Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is exactly what it needs to be. That's not as easy as it sounds.
Full analysis below
NOT A WOKE TRAP. Thanksgiving is not woke. It scores MIXED with a margin of 0. The film has a mild anti-consumerism streak and one corrupt-cop twist, but these are balanced by a traditional slasher moral framework where bad behavior gets punished and the righteous survive. The film does not carry a progressive political agenda. It is a genre exercise, delivered with craft and appropriate nastiness.
Thanksgiving is exactly what it needs to be. That's not as easy as it sounds.
The premise: a Black Friday riot at a Plymouth, Massachusetts big-box store ends in several deaths, including a woman who gets crushed in a stampede. One year later, a killer in a Pilgrim costume starts working through the people responsible for the riot. He posts on Instagram. He has plans for a Thanksgiving dinner. It gets messy.
Eli Roth has been trying to turn his 2007 fake Grindhouse trailer into a feature since... 2007. The result is a film that knows exactly what it is and delivers it without apology. The kills are inventive. The pacing is tight. The ensemble is likeable enough that you feel something when they start disappearing. Patrick Dempsey shows up as the town sheriff and plays it completely straight, which is the right call.
Thanksgiving doesn't waste your time explaining itself. The setup is clear, the rules are clear, the mythology is clear. Someone did something bad, and now someone dressed as a Pilgrim is going to make them pay for it. The slasher genre's core moral framework, bad behavior gets you killed, is present and functional throughout.
Addison Rae handles her role better than her pop-star background might suggest. She's not the final girl, which is a decent misdirection. Nell Verlaque is the one who carries the film's emotional throughline, and she does it competently.
The Black Friday setup is the film's most interesting element ideologically. The riot that starts everything is genuinely disturbing, and the film makes sure you understand that the people in the riot are doing something wrong. Consumerism run amok has consequences. That's a critique, but it's not a progressive one. It's the kind of thing your grandfather might say about Black Friday. The film doesn't feel like a lecture.
The corrupt-sheriff twist in the third act is the weakest element. It's well-executed but slightly familiar, and it requires Dempsey's warm screen presence to sustain a sudden pivot to villainy that the film hasn't quite earned. It lands, but it's the one moment where you can see the machinery working.
Overall: Thanksgiving is a solidly crafted, genuinely fun slasher with one of 2023's better genre premises. It's not political. It's not trying to teach you anything. It wants to make you jump and then feel vaguely guilty about the jump. Mission accomplished.
Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier
🔴 Woke Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-Consumerism / Black Friday Critique | 3 | 0.7 | 1.8 | 3.78 |
| Corrupt Law Enforcement Villain | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Final Girl Protagonist | 2 | 0.7 | 1 | 1.4 |
| Pilgrim Iconography Used for Horror | 2 | 1 | 0.5 | 1 |
| TOTAL WOKE | 9.2 | |||
🟢 Traditional Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Slasher Moral Framework: Evil Punished | 3 | 0.7 | 1.8 | 3.78 |
| Community Responds to Shared Threat | 3 | 0.7 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Wrongdoers Punished / Justice Served | 4 | 0.7 | 1 | 2.8 |
| TOTAL TRADITIONAL | 8.7 | |||
Score Margin: 0 NEUTRAL
Director: Eli Roth
NEUTRAL. Eli Roth is the director of Hostel, Hostel Part II, Cabin Fever, and Knock Knock. He is a genre craftsman with no notable political agenda in his filmmaking. His movies are about fear and violence and transgression. Thanksgiving is his most mainstream film and also his most fun.Eli Roth was born in 1972 in Newton, Massachusetts. He studied at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and broke through with Cabin Fever (2002), a low-budget horror film that launched his career as a leading figure in the 2000s 'torture porn' wave alongside James Wan and Alexandre Aja. Hostel (2005) and Hostel Part II (2007) defined his brand: maximum gore, no apologies. Thanksgiving originated as a fake trailer in the 2007 Tarantino-Rodriguez Grindhouse project. Roth spent 16 years trying to turn it into a feature. The result is a film that clearly loves the slasher genre and respects its audience enough to deliver exactly what was promised.
Writer: Jeff Rendell, Eli Roth
Jeff Rendell is a longtime collaborator of Roth's who appeared as a cast member in the original Grindhouse fake trailer. The screenplay is a confident genre piece that sets up its kills efficiently, establishes a clear ensemble, and builds to a satisfying resolution. It is not trying to say anything beyond: here is a maniac in a Pilgrim costume murdering people in Plymouth, Massachusetts on Thanksgiving. That discipline is rarer than it sounds.
Adult Viewer Insight
Slasher films have a built-in moral structure that horror critics have been debating since Halloween. The killer punishes transgression. Survival correlates with virtue, or at least with having done fewer clearly wrong things. Thanksgiving is a reasonably faithful entry in that tradition. The people who die are the people who participated in the riot. The people who survive are the people who tried to do the right thing. That's not a progressive narrative. It's closer to a folk tale. Eli Roth is not a moralist, but the genre has morality baked in, and he doesn't undercut it.
Parental Guidance
Rated R for strong horror violence and gore, language, brief sexuality, and drug use. This is an Eli Roth film, which means the gore is considerable. Several creative and genuinely unpleasant kills. Brief topless nudity in one scene. Moderate-to-strong language throughout. Drug use in a party scene. Not remotely appropriate for children. Horror fans aged 17 and up will have a good time. Not for the faint of heart or the gore-averse.
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