Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (2023) Discussion
Spoilers for the film are ahead, you have been warned!
Eli Roth’s most recent slasher film Thanksgiving (2023) is exactly what slasher fan’s needed right now. The film wasn’t trying hard to be something deep or complicated and rather opted to be just a fun and entertaining slasher film that feels like it jumped right out of the Scream era of the 90’s. The simplicity of this film is what made it special to me, sometimes simplicity is all you need to make an entertaining and captivating slasher film. The film follows a group of teens who incidentally incited a Black Friday riot one year prior. They might have assumed their troubles had ended after the tragedy, but they were dead wrong. A mysterious social media account begins to taunt them and murders begin to occur throughout the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. One by one a killer who is dressed as John Carver, one of the first pilgrim’s, is killing anyone involved with the previous year’s Black Friday tragedy. Can these teen’s figure out who is hunting them before they find themselves cut up and served on a silver platter?
This film is truly a perfect 90’s style slasher with a basic yet profoundly self-aware who done it plot. Even though the film is simplistic, there are still several topics and themes present in the film which I found to be socially and culturally relevant. For example, the film has a lot of critical things to say about modern American capitalism and people’s social behavior. The fictional store where the riot occurs, Right-Mart, opened early for Black Friday on Thanksgiving which means working class people are being deprived of spending Thanksgiving with their families. The crowd outside the store symbolizes consumer greed and is an extreme representation of how far people are willing to go to get what they want. The first time I saw the film, I assumed the killer’s motivation would be associated with a hatred for capitalism because of the film’s focus on Black Friday. I feel I overanalyzed what the killer’s motivation would be as the actual motivation was far more simplistic and straight out of a 90’s Scream style meta slasher. Revenge was the killer’s true motivation, I feel like the commentary regarding Black Friday and consumerism was intentionally there to mislead the viewer as to what is the killer’s true motivation. Revenge motive’s always make things feel more personal and is a common characteristic of slasher films. As Mrs. Loomis from Scream 2 (1997) said: “My motive is just good old fashioned revenge.”
By the end of the film the killer is revealed to be Patrick Dempsey’s character, Sheriff Eric Newlon. He committed the murders because he was having an affair with the wife of the general manager of the store where the riot occured. She was pregnant with Newlon's baby and was planning on breaking up with her husband until she was tragically killed during the riot at Right-Mart. This not only works as a simple yet effective revenge motive for a slasher film, but also represents the kind of drama that occurs among families and lovers during holidays like Thanksgiving. For some families, holidays like Thanksgiving result in drama, fights, and in this case love affairs. The motive in this film, along with the simplistic story and over the top gory kills truly cement it as one of the most fun and entertaining slasher films in recent years. The over the top kills made Thanksgiving (2023) feel like a Quentin Tarantino film, (which is ironic when you consider this film was based off of a fake trailer Quentin Tarantino made as a tribute to exploitation films in his 2007 Grindhouse double feature.) I had always hoped we would get a proper Thanksgiving slasher film that was legit, unlike the film Thankskilling (2008) which was more of a parody. I genuinely hope this film sparks a franchise or at the very least reinvigorates the general audiences interest in meta Scream style slasher films as they always make for a great Saturday night out with friends. If you are a fan of film’s like Scream (1996) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) then you must check this film out. Overall, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (2023) was just a fun slasher film and a brilliant return to the 90’s formula. Who would have guessed that a fun full length slasher film could originate from the concept of a fake trailer?