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How 'Thanksgiving' Uses Black Friday as the Perfect Slasher Set-Up
Eli Roth's holiday horror outing ousts capitalism with pointed satire.
Nov 29, 2024
On paper, it's crazy that Eli Roth'sThanksgivingexists. It's even crazier that it's any good. In fact, its gravy-fueled good time.
What started as a goofy parody sizzle trailer for Grindhouse was adapted into a feature last year and is arguably one of the most fun, best written slasher movies we've gotten in a long time. Considering horror movies are in a bit of a (dare I say) Golden Age with the likes of A24, Neon, and Blumhouse producing frequent notable hits, this is a high accolade. When I first saw the trailer for Thanksgiving, I'll admit I was skeptical. It seemed like a silly cash grab without much merit, but I'm happy to admit that wasn't the case.
Was it very silly? Absolutely. But it was silly with a wink, using the simple set-up of "slasher villain in a generic John Carver mask" to an elevated blast. Part of why it works so well is in it's opening scene portraying a Black Friday riot inciting the motive for its masked killer.
Below, let's revisit this scene and dissect how Thanksgiving established itself as a Thanksgiving movie that deserves our attention.
Analyzing the 'Thanksgiving' Black Friday Riot
It goes without saying that all great slasher movies have an air of social commentary. Whether it's the subtle punishment of youth and sex in '80s fair such as Halloweenand Friday the 13th (as elegantly evaluated in Carol J. Clover's must-read Men, Women, and Chain Saws), or even satirizing the genre itself with classics like Scream, slashers with depth stand the test of time above all the slashing and slicing on the surface level.
Thanksgiving knows its goofy, and uses its goofy premise in a smart and fun way from the outright with a cartoonishly greedy caricature of the Right Mart CEO eating dinner with his family that then cuts (eek) to a cartoonishly angry mob outside of the cartoonishly titled Walmart surrogate Right Mart. Before our John Carver suited antagonist is even properly introduced, Eli Roth delivers one of the most horrific scenes in the movie with a gnarly, graphic deception of this Black Friday crowd ruthlessly inciting several deaths at the will of their rush for some deals.
The scene is hard to watch, and well-executed on a filmmaking level as a scene that sets the table for a slasher movie with a purpose. Much like how Halloween and Scream set the vibe in their cold opens, Thanksgiving uses the most horrific elements of Thanksgiving to validate its existence and make a statement immediately, lending itself a jumping off point for the simple, basic premise it promises in its title alone.
Halloween does this with the POV of Young Michael stalking his sister and punishing her for sex. Scream does this by setting the rules of the movie, introducing a villain that is very horror movie conscious, and subverting our expectations by killing off who we assume will be the final girl in Drew Barrymore's Casey before we even get a chance to really know her. Thanksgiving? How about some satire commenting on the horrors of capitalism and how it inspires cruelty.
Now that's some smart horror filmmaking, and we love that here.
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