Thanksgiving: Movie Review

Cast: Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Rick Hoffman, Patrick Dempsey, Gina Gershon, Milo Manheim

Director: Eli Roth

Expanded out from a 2007 faux trailer within the Grindhouse movies, Eli Roth's Thanksgiving offers enough gore and genre thrills - if you're in on the joke.

Set in Plymouth, Massachussetts, Thanksgiving follows a group of teens caught up in the aftermath of a Walmart-style store riot on Thanksgiving. But when it appears a killer is targeting those who were in the store and wreaked havoc, a desperate race against time begins to unmask the killer before it's too late.

It's hard to recommend Thanksgiving without your tongue being firmly in your cheek.

With its mix of entrails, cheesy kills and awfully obvious dialogue, Thanksgiving zeroes in on the horror of the holidays, the greed of consumerism and the absolute cynicism that underpins the tradition full stop.

Yet while the Pilgrim-masked Carver feels like a boogeyman for the times with his blank unexpressive face, the same can't really be said for some of the script that drops characters without warning after building them up.

Sure, it's a case of misdirection and essentially most of the audience is only here for the kills, but long-term plotting of Roth's massacre feels like it's going more for the cheaper end of the spectrum rather than something for the ages.

It's not so much a turkey, but perhaps a lot of its target audience may not be as au fait with the original trailer as would be expected, something which could harm Thanksgiving's long term box office.

If you're already over the holiday season and are gorged enough on all the trimmings, it offers enough of a diversion to satiate - but don't expect it to offer long term thrills, unless you're aware of the genre and its limitations.