Review: Thanksgiving

Of all the fake trailers that were part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's 2007 double feature Grindhouse, the one for Thanksgiving seemed the most plausible as a feature. Not a good feature, mind you - but as another drab yet gory 80s slasher with murder on the menu it worked just fine. 

So now that director Eli Roth has finally expanded it into a full film, it's a pleasant surprise to say it's at least on par with its inspirations. And that's pretty much the only pleasant surprise that awaits anyone in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

A prologue sets the scene: a year ago a shopping stampede for Thanksgiving bargains turned bloody, leaving three extremely dead and nobody charged (that's capitalism for you). Now a mysterious killer dressed up like a pilgrim is murdering those visible in a viral video of the splattered shoppers. 

You'd think the prime target would be Jessica (Nell Verlaque) the teen daughter of the death shop owner (Rick Hoffman), but it seems like the killer is saving something special for her. If you remember the depraved and deadly dinner that was the centerpiece of the trailer, you know where things are heading.

In expanding on the trailer, the faux-80s stylings are dropped, while a few subplots about internet fame and rich versus poor are mixed in without ever really going much of anywhere. This is a whodunnit slasher (think Scream), though it's hard to care all that much about that side of things - especially when even the locals don't seem all that fussed as the body count rises and the sheriff (Patrick Dempsey) isn't exactly a brains trust. 

At first it seems like that's the point: the whole town is so committed to Thanksgiving that, much like the beach town in Jaws, they don't want to face what's really going on. But as things progress it starts to feel like Roth's just more interested in the kills than the killer.

To be fair, so is the audience. On that level - which is really the only one that counts - this doesn't disappoint, though some of the more memorable moments from the trailer turn out to work better in snippet form (and a couple of them are scaled back; what worked well as a quick joke would have hit a very different note in an expanded feature film). 

Tonally this is a little shaky and the early promise of some serious satire is never really followed up on. But plenty of annoying losers die very gory deaths and that's exactly the point of this kind of film. Roth knows how to serve up a memorable holiday feast.

- Anthony Morris