Over Christmas, I finally got the time to settle down and watch a couple of movies that have been on my list. Ever since I saw Eli Roth’s fake trailer that played betwixt Planet Terror and Deathproof during the Grindhouse double-feature, I wanted this movie to be real. Roth made noise over the years that he would really make it. It was all one big tease until the day came that he really did make it. And you know what? It was pretty good.
Does the plot matter? It’s a slasher movie with some story that justifies a guy going around brutally murdering people while dressed like a pilgrim. The setup is that on Thanksgiving day a riot breaks out at a local store for black Friday sales. Some people get trampled to death and one of them is someone close to the killer. A year later the fun starts. Things then fall into the familiar groove of a slasher movie with the twist reveal at the end and the killer not being found so we can have a sequel. Fine with me, slasher movie tropes are as comfortable and familiar to me as my favorite pair of underwear.
The gore is great. There is some really extreme stuff. A woman is cut in half. Some broad gets baked alive, a beheading. Good stuff. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the best kills from the original fake trailer. The girl on the trampoline is killed. but not by a knife through there like in the fake trailer. Big Sad. Also, no dude is beheaded while getting head. I really wanted to see those. I get why he didn’t do it though. It’s one thing to do in a fake parody trailer, It’s another thing entirely to try to keep a movie at just an R rating.
My biggest letdown is Michael Biehn didn’t play the sheriff like in the trailer. The world can never have enough of Michael Biehn. Most of the cast did fine though. The characters aren’t a bit likable in the movie. They are all annoying Gen Z teens. Even the Final Girl. This makes it more fun watching them die horribly.
Thanksgiving is a very solid addition to the pantheon of slasher films. It would have got another half a star if it had Michael Biehn.
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