106 min | R | November 17, 2023 | TriStar Pictures
A Black Friday sale at a Plymouth superstore turns into a deadly stampede. One year later a killer in a pilgrim mask starts carving up the townspeople who caused it. Eli Roth finally turns a fake trailer he made years ago into the real thing.
A Black Friday doorbuster at a Plymouth superstore becomes a stampede that kills shoppers. One year later a killer dressed as the pilgrim John Carver begins murdering the people connected to that night. Eli Roth builds his slasher around the town of Plymouth and the holiday it claims to honor. The film is about American consumption in both senses of the word. It targets the people who trample each other for a discount and the culture that turned a harvest feast into a sales event. The kills build toward a literal Thanksgiving dinner, and the metaphor never strains because Roth never pretends it is anything but a grindhouse picture.
Patrick Dempsey plays Sheriff Eric Newlon with a steady calm that anchors the chaos around him. He works the investigation as the suspect list grows, and Dempsey keeps the character grounded while the body count climbs. Nell Verlaque plays Jessica Wright, the daughter of the store owner and the film’s center of gravity. She carries the guilt of the stampede and the fear of being next, and Verlaque makes both legible. Addison Rae plays Gabriella Hearts and Milo Manheim plays Ryan Baker as members of the friend group the killer hunts. Jalen Thomas Brooks plays Bobby Di Stasi, the ex-boyfriend who returns to town under suspicion, and gives the mystery its most useful red herring.
Roth directs from a script by Jeff Rendell, his longtime collaborator who co-created the original faux trailer the two made years ago. The practical effects do the heavy lifting. Roth stages each kill with a butcher’s attention to anatomy, and the camera holds on the gore long enough to register the craft behind it. The production design leans into the holiday at every turn, from the parade floats to the dinner table the killer sets in the final act. The editing paces the whodunit between the set pieces, and the structure borrows openly from the slasher template it loves. Roth knows the rules and follows them with affection rather than irony.
Thanksgiving works because it commits to its own joke without winking too hard. The satire of Black Friday is broad, but the film earns it by showing the riot as genuinely ugly before the killing starts. Roth has made a holiday slasher that respects the form and delivers what the form promises. It does not reinvent the genre and does not try to. It sets a table, invites the audience, and serves exactly what it advertises.