This holiday season... prepare to have the stuffing scared out of you.
"This Thanksgiving, there will be no leftovers!"
Thanksgiving is a 2023 Teen Slasher Movie directed by Eli Roth based upon his fake trailer for the double feature film Grindhouse, making it the third fake trailer from that movie to be adapted into a full film after Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun. The film stars Patrick Dempsey, Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Milo Manheim, and Gina Gershon.
In the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the fourth Thursday of November is the most celebrated day of the year. The table is set, the festivities have begun. But this year, the town finds itself under siege from a most uninvited guest; a killer in a pilgrim mask, who's coming after those who were involved in a tragedy on Black Friday the year prior, as well as anyone who gets in his way. White meat, dark meat... all will be carved.
The film premiered November 17, 2023, just in time for the titular holiday. A sequel is in development for a 2025 release.
Previews: Teaser Trailer, Trailer #1.
Thanksgiving includes examples of the following:
- Agony of the Feet: Amy the cheerleader, as opposed to landing on the Carver's knife crotch first like the short, instead lands feet first onto it.
- All There in the Manual: The history of John Carver, whose face is the inspiration for the mask used by several townspeople for Thanksgiving celebrations and the killer himself, is expanded upon in a promotional short: The founder of the colony of Plymouth, John Carver was accused of murdering several pilgrims, who had been mysteriously “marked” with scratches. Some people claims that he’s still haunts Plymouth.
- Alone with the Psycho: Happens twice.
- Kathleen wakes up in John Carver's basement while the killer is "preparing" her to be incinerated in the oven. She does a pretty good job evading him and even makes it out the front door before Carver recaptures and kills her.
- While in the office with Sheriff Newlon, Jessica notices that debris like that which stuck to her clothing in the woods while escaping the Carver's house is also on Newlon's pants leg and boots, and realizes that he's the killer.
- And Starring: And Gina Gershon.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Zigzagged; When the Carver executes Evan on livestream by beating his head into a pulp with a meat tenderizer, everyone tied up and forced to witness the event at the table are horrified, but the people on the livestream post several happy emojis afterwards.
- Asshole Victim: The vast majority of people John Carver targets are one of these, with various degrees of responsibility for a riot that left three people dead and many injured.
- Lizzie the waitress was one of the most aggressive rioters, killing Amanda with her shopping cart and not even noticing what she'd done. John Carver takes her out first, and displays her corpse on the store's sign to signal the beginning of his killing spree.
- Lonnie is an obnoxious jerk who helps instigate the riot. He later gets gets killed via Neck Snap.
- Jessica's stepmother Kathleen is a selfish, uncaring woman who deleted the security footage of the riot, ensuring that no one would face legal consequences. She is ultimately burned to death in the killer's oven.
- Evan was by far the most obnoxious about taunting the crowd outside the superstore, and refused to stop recording with his phone even as the tragedy unfolded and his own friends were hurt, thinking only of social media likes. A year later, he never showed a bit of remorse and got angry when the other characters acted like he should. He was also a general bullying asshole in his daily life, referring to Ryan as an "NPC" and forcing a smaller student to write essays for him, then denying that student his promised pay.
- For that matter, the smaller student, Jacob, gives Evan an essay plagiarized from something his own teacher wrote, likely knowing he wasn't going to pay up. Evan is left completely humiliated after reading it aloud in class, and may have been about to be suspended for plagiarism if he hadn't been killed before it could happen.
- Downplayed with Yulia and her father. While Yulia came off as bratty and was one of the kids who insisted on going into the superstore, she's never shown doing anything as nasty as the victims above and spends most of the riot hiding and fending off attackers. Her father also comes off as pretty rude and abrasive, but when he learns his daughter is being targeted by a killer, he immediately tries to get her out of the state, and his final moments before being tranqed by Carver are trying to warn Yulia that the killer is in their home.
- Downplayed with Manny the security guard as well. While he did run away when the Black Friday riot started, and the only other security guard got killed, there wasn't anything he could really do as security was severely understaffed and he might have gotten killed by the mob himself. One could understand why he ran away. That doesn't stop the Carver from targeting and killing him for failing to protect Amanda though.
- In hindsight, Amanda is a downplayed example as it's revealed that she was cheating on Mitch with Sheriff Newlon, who also reveals that she was going to leave her husband when she found out that she was pregnant with his child. Still, compared to the other horrible people targeted, she's by no means the worst.
- Attack of the Town Festival: Implied when Thomas wants to hold another Black Friday sale after the previous one turned deadly, but he eventually changes his mind. Played straight for the actual festival, when Jessica suggests using it to lure the killer into a trap. Too bad she was telling it with the killer in the same room.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: Played for laughs, when McCarty recklessly fires a blunderbuss in the air after the football between Plymouth and Hanover is cancelled because he still wanted to fire the gun; his father subsequently berates him for his actions.
- Audience Surrogate: after the Carver kills Evan on livestream with a meat tenderizer, several happy emojis fill the screen, alluding to some members of the audience who were waiting to see that asshole get his. Later on, when Jessica uses the same phone to expose the killer, a glimpse of the screen shows a bunch of shocked and horrified emojis, again alluding to audience members’ reactions to the killer’s unmasking.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Evan is an attention-seeking clout chaser who is happy to film anything as long as it gets him Internet fame, including the Thanksgiving riot. He gets far more than he bargained for when John Carver livestreams a mock Thanksgiving dinner with him and the other captives to a live audience. John Carver lampshades this before braining Evan with a meat tenderizer.
- Berserk Button: McCarty will kick you off his property if you don't know what Black Sabbath is.
