Thanksgiving in January

Now, that's what I call a feel good movie. 2023's Thanksgiving is the bloody holiday slasher with notes of satire I needed. It was very hard to stop smiling while watching it.

This is the latest film to come from 2007's Grindhouse, which at this point must be one of the most successful unsuccessful movies of all time. Originally a double feature consisting of Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, it also featured several fake trailers for films inspired by exploitation films of the 1970s. There was a trailer for Machete by Robert Rodriguez which he ended up making into two movies, there was Werewolf Women of the SS by Rob Zombie (the weakest of the lot), Don't by Edgar Wright (very funny), and, finally, the unexpected cream of the crop, Thanksgiving by Eli Roth.

It has to be said, the feature film is nowhere near as extreme as the trailer. There's really no nudity (aside from one bare bottom), no weird sex gags, and the giant Indian head was removed from the parade which now consists entirely of pilgrims, much like the Thanksgiving stuff on Wednesday. Isn't it interesting how political correctness has erased Native Americans from the holiday?

It's kind of sad, all these pilgrims, dressed up and waiting for their Indian dinner dates who will never arrive.

But as was suggested in RedLetterMedia's review of the film, I think 2023's Thanksgiving may be meant to be a 21st century remake of the faux '70s movie shown in the trailer. So it's not meant to be counted among grindhouse movies now but among 2020s slashers, which are careful to avoid sensitive political issues and sex even as they're willing to indulge in extravagant gore and torture.

Eli Roth is a big fan (and former collaborator) of David Lynch (he even made his own Twin Peaks knock-off show, Hemlock Grove). Like Twin Peaks, Thanksgiving presents us with a cast of small town characters, any of whom could be the killer, and Roth teases us with various clues. When the killer's identity is revealed, it's pretty satisfying and makes a lot of sense, even though I didn't guess it.

The beginning of the film is a brilliant mix of mounting tension and dark humour worthy of Hitchcock. A Black Friday (beginning, of course, on Thursday night) steadily goes from rough and ominous to baroquely catastrophic. Roth's sense of timing and detail is impeccable. Especially memorable is the man in the crowd who cuts his throat on a piece of broken glass when he's shoved through a broken door. Of course, his life's blood oozing away, he still staggers to the coveted waffle irons.

I wish I could've seen this movie in November but, I must say, it was so magical it took me back in time. I felt like it was Thanksgiving when I was watching it. Thank you, Eli Roth.