THANKSGIVING Blu-ray | ©2024 Sony/TriStar

Rating: R
Stars: Patrick Dempsey, Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Milo Manheim, Tomaso Sanelli, Gabriel Davenport, Jenna Warren, Ty Victor Olsson, Tim Dillon, Russell Yuen, Karen Cliche, Derek McGrath, Joe Delfin, Jeff Teravainen, Rick Hoffman, Gina Gershon
Writer: Jeff Rendell, story by Eli Roth & Jeff Rendell
Director: Eli Roth
Distributor: Sony/TriStar
Release Date: November 17, 2023 (theatrical); January 16, 2024 (digital); January 30, 2024 (DVD/Blu-ray)

In the proud tradition of 2010’s MACHETE, 2011’s HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, and 2013’s MACHETE KILLS, THANKSGIVING is the latest actual movie to be based on the parody trailers in the middle of 2007’s double feature GRINDHOUSE. (We’re still waiting on DON’T and WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE S.S.)

Directed, like the trailer, by Eli Roth, THANKSGIVING has a screenplay by Jeff Rendell from a story by Roth & Rendell. While the thrust of the film is pretty much a whodunit slasher, the filmmakers get in some pointed and plot-propelling commentary about consumerism run amok.

It opens in Plymouth, Massachusetts (the film was actually shot in Ontario, Canada), where big box Right Mart owner Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman) has decided to start Black Friday early and open the store to shoppers on Thanksgiving night.

Not that Thomas will be there himself. His fiancée Kathleen (Karen Cliche) has made supper for friends that include the town mayor. Thomas’s teen daughter Jessica (Nell Verlaque) can’t wait to get out of the house and join her football player boyfriend Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks), his teammates Evan (Tomaso Sanelli) and Scuba (Gabriel Davenport), and their respective girlfriends Gabby (Addison Rae) and Yulia (Jenna Warren).

The group’s fateful decision to stop at the Right Mart leads to a gruesome, lethal riot. A year later, someone decides that everyone involved in the tragedy should be severely punished.

The opening teases a road not taken by THANKSGIVING. The riot seems like something that could easily play out in reality, and Roth’s staging makes the whole thing dismayingly plausible. However, his interest here is not (at least primarily) in making something that’s a blend of entitled acquisitiveness and THE PURGE, but rather in creating a respectable themed serial killer piece.

Roth and Rendell lean into plenty of the possibilities of Thanksgiving, with pilgrim costumes, parades, a feast scene and more. They also do a good job of providing plenty of plausible suspects, although the end makes us wonder when certain events are supposed to be happening in juxtaposition to one another.

While nobody is going to mistake THANKSGIVING for a character study, the filmmakers take pains to delineate their leads, and populate the sidelines with colorful figures. The cast is strong, with Hoffman, Verlaque and Patrick Dempsey as the beleaguered town sheriff all delivering especially good performances.

We don’t get a lot of jump scares, but there are some pretty grueling and gory set pieces, along with clever Rube Goldberg-esque calamities and rescues.

THANKSGIVING has most of what people want from the slasher subgenre. It has some wit, it has twists, it has novelty, and it’s genuinely well-made.

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