A holiday title with a horror vibe in November is like an extension of the Halloween season (even though the holiday has passed). Thanksgiving is a film that takes some of the real nightmares of the holidays and multiplies them by ten. Director Eli Roth is known for frequent grotesque scenes in his movies, yet with Thanksgiving he takes this to a new level. However, it is unfortunately one riddled with redundancies and inconsistencies. The film is set in Plymouth Massachusetts where the Thanksgiving holiday is a big deal for this small town. The intimate sense of community heightens the horror of what is about to take place. Although it takes place on Black Friday, it still feels like a Halloween slasher made with the bloody violence as the main form of entertainment with little story content. However, in this instance, it is not so enticing for the moviegoer. It ends up feeling more disgusting than inviting. Imagine the Scream franchise with its additional ingredients being Black Friday terrors and aftermaths. That is what the Thanksgiving experience is under the direction of Roth feels like and it is nothing more than mediocre.

Plymouth, Massachusetts is the supposed birthplace of the Thanksgiving holiday, as the first pilgrims were said to have landed and established their colony there. Ironically, now Black Friday sales are in full swing there at a store called Straight Market. The frenzy of the sale causes a riot where people end up dead or severely injured. A night of holiday shopping that turns into extreme violence as people get killed over silly items for sale. The many horrors of Black Friday spiral downhill in Thanksgiving. After the events at the Straight Market, a killer who wears a John Carver mask and is dressed as a pilgrim starts killing individuals one-by-one. Those who are killed are ones associated with the riots at the store. Teenagers are targeted and must figure out the pattern to halt the killer’s next victim. Those teens are Ryan (played by Milo Manheim), Gabby (played by Addison Rae), Jessica (played by Nell Verlaque), Evan (played by Tomaso Sanelli) and Bobby (played by Jalen Thomas Brooks). There are others involved but these individuals seem to be most important to the pattern of the killer. The town law officer is Sheriff Newton (played by Patrick Dempsey). As the slaughter continues with the masked killer in bizarre places at bizarre moments a link forms to the riot from the previous year of the Black Friday sale. A sale that went awry and stirs the pot for new terror, danger and deaths. This becomes an experience of repetitiveness of grotesqueness that is not so appealing and leaves the viewer unimpressed.

Roth is a director who likes to push the limits of violence, but more attention needs to be given to an engaging storyline over simply tossing around scenes of pure gore. The brutality of Thanksgiving is just a bore. It is not new, it is not much of an amazing experience, and it is poorly written and directed. It does perhaps give one pause to give into the urge of Black Friday shopping this holiday season. The addition of a killer to the holiday shopping spree was not scripted well to the extent that it did not lend an aura of excitement. It simply delivered graphic kills, unexpected discoveries, and continued to lack in the qualities of what a horror film should be—a eerily joyful experience. The mind of Roth has got some clever ideas, but it is focused too much on grossing his audiences out rather than inviting them into a world of amazement.

One of my least favorite films with the slasher vibe this year. With too many moments of stupidity and poor approaches, Thanksgiving is not much of a fun holiday experience. It is not funny or even astonishing, it is most unfortunately disappointing. Two out of four stars for this one.