1 year, 4 months ago

Review: For ‘Thanksgiving,’ Eli Roth serves up a feature-length feast of gore, some of it stale

Gather ’round the table, horror fans, because Eli Roth is finally serving up his long-gestating holiday feast: the seasonal slasher movie “Thanksgiving.” The idea for this film got rolling some 16 years ago with the 2007 Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature “Grindhouse,” in which Roth and his longtime friend Jeff Rendell cooked up a joke trailer inspired by their love of themed horror movies and a Massachusetts childhood spent just down the road from Plymouth, the site of the first Thanksgiving. When horror fans first got their eyes on the “Thanksgiving” trailer, it sparked a fervent appetite for the whole meal, but with the full film finally hitting theaters after 16 years of discussion and development, it proves the adage — also true for Thanksgiving meals — that there can be too much of a good thing. “Thanksgiving” doesn’t try to deconstruct the genre — its only self-reflection comes with the requisite references — but the characters are thinly written, lacking motivation, and the central mystery is hopelessly muddled. It might taste good for a bite or two, but Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” isn’t a full meal.

LA Times
Horror Thanksgiving Jessica Roth Eli Roth

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