Thanksgiving (2023)
Director: Eli Roth
Screenwriters: Jeff Rendel
Starring: Patrick Dempsey, Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Rick Hoffman, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Gina Gershon
Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving arrives as a blunt, gleefully vicious entry in the modern slasher canon. Born from a mock-trailer concept first seen in the Grindhouse double bill, this feature-length expansion leans hard into exploitation and genre homage. The film wears its influences openly — from 1970s and 1980s classics to contemporary neo-slasher touchstones — while delivering a highly polished, blood-soaked ride that clearly intends to celebrate the formula rather than subvert it.
The plot opens with a massacre at a Black Friday sale at a mega-store called RightMart. In the year that follows, the town braces for the next Thanksgiving, where public anger and calls to shut the store collide with personal tensions. Jessica (Nell Verlaque) faces harassment connected to her family’s ties to the store, and the return of her ex-boyfriend Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks) adds to the emotional fallout. Meanwhile, someone has stolen an axe from a replica of John Carver’s ancestral home and a parade of Carver masks circulates around town. The implication is clear: an old grievance has resurfaced, and revenge will be served in brutal fashion.
Visually and tonally, Thanksgiving draws from a wide swath of slasher history. Poster art and promotional imagery signal homages to landmark films that consolidated the holiday-slasher subgenre, while Roth’s direction nods to both classic shock cinema and the slick tempo of 1990s slashers. The screenplay by Jeff Rendel balances reverence and modernity: dialogue and character beats evoke traditional archetypes, but the filmmaking itself is sharp, contemporary, and free of any attempt to pastiche the grainy texture of older movies.
If you come for gore, Thanksgiving delivers in abundance. Practical effects and graphic set-pieces are front and center, and Roth’s experience with visceral horror is obvious in the committed, sometimes gleeful, depiction of carnage. The film is unabashedly violent, relying on shocks, inventive kills, and a steady escalation of spectacle. That will delight audiences who appreciate hands-on effects and old-school horror inventiveness, while likely alienating viewers who prefer more restrained or psychological horror.
At its core, the film functions as a genre love letter. Character types are familiar — the anguished survivor, the ambiguous small-town figures, the enraged avenger — but the performances are effective enough to give those archetypes weight. Brandon Roberts’ score leans into orchestral cues familiar to slasher fans, emphasizing suspense and spectacle in ways that help the film land its tonal punches. Production design, costumes, and set pieces all support the idea that this is a deliberate tribute to slasher cinema rather than a cynical pastiche.
Beyond the gore and homage, Thanksgiving attempts to layer a social critique into its narrative. An anti-capitalist thread runs through the story, addressing consumer culture and the violence surrounding big-box retail events. The thematic execution is uneven — sometimes direct, sometimes underplayed — but it provides a backdrop that expands the film beyond pure kill-count entertainment. The movie hints at broader consequences, including the role of viral media and desensitization to violence, without fully committing to an exhaustive exploration. Those threads may offer fertile ground for potential follow-ups, as the film leaves certain tensions unresolved even while it ties up the primary plot.
Ultimately, Thanksgiving does what it sets out to do: it celebrates the slasher as a cinematic form and delivers a confident, brutal entry for fans of the genre. It doesn’t aim to reinvent horror; instead, it revels in the craft and traditions that made slasher films enduringly popular. For viewers who relish bold practical effects, clear genre signposting, and a director comfortable with excess, Thanksgiving is a satisfying, loud, and unapologetic return to the gory pleasures of the slasher film.
Score: 18/24
Rating: 3 out of 5.