Sunday night I headed down to the cinema to take in either Trolls 3 or Thanksgiving leaving it up to the worker to select the movie for me and I wasn’t disappointed. This movie got good reviews from the critics and audience online and I can agree with them. Hard to believe it took about 16 years for the film to get made after director Eli Roth created the fake movie trailer, Thanksgiving, for the film Grindhouse, plans for a feature-length adaptation began to happen.
The plot is “After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts — the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan. Will the town uncover the killer and survive the holidays… or become guests at his twisted holiday dinner table?”
The movie billed with provided some good jump scares that even got me while providing some grindhouse gore but surprising was the laughs the movie had. The movie definitely was able to deliver in many ways and holy Massachusetts accent Batman, though funny enough most of the main cast didn’t have or use the accent that was heard by other characters. This was definitely a new look for Patrick Dempsey, who is best known to audiences as “McDreamy” from Grey’s Anatomy as he plays Sheriff Newlon, the only main character to use the accent.
The movie won’t see any of the actors up for Oscars anytime soon but for a younger cast I felt they delivered especially Addison Rae and Nell Verlaque with Tomaso Sanelli and Joe Delfin
providing good laughs throughout the film.
Thanksgiving won’t go down as one of the best horror films but does do the trick and when our (Canadian) Thanksgiving is lines up nicely for horror film season in the build up towards Halloween.
While the movie does follow the typical horror movie tropes it manages to deliver some very creative kills and provides a nice commentary on consumerism as well as filming everything for social media. Thanksgiving is a solid movie that I do hope gets a sequel because I feel we haven’t seen the last of John Carver.
Final Grade: 8/10
Check out the trailer below:
– Everett
