of a slasher to get a reaction out of me. I’ll credit that.
Then I should go over to the effects, which is the other part of slashers that I look for when judging if they work or not. I loved what they did here. This movie is brutal and doesn’t shy away from the kills. Most everything is done practically. If not, the CGI didn’t bother me. I was quite impressed that this went where it did. They kills are using things that are pilgrim or Thanksgiving related. They are mean-spirited, which I appreciated. I’ll also pull in the cinematography here as things are framed well. This is a well-made movie in my opinion. Even the soundtrack worked for what was needed.
Since I’ve already brought this up a bit, let me finish with the story. This feels like a Friday the 13th, Halloween or My Bloody Valentine in the vein of holiday slashers. We aren’t getting much in the way of the story. This has more than I expected though. There is this riot that rocked the town. We are seeing the aftereffects a year later. There is a bit of a Jaws moment, where Thanksgiving is important to this town. It is Plymouth so that makes sense. Having the killer be dressed as a pilgrim is great. I’ll say one more time that I’m glad that the kills stick with this theme and the holiday as much as they can. That’s a good touch. I do know a gripe I’ve seen is that the killer is easy to guess. I ended up being right who I thought. That doesn’t ruin this though as I don’t know if the mystery is as important to the audience as it is to the characters in the movie. Obvious reasons there. I do think there could be continuity issues there with who it is, but I need a rewatch to confirm now that I know for sure who is behind everything.
There isn’t much more to discuss so in conclusion, I had a blast here. Is this a great movie that is breaking new ground? No, but what it does is give you characters that you don’t care for and at least for me, I wanted to see how the killer would punish them. The effects and kills are brutal. I did love that. The acting was good enough to get a reaction out of me. I’d say that the rest of the filmmaking was good. I’ll credit here to the cinematography to help frame things and hide the seams as needed. Most everyone I’ve seen rated this or chatted with liked it. I’m not even the biggest slasher fan, but I had a lot of fun here. I’m excited to revisit this and maybe even incorporate it into my Thanksgiving traditions for the future. I hope that Roth stays on track from this. If you’re a slasher fan, give this a watch!
My Rating: 8 out of 10