Eli Roth's Thanksgiving Release Date, Cast, Plot, Trailer, And More Info
Every major holiday could stand to have a slasher movie themed around it, especially one with a sunny disposition masquerading the grim truth behind it like Thanksgiving. Such was Eli Roth's thinking when he made his fake "Thanksgiving" movie trailer for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's "Grindhouse" experiment back in 2007. Roth's original short is a collection of scenes of people getting brutally decapitated (or, in the case of a poor cheerleader, sadistically stabbed between the legs) over the Thanksgiving holiday frame by a serial killer dressed as a Pilgrim. It's grotesque, juvenile, and tasteless. In other words, it's everything you either love or hate about Eli Roth's horror work in general.
16 years later, Roth has finally gone and turned "Thanksgiving" into a full-fledged film, just like the fake "Grindhouse" trailers turned actual films "Machete" and "Hobo with a Shotgun" before it. Roth's slasher also marks his return to the realm of hard R-rated genre fare after his brief detour into family-friendly horror with "The House with a Clock in Its Walls," which is easily the best film he's ever made in this author's humble opinion. With Roth's breakout hit, "Cabin Fever," turning 20 this year, will his turkey-flavored gorefest propel his career to newfound heights or amount to a whole lot of gobbledegook (emphasis on the "gobble")?
While we're waiting for the answer, let's run down everything we know about "Thanksgiving" so far, shall we?
When does Thanksgiving premiere?
Roth's slasher is headed to theaters on November 17, 2023, which is shaping up to be one of the most crowded frames at the box office in some time. Besides "Thanksgiving," that weekend will see the release of the prequel "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes," the animated sequel "Trolls Band Together," and Taika Waititi's sports comedy "Next Goal Wins," as well as a limited rollout for "Promising Young Woman" director Emerald Fennell's dramatic thriller "Saltburn." That's also before both Disney's animated fairy tale musical "Wish" and Ridley Scott's biopic/war epic "Napoleon" charge into battle five days later during the actual Turkey Day frame.
On the other hand, most of these films are targeting widely different groups of moviegoers, and "Thanksgiving" is the only one aimed at horror buffs. So, it might yet avoid getting carved up like one of the victims from Roth's latest gross-out flick.
What are the plot details of Thanksgiving?
What more appropriate setting for a Thanksgiving-inspired murder spree than that of Plymouth, Massachusetts — "the birthplace of the infamous holiday," as the synopsis for "Thanksgiving" tells us. The film will kick off with a terrible riot on Black Friday, setting the stage for a (vengeful?) serial killer to make the rounds and slice up the locals like they're ... well, turkeys being served for the holiday's annual meal. Take away all the Thanksgiving-related trimmings and you're left with about as typical a setup for a slasher as you can get, complete with a humble sheriff who's left to figure out who's behind all these grisly killings and fast, as the body count continues to climb higher by the minute. Granted, Roth's original trailer was itself an homage to foundational slasher flicks like "Black Christmas" and "Halloween," so the feature-length version's meat-and-potatoes premise makes sense enough.
Who is in the cast of Thanksgiving?
Paging Dr. McDreamy!
Yes, "Grey's Anatomy" alum Patrick Dempsey is starring as the aggrieved sheriff tasked with catching the twisted murderer in "Thanksgiving." Fittingly, Dempsey also played a detective charged with unmasking the Ghostface killer in "Scream 3" over 20 years ago, although his characters tend to spend more time wooing people and saving lives as a surgeon than putting their sleuthing skills to the test. He's joined in the "Thanksgiving" cast by TikTok star turned actor Addison Rae ("He's All That"), as well as Milo Manheim (the star of the Disney Channel's "Zombie" film trilogy), Jalen Thomas Brooks ("Walker"), Rick Hoffman ("Suits"), comedian Tim Dillon, and "Bound" star Gina Gershon. Relative lesser-knowns like Nell Verlaque, Gabriel Davenport, Tomaso Sanelli, and Jenna Warren help to round the ensemble because, naturally, what would a slasher even be if it didn't have a lineup of potential victims?
Who are the writers, directors, and producers on Thanksgiving?
On top of directing and producing, Elit Roth penned "Thanksgiving" with producer Jeff Rendell, the latter of whom also co-wrote the original trailer in addition to starring as the killer (which he went uncredited for). Having known each other for as long as they have, it's safe to assume Roth and Rendell are on the same wavelength when it comes to the film's nasty violence and general exploitative vibe. Indeed, where other members of the "Splat Pack" of low-budget horror movie directors who came about in the early 2000s have gone on to evolve as artists and really expand their repertoire (James Wan being the most notable example), Roth appears mostly content to stick with what's worked best for him.
Then again, if the not-so-hot early buzz around his upcoming "Borderlands" video game movie is any indicator, that might be for the better.
Has Thanksgiving released a trailer?
The "Thanksgiving" trailer (see above) is very much a teaser, offering glimpses of the carnage to come while also highlighting the film's gleefully mean-spirited tone. In fact, most of the movie's trailer is composed of shots recreating the most infamous moments from the original fake promo, including a Thanksgiving Day parade that ends in a beheading and the aforementioned cheerleader's demise.
Will the film version of "Thanksgiving" have anything to offer that the "Grindhouse" trailer didn't beyond the same kills with, one assumes, a twist (plus a few extra to help pad out its runtime)? That is very much the question of the day. It's one thing to sustain the gimmick for a minute or two at most, but it's another to flesh it out into something interesting enough to justify turning it into a whole dang movie. In a sense, though, the fact that "Thanksgiving" is even happening at all after "Grindhouse" bombed hard at the box office means that Roth has already gotten the last laugh here.