Thanksgiving – Review

Cert – 18, Run-time – 1 hour 46 minutes, Director – Eli Roth

A year after a Black Friday tragedy at a supermarket, a masked killer preys upon members of a town they deem responsible for the deaths caused.

There’s a self-awareness to Eli Roth’s feature length version of his trailer for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double feature (the pair get a special thanks mention in the credits). The clichés and familiar beats are served with a smile as the opening stages see an early Black Friday opening for a small-town supermarket turn to tragedy as the angry stampede for bargains leads to a number of deaths. The humour quickly turns to tension, with even early nervous laughter in the sequence dying down amongst the chaos.

One year later and a masked killer, dressed as a pilgrim with a mask of a historical town figure (conveniently names John Carver), is tracking down those they blame for the tragedy – particularly the owner of the supermarket (Rick Hoffman), his daughter Jessica (Nell Varlaque) and her friends. While the police, led by sheriff Eric (Patrick Dempsey), look for evidence to lead them to a potential suspect the body count rises rapidly. With each kill the gore and detail grows with some good effect – if not entirely providing scares – with some being delivered with a knowing smirk as most of the weaponry can be found on a Thanksgiving table (axes being the exception that proves the rule).

While the bloodshed has its likeable quirks the narrative of Jessica and her friends is, of course, at the fore. Overtime the awareness takes something of a backseat as the conventional tones and themes take more of a step to the fore for the sake of the story at hand. This especially being the case as they start to get picked off not-quite-one-by-one. There’s still engagement to be found within the film, although with the laughs having died out the overall narrative works and keeps you in place into the third act.

The run-time may feel a bit long as the third act unravels, with the film feeling better suited to something 85-90 minutes long rather than 106. The drawing out of certain instances largely leads to this, with one or two scenes leading to a slightly fidgety response, yet there’s enough to keep you in place from scene to scene. It may have more of an air of seriousness as things go on and move away from the darkly comic yet tense nature of the opening scenes, but there’s still enough to like in the narrative beats, and the way in which Roth captures the 18-rated kills throughout to make for a likable slice of sleepover slasher.

While the dark comedy dies down early on alongside the self-aware smirk there’s still an engaging nature to Thanksgiving thanks to the solidity of the narrative and the effect of the kills.