Thanksgiving (2023) Review

 "If we let the police handle this, we're all gonna be 50% off."

-Evan

One year after a tragic riot at a department store, people involved in the tragedy start being murdered by someone dressed as a pilgrim.  The daughter of the owner of the store, Jessica Wright (Nell Verlaque), has to face off against the killer before they all end up carved like turkeys.

What Works:

Thanksgiving is a love-letter to holiday themed slasher movies from the 70's and 80's and this movie does so many things right where those movies failed, and that's why I like it so much.  This is a slasher done correctly.

These types of movies typically have some sort of small-town holiday tragedy, which ends up being the catalyst for the main plot of the movie.  In a lot of these films, that initial tragedy isn't shown or we only see a bit of it.  It's usually something that is told to us in exposition.  Not in Thanksgiving.  The opening tragedy is a classic Black Friday shopping riot.  It introduces us to most of our cast before getting nice and gory.  It's a very fun sequence with a few awesome kills.  This is the perfect way to kick things off and it does a great job of setting the tone and establishing most of the characters.

Next, you want to have holiday themed kills.  That's what we're all here to see in a slasher like this.  Thanksgiving has plenty of creative kills and most of them have a holiday twist.  Even the ones that don't have a particular Thanksgiving twist are fun and gory.  We get some absolutely gnarly kills that make this a lot of fun to watch.

I think most slasher movies should be whodunnits.  Scream is the best example and Thanksgiving takes a few notes from the Scream playbook, which is always a good thing.  There are plenty of suspects and lots of red herrings that makes this a fun film to try and guess who the killer is.  

Finally, this movie really does a good job with the setting.  That's the last step to making your holiday slasher stand out.  They use Plymouth and the pilgrim killer perfectly.  The movie has a few cool locations and the Massachusetts setting lets the film have a lot of over-the-top Boston characters and accents.  It felt like I was watching The Departed.  The movie embraces what it is and I really appreciate that.

What Sucks:

You'll notice in my paragraph about the opening riot that it does a good job of establishing most of our characters.  Emphasis on most.  Some of the teenage characters definitely blend together.  Another scene or two or just a line of dialogue here or there would have done wonders to help differentiate a few of these characters.  They don't need to be fully fleshed out, but it'd be nice to be able to tell them apart.

Finally, the editing could have been tighter, especially in the runup to the finale.  We cut from a chase through the woods and end up at a warehouse.  They way it's edited feels like we're missing a scene.  It doesn't make a ton of sense the way it is.  The script could have been tightened up in a few places.

Verdict:

It's not perfect, but Thanksgiving is one of the best holiday-themed slashers out there.  It nails most of the important stuff with an amazing opening tragedy, fun and gory kills, solid whodunnit elements, and a great use of the setting.  Some of the characters are definitely on the thin side and some of the writing and editing could have been tightened up, but Thanksgiving has definitely got it going on and I'm up for seconds!

 8/10: Really Good