Basted
Director Eli Roth sticks a fork in Mayflower mythology and brings new meaning to white meat with his hilariously gory ‘Thanksgiving’.
Thanksgiving
Director: Eli Roth • Writer: Jeff Rendell, Eli Roth
Starring: Patrick Dempsey, Nell Verlaque, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Rick Hoffman, Tomaso Sanelli, Gabriel Davenport, Milo Manheim, Addison Rae, Karen Cliche
USA • 1hrs 46mins
Opens Hong Kong November 16 • III
Grade: B+
No one escapes writer-director Eli Roth’s bullseye in Thanksgiving, a gloriously gory, snarky romp through what many consider the biggest holiday of the year in the US. I know, right? It’s not Christmas? Nope. Americans prefer their Thanksgiving holiday for fighting with family and indulging in a tryptophan overdose (for those who are unaware: Canadians celebrate the harvest during the actual harvest month, October, and recognise murdering our native people and stealing their land in other ways, thanks very much). It’s a peculiar holiday that unofficially denotes the start of the Christmas season, so for some here in Hong Kong bits of the film will elicit no more than a “Huh?” Thanksgiving is very Massachusetts, very Walmart, very manifest destiny. It’s all New England accents and reverence of pilgrims and lily white history. But it’s also a classic holiday-based slasher, replete with gruesome kills, creative gore, and stellar practical effects, wrapped in a gleefully nasty, frequently hilarious package. American or not, familiar with turkey day or not, Thanksgiving works as horror satire, and fans of Roth the producer-director – the mastermind behind horror touchstones (or cinema scourge depending on your POV) Hostel, Cabin Fever, the forthcoming Borderlands – will be pleased he’s behind the camera again. This is bloody good fun.
So much white meat
Thanksgiving – itself based on the faux trailer Roth made for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grind House – opens with a Black Friday stampede at the Walmart-esque RightMart in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the town named for the famed rock English settlers getting off the Mayflower used as a demarcation line in 1620. Owned by pillar of the community Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman), he’s convinced by his new wife Kathleen (Karen Cliche) to open for the biggest shopping day of the year, and the rush to buy shit leaves a security guard, a random shopper looking for a cheap waffle iron, and store manager Mitch’s wife and Sheriff Newland’s (sexiest man alive, Patrick Dempsey, a title he shares with luminous hotties Nick Nolte and Mel Gibson) best friend (Gina Gershon) dead. Also murdered in the store riot are the hopes and dreams of star college pitcher Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks), which died when his arm was broken.
In classic horror fashion, one year later, RightMart is getting ready for another sale, much to the chagrin of Final Girl Jessica (Nell Verlaque), who’s pissed Thomas is trying to pretend nothing happened and still feels guilty about Bobby’s busted arm. You see, that night her jock buddy Evan (Tomaso Sanelli) needed a phone (?) and she snuck him, Bobby, and her friends Gabby (TikTok personality Addison Rae), Scuba (Gabriel Davenport), and Yulia (Jenna Warren) into the store before it officially opened. She’s not the only one with feels: someone dressed like Mayflower pilgrim John Carver is running around murdering those they think are responsible for the store catastrophe.
Thanksgiving is a slasher film, and Roth understands the form as well as any, so there are lots of tropes to play with and conventions to subvert. Sure, he and co-writer Jeff Rendell roll out a string of prime suspects – Bobby, Wright, Newland, Jessica’s new, petty BF Ryan (Milo Manheim), Mitch – and veteran horror hounds are going to figure it out right away. But the joys of Thanksgiving are in the little digs and casual snark that make it a better, smarter slasher entry than most. Ryan knocking Bobby’s comforting jacket off Jessica’s shoulders, a “sensitive” student wiping his tears for Native Americans away with his t-shirt and flashing perfect abs, gun nuts, a turkey timer, foul-mouthed Massachusetts folk (Amanda Barker’s diner waitress Lizzie is a treat), and above all the steady piss-take of Mayflower mythologising conspire for a genuinely fun time. Roth has never been one to shy away from gore, so brace for impact on this one. It earns its Cat III rating with more than a few “Oh, damn!” moments. Much of what’s in the pretend trailer makes it into the real film (wisely minus a few unsavoury gags that don’t work as well now as they did in 2007), including a heightened parade of doom. Glorious. It’s also a rare Thanksgiving horror flick, a holiday that ranks with Hanukkah for Hollywood disregard of mass murder opportunities. Any time, Eli. — DEK