You’ve probably forgotten a lot of what happened in 2007, but that year saw the release of Grindhouse, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s two-part homage to seventies B-movies. It combined Tarantino’s girly killer-car movie, Death Proof, with Rodriguez’s zombie shoot-em-up, Planet Terror, but in between there were five joke trailers. Those trailers included Machete, Werewolf Women of the SS, Don’t, Hobo with a Shotgun, and Thanksgiving, directed by Robert Rodriguez, Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright, Jason Eisener, and Eli Roth, respectively.
Machete eventually became two real movies, in 2010 and 2013, as did (the surprisingly great) Hobo with a Shotgun, also in 2010. Why it took Eli Roth 13 years longer to bring us the full-length version of Thanksgiving is anyone’s guess, but now the first trailer is here, teasing a November 17th release (that’s six days before Thanksgiving, for the calendar sticklers out there).
Much like the original joke trailer, the real version doesn’t offer many hints to the story, beyond the general theme of a killer in a buckled hat gorily murdering terrified teeny boppers and jocks against the backdrop of Thanksgiving. A comment on the inherent brutality of settler-colonialism, perhaps? According to the official Sony Pictures synopsis, “After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday.”
Okay, so maybe a takedown of consumer culture? Time will tell.
Roth wrote Thanksgiving’s script with Jeff Rendell (with few credits to note beyond cameos in a few Eli Roth movies), and where the original trailer starred Jay Hernandez, Jordan Ladd, and Eli Roth, this full-length feature is set to star Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, and Gina Gershon. Providing the narration is Rick Hoffman, known mainly for his role in Suits, which is currently enjoying a surprise renaissance on Netflix. How did they time that so well? Did Eli Roth orchestrate this? Is he the guy behind the guy?
Thanksgiving will be Roth’s first fiction feature since 2018’s twin releases of Roth’s critically savaged Death Wish remake starring Bruce Willis, and his mostly-positively-received, modestly successful PG-rated family comedy, the House with the Clock in Its Walls, starring Jack Black. Roth’s career has been largely characterized by these kinds of ups and downs, ever since breaking out in 2002 with his brilliant, semi-serious horror comedy about a flesh-eating virus, Cabin Fever. Meanwhile he’s been a prolific producer, a frequent talking head in film shows, and occasional actor, as in his memorable turn playing “The Bear Jew” in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and concert tycoon Andrew Finkelstein in The Idol (arguably one of the bright spots in that show).
It’s hard to make many assumptions based on the trailer, but Thanksgiving at least seems to be a return to the kind of subject matter that made Roth famous. Hopefully he’s put the same kind of care and consideration into the film as a whole as whoever made that turkey did into the bird. Did you see the crispy skin on that thing? Gorgeous. Most gory horror film trailers don’t make you this hungry.