Known more for his torture porn aesthetic than for making traditional slasher films, I went in fingers crossed that filmmaker Eli Roth (Hostel, The Green Inferno) would present a movie of the latter and not containing as much of the former. And honestly, Thanksgiving isn’t as gory as I expected. It’s also shockingly underwhelming and simply not as fun as it needed to be.
Synopsis: A year after a Black Friday trampling incident/riot, the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts is terrorized by someone in a pilgrim mask, seeking revenge.
It’s technically a feature length version of a fictitious trailer Roth created for the 2007 movie “Grindhouse”. So, hoping for something full of over-the-top B-movie slasher camp shouldn’t have been out of the question. But Roth is simply the wrong director to make this work in any kind of memorable way. Sure, there are over-the-top kills, but Thanksgiving never leans into this aspect as much as it could’ve. Instead putting more emphasis on a story that had potential, but ends up being your standard “killer comes to town, bumps off citizens one by one until the mask comes off and the killer is revealed” movie you could watch at home.
Side Note: I do enjoy Rick Hoffman (Suits, Hostel) as an actor. He just gets nothing to do here. And nobody else gives a performance worth talking about, so let’s get back to the review.
Another thing Roth is known for is his clunky dialogue. And his constant attempts at humor. I laughed once. Lazily, most of the humor centers around the use of New England accents, which is funny for all of ten minutes. The lack of funny moments could’ve been forgiven if the movie was at all scary, or fun or held a semblance of anything that would allow the impact of Thanksgiving to be remembered after the credits rolled.
Final Thought: I’m in no way a Roth fan (if you couldn’t tell), but I know he can deliver a better product than this. On the other hand, who cares. Let’s focus on the violence. Is this the violent gorefest the trailers promise? Again, it’s not as gory as I expected, but what Roth does well he does well here. That is, every sequence of practical effects works in the way they were intended. Most of the kill sequences elicit a visceral response. Every time someone’s head explodes on impact or someone’s intestines lie hanging from their stomach, it’s engaging in a way Roth clearly understands. Unfortunately, there isn’t nearly enough of that stuff to make up for the one-note comedy, dull characters and a script which I liken to an unseasoned Thanksgiving feast.
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