Eli Roth really loves the color red. Cabin Fever was a very red movie and Thanksgiving is a very very red movie too. You might think I’m talking about blood, which I am, but there are other reds in this movie too. Just lots and lots of red.
Thanksgiving is a 2023 movie that takes place on the third Thursday of the year. That’s pretty specific I know. It takes place in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts but you wouldn’t know that because only one character has a regional accent. The people of Plymouth, MA celebrate a holiday where the pilgrims settled there; so they all dress up as John Carver and eat lots of turkey. Also shopping. Shopping is pretty big on a day that they call “Black Friday” (though if Eli Roth had his way it would be “Red Friday” and happen every single day).
On one “Black Friday” at a movie stand-in for Walmart, there was a big sale on Thanksgiving and people died. It’s actually an amazing sequence that is wonderfully done. Of course, there is lots of red. People get stepped on and cut up and the angry lesbian from Showgirls is scalped. A year later, someone in the town remembers this horrific event and starts killing a lot of the people involved.
Thanksgiving is a slasher movie – which is basically a murder mystery with lots and lots of gory deaths. And I mean they are very bloody. Just insane amounts of blood. People bleed out more blood than is actually inside of a human body. I know from reading a science book one time that the average length of a human small intestine is 23 feet long – but this movie shows you all of that: all 23 feet of human intestines, MORE THAN ONCE.
When I say that there is lots of red in this movie, I mean that it’s not just the blood, and it’s not just the red clothes people wear in the movie. You know how in murder mysteries there is a character that you are absolutely sure is the killer and everything points to them being the killer, but it’s false – just throwing you off. There is a term for that, I can’t remember it, Red Fish or something. This movie has a lot of Red Fish in it. Eli Roth loves the color red. Then, at one point in the movie, a couple of characters start speaking Russian. I don’t know what that was about.
I really enjoyed the movie though. My children did not like it at all, not one bit. I should not have taken them to see Thanksgiving. Even when we were going into the theater people were like “Are you sure that you should be taking your kids to see Thanksgiving.” But I was like “Isn’t Thanksgiving a holiday for families? I don’t get what you are talking about.” Even the person selling us popcorn was like “You shouldn’t take your kids to see this movie,” and I was yelling, “Don’t you tell me how to raise my kids. Don’t you talk to me about movies, Popcorn Man, I have my own movie blog. I know what I’m doing.” Their popcorn tasted like pee anyway.
Thanksgiving is a good movie. You should see it. Especially if you are like Eli Roth and like the color red. But do not take your children. The movie is rated R for Red.
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