Welcome to this thing I'm gonna do for movies that I don't really have a lot of good things to say because they kinda just exist. This time, we're talking about Eli Roth's Thanksgiving, a horror movie so full of homages and solid kills that they decided that's all they needed.

Summary

When a man dressed as a pilgrim starts killing the survivors of a Black Friday sale a year later, a girl and her friends and some other people have to figure out who the pilgrim is before they also are killed. Will they succeed against the killer pilgrim when the store stays open, the town continues on like nothing is happening, and the adults are like "huh, some folks are dying?"

Characters

Let's call her Jessica - I can't remember her name, and I met a girl named Jessica last night so here we are. The final girl of the piece, she's the daughter of the store owner who opened his doors and created a massacre last Thanksgiving. She's got a love triangle that goes nowhere and a lot of friends who die.

Bunch of dead characters walking - Are they unlikeable? Do they not understand the true meaning of Thanksgiving? Probably gonna die.

Bunch of characters that are there - Do they have lines that seem like they could be the killer? Are they helpful to give Jessica and a dead character walking something to do? There they are, loving the shit out of Thanksgiving.

The Pilgrim - The killer is masquerading as John Carter or Carver or something pilgrim related made up for the movie. Or real, I'm not researching this. They have a fascination with Thanksgiving and hate for those that want to commercialize it. When the reveal happens, they've also got a solid reason for doing what they do. Plus, solid social networking skills on the 'Gram.

Midpoint action

After the standard "oh no, people are dead but I'm the main final girl so I'll walk down this half-lit hallway away from the police" moment where the first "final girl on killer" attack happens, we get the best scene of the movie: the parade. Our pilgrim killer took some notes on the Joker and has an attack at a parade that's wild and surprising. This will be watched on Youtube for a month or so.

Ending

The killer gets revealed by some half-ass Agatha Christie by way of Scooby-Doo mistake. The person they have playing has fun and is fun to watch when they go all crazy, though. Very much Stu and Billy in Scream or Noxzema girl in Urban legend. You don't see that as much as you used to, and I kinda miss it. Then it's the standard "we can't find the body" to set up a sequel.

Favorite quotes - not exact

"There's a murder case at my dad's store. Let's not fuck around."

"Thank you, Chad" - after a reading by some guy with abs at school who girls fawn over

"He's just taking her to Florida" - after a girl's dad picks her up from an attack she survived

"He's out of it after too much white zinfandel the other night." - talking about wine like a heroin OD

"She's been cooking all day" about the person who gets cooked alive like a turkey

Best Kill

Not a kill, actually, but dunking someone in water and slamming them face first into a freezer door to hold them in place is creative. Never seen that before.

Random thoughts

So many homages - They just have shots and plot points cleverly taken or randomly inserted from Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, My Bloody Valentine, Scream, Sleepaway Camp, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and so many more.

The accents of every character dip in and out of Massachusetts all the time. Even inside scenes. It's messy and distracting even if they were going for "this is how campy horror did it."

Several of the kills just take too long or move to different locations. Some are supposed to be building tension, but they just get dull because we've seen this kind of tension so many times. Probably works for those who have not seen much slasher content, but if you're watching Thanksgiving then you love horror not just seeing a movie on a lark.

The central mystery kind of loses its way. We're supposed to care about who the killer is, and we know the motive broadly because of the prologue. About halfway, though, we get some Scooby Doo level misdirections about the killer's identity and who was at the store that felt confusing rather than planting red herrings. We know who was at the store, why all the busy work?

A parent, hardcore rich Russian guy, says fuck this and tries to leave with his daughter to Florida. This is amazing, and I would have been delighted to never see her again. Except he takes the time to let her pack and hang out while he's listening to music on noise canceling headphones. I applaud the "let's get the fuck out" mentality, but it felt wasted and would have been refreshing for that character to have just gotten the fuck out by a parent who cared.

Three days ago Brenda comes in and asks for the day after Thanksgiving off. I tell her no, sorry, we put in those requests two months ago.

But her kids are sick. They need their momma.

I say, her kids are both in their thirties. One of them has a family. The other might just be too damn stoned to see out the window. Plus, the children's librarian and the tech serv librarian are off. It's just me, Brenda, and the reference librarian all day.

"Why don't we just close?" she said.

I told her no.

She crooked her hand. Spitting on my office floor, Brenda spoke out the old Creole tongue. A wormy string of swamp words came out of her mouth and stained my ears. Then she took out a marker, drew a symbol on my office door, and closed it behind her with a bang.

The lights went out. Total dark filled the windows and cracks around the door. Silence filled everything but my chest thumping.

A little girl stood in front of me. Small, dainty in a white dress. She looked like my sister so many years ago. Then she pulled out a rubber mallet and slammed it into the desk. When the desk did not break, she climbed over it and came at me. I fought her off, pushing us back from the desk and toppling the chair.

Blows rained down. Thick heavy smacks. The child did not have the raw power or the instrument for any one blow to hurt, but goddamn they began to add up.

I threw her off me. Standing, I oriented myself toward the door. Within three steps a man stood in front of me holding a ruler. He had on a brown coat and red shirt. His hair was shorter than mine, but other than that he could have been my doppelganger. As if I had been left in the microwave a little too long.

He swung the ruler at my head. The smack came hard. I felt the light wood break against my jawbone. Painful, but in no way debilitating. I wrenched the broken end out of his hand and turned it on him. He died well, my alternate.

The little girl screamed. She hit my shin with the mallet. I kicked out, getting her in the face. She stumbled, and I pounced. I grabbed her arm and leg, lifted, and threw her where I judged the window to be. In the darkness she vanished to the sound of glass breaking and screams.

"You should not have done that. The Past is perfect," said a voice of stone.

I could feel the edge of my desk. Lowering my hand, I opened the second drawer. The revolver filled my hand as I turned and faced the stranger.

"Yep," I said and shot the pale figure in the forehead.

The lights came back. All the light, from the windows and the fixtures. I closed my eyes to think. The smell of cordite filled my nostrils as I dumped the revolver on the desk with a heavy thud.

After a few breaths, I picked up the phone. Dialed the circulation desk.

"Yes?" Brenda said.

"About Thanksgiving."

"Yes," Brenda said.

"No," I said, and hung up the phone.

Anatomy of a Movie: Thanksgiving (2023)