Thanksgiving satisfies as a by-the-numbers slasher and not much else.
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It's a bit wild to me that this movie hasn't been made before. I get that it's a very specific American holiday, so the resale value to other countries isn't high, but subverting the tenor or intention of supposedly sweet holidays is right in the horror movie wheelhouse. Turn the spooky fun of Halloween into actual terror, or upend the camaraderie and cheer of Christmas with a bunch of folks being stabbed. Classic horror movie stuff. The closest I've found is the Hulu Into the Dark movie Pilgrim, which has its moments but also didn't get a theatrical release. So why not a holiday where all of the tensions that rise between a family, come to a boil in the midst of a slasher movie plot? That sounds like a slam dunk. At least in theory. In reality, this movie seems much more interested in the gore and standard slasher tropes than subversion.
The Setup
The movie takes place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a town that is trying to recoup after a mob scene at a Black Friday sale resulted in multiple fatalities. But this year, there seems to be something far worse in store as townspeople involved in the fiasco begin to get knocked off one by one by a masked figure in a John Carver mask. Realizing they're in the crosshairs of a killer, the teenaged Jessica and her friends try to stay alive and determine the killer's identity before they end up on his plate...
I get the appeal of this movie. We've got an honest to goodness new slasher with a bright-faced young cast, and a collection of folks you recognize from TV filling out the adult roles, going through the horrific beats of a slasher movie from exploitation aficionado Eli Roth. So if you like seeing a bunch of people get killed in semi-creative or horrific ways, this will scratch that itch.
In particular, this movie leans harder on the gross-out/gore end of the slasher spectrum thanks in part to the killer's signature weapon, a giant axe, and Roth's general sensibilities. Folks don't just die, they die really really horribly. And we get to have some trying to eliminate suspects from the list as new information floats in about what people were or weren't doing the night everything went to shit.
So why didn't this movie work for me? Well...what the hell is it about?
I'll admit that part of my disappointment was me accepting that this movie wasn't going to be what I wanted it to be. I really wanted something akin to You're Next where the family comes together for a dinner, and there's obviously tensions between them, and then a killer shows up and secrets spill out as well as entrails.
This movie isn't that, which is fine. And I actually like the premise that the inciting incident is a horrific Black Friday sale where people died. So many good directions you could take things from here or commentary you could make about consumerist culture or capitalism. Again, that's not what this movie is.
There are glimpses of this (i.e. the guy who runs the store is a target and a cartoon version of a capitalist) but this is just background to create tension between our female lead and her family. It's so weird and disappointing because there are these pointed moments where the killer livestreams, just like one of the people responsible for the mob violence did instead of trying to help out, or there are arguments about "what matters are people." But again, it's less commentary and more just an ironic twist on the killer's vengeance.
But you can tell Roth's heart isn't in that. It's in the "girl got stabbed through the stomach" stuff for him. This is the always the disconnect in Roth's horror flicks. There's a twinge of an interesting idea that doesn't land because he's more interested in the brutality than the motivation behind it. Which is fine and functional, but doesn't really make for a "new holiday classic."
Thanksgiving satisfies as a by-the-numbers slasher and not much else.
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