Thanksgiving is a new slasher horror movie directed by Eli Roth. The film follows a group of friends trying to escape the “Thanksgiving Killer” after a horrible incident breaks out at a Black Friday sale. When trailers had been released, the movie looked campy and absurd, and it was exactly that. It was clear that the films intentions were to go for shock value, considering the immense amounts of heinously gory kills. Eli Roth has created a handful of films, most of them not being critically acclaimed. He is most commonly known for his iconic role as Sergeant Donny in Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.” Thanksgiving had originally been expected to fail as a movie, however, the movie actually resulted in high ratings and overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Thanksgiving clearly takes plentiful inspiration from the classic slasher movies of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The film had adapted criteria slasher traits, such as a teenage friend group with a final girl, gory kill scenes, and a revenge driven villain.
This criteria is the basic rules of the slasher movies genre, adapted over time. If a character is full of themselves, like a jock or a “popular kid,”then that will always amount to certain death. Almost the entirety of the movie is to be set in a small isolated town, with a masked killer harassing a group of people, usually teenagers. Lastly, these movies always have a satisfying end with the most likable character coming out on top.
Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) is considered by many to be the first slasher film to pop up, beginning the craze over slashers, even though the film does not contain many of the slasher traits. After the 60s, the genre became more popular, with hits like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper), and what is considered to be the most successful slasher movie of all time, Halloween (1978, John Carpenter). Slasher’s reached their ultimate peak during the 80s, with unforgettable films like Friday The 13th (1980, Sean S. Cunningham), Sleepaway Camp (1983, Robert Hiltzik), and of course A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven). As we reach the 90s, the genre had begun to die down slowly, but nobody could discount the infamous Scream (1996, Wes Craven), alongside I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997, Jim Gillespie) and the incredible Candyman (1992, Bernard Rose).
Closer to the present, slashers have begun to fall out of favor. After the climax of the slasher craze, the genre became stale to the public and many filmmakers became less interested in making these movies. Most slashers today are prequels or sequels to successful slashers from the past, like Halloween, which has thirteen movies in its franchise, most of them being unsuccessful. Slashers becoming absorbed in sequels has added even more restrictions to an already restrictive genre.
When Thanksgiving was released, the similarities from the classic slashers from the past were so recognizable that it brought back a sense of nostalgia. The film understood its campiness and embraced it, with the product being a shocking and hilarious success. As cheesy and silly the genre may be, a good slasher can always cut the audience with a good kill.