- Big Bad: John Carver, the pilgrim-masked slasher targeting everyone responsible for the Black Friday tragedy the year prior. He is, in fact, Sheriff Newlon, seeking revenge for the death of a woman he was having an affair with when she died while she was pregnant with his baby.
- Black Dude Dies First: Zig-zagged. One of the first deaths in the film is Doug, the Black security guard. However, Scuba, the primary Black character, survives, while the guy in the turkey suit who Carver kills during the parade is.
- Bloody Hilarious: While overall a serious film, there are some gory moments that veer into so over-the-top that it becomes comical.
- During the riot, one of the shoppers gets his jugular vein slashed by a piece of broken glass but is seen mid-riot still trying to claim his free waffle iron right up until he dies.
- After briefly escaping into an office, Lizzie tries to use her phone to call for help and struggles to unlock her phone because of the blood. She tries to use facial recognition to bypass this, which fails because of her injuries. This is darkly comic in and of itself, without the constant focus on the perfectly good landline phone right there in front of her on the desk.
- During the parade, a crash results in a driver getting a pole driven graphically through his head. The movie repeatedly cuts back to the two girls in the passenger seat screaming while blood spurts everywhere, in a moment of Crossing the Line Twice.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Evan is murdered when The Carver bashes his head open with a large meat tenderizer.
- Camera Spoofing: The Carver seems to be doing a livestream of Jessica and the other people on his hitlist, which sends the Sheriff's department and other cops on his trail. However, when the cops arrive, it's revealed the stream is in fact a cell phone being pointed toward a computer monitor showing the actual stream.
- Chase Scene: Jessica is pursued by The Carver through the school after he tries to trap and kill her. She hides amongst the mannequin heads in one of the rooms and manages to escape by spraying him with hairspray.
- Later, Kathleen wakes up while The Carver is "preparing" her for the dinner in his lair, and manages to narrowly avoid him several times during an intense stalk-and-chase sequence, before being impaled with a pitchfork (after just escaping the house) and being recaptured, cooked alive in the oven.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The ring McCarty gave Jessica is said to just be basically a good luck charm, but after she is captured by the Carver, she discovers the ring has a small blade in it, which she uses to free herself and Scuba.
- Jessica's charm bracelet, which includes a picture of her dead mother and herself as a baby; in the final confrontation, when Jessica is only armed with a blunderbuss (another Chekhok's Gun, literally) and has lost the musket balls, she uses the bracelet as replacement ammunition.
- Chekhov's Skill:
- Bobby is noted to be an ace pitcher for his baseball team; he ends up rescuing Jessica by beaning the killer in the head with a hard pitch.
- Jessica mentions that she learned how to load and fire a musket for one of her father's commercials, a skill that comes in handy when the killer attacks in the climax.
- Christmas Creep: Pretty strongly averted. Thanksgiving is an event in its own right, with stores putting on ads and displays for Thanksgiving foods and the town holding a parade, with not a sign of Christmas overtaking it in sight. This is justified, as Sheriff Newlon says that Thanksgiving is "an institution in this town".
- If anything, the opening scene acts as a Deconstruction of this, as several people are frustrated that they or their family members have to work on such a beloved holiday because Black Friday sales start earlier than in the past, and the shopping craze leads to tragedy both that night and the following year.
- Crazy-Prepared: Since the killer knew that Thomas, Kathleen & Jessica would be evacuated to a safe car after they struck during the parade, they have a flash-bang grenade in addition to smoke grenades that they used to cause panic amongst the parade-watchers.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Out of all the murders, easily the worst is Kathleen's: shoved alive into an oven and burned to death. To add insult to injury, her cooked corpse is decapitated and desecrated to look like a Thanksgiving turkey, then presented to her family.
- Darker and Edgier: The original trailer in Grindhouse was a gory Affectionate Parody of 1980s slasher films, with absurd moments like randomly placed decapitations and a scene at the end featuring the killer humping a cooked turkey. The actual film, however, has a much more serious tone; the kills are more brutal and aren't played for laughs and the plot's catalyst is a riot during Black Friday that killed three people and injured many others including one of the main characters, which is taken fairly seriously.
- Death by Irony: OH DEAR GOD, so many examples...
- Lizzie was one of the two who accidentally rammed Amanda in the head with a shopping cart and ended up taking off a piece of her scalp with a cart wheel. She ends up getting some of her cheek and finger skin ripped off against the cold freezer door before the dumpster she tried to jump into was rammed against by John Carver driving her own car against it, killing her.
- Somewhat a downplayed example, but like with the original Black Friday riot, Manny attempted to run away. Of course, John Carver had a feeling that would happen and made sure he didn't run away, by way of an electric turkey carver and wire rope.
- Most on point was Kathleen bragging to Newlon about making up Thanksgiving dinner. Guess who makes up the main dish for John Carver's dinner?
- Evan kept filming stuff on his phone during the riot, which went viral and wasn't exactly subtle about things. Something John Carver personally takes into mind when filming himself bashing Evan's entire head into mush with a meat tenderizer, down to even lampshading about "No one appreciates subtlety anymore..."
- Death of a Child: Amanda was pregnant when she died in the riot.
- Detective Mole: John Carver always seems to be one step ahead of everyone, because he's Sheriff Newlon. This allows him to shut down the historic Carver House to create an isolated lair, keep tabs on all the potential victims, know about the parade plan, and send law enforcement on various wild-goose chases to keep them out of his way.
- Dirty Coward: Manny, the security guard who bails when the riot begins at RightMart. For all of his bravado at his home, John Carver takes him out pretty easily.
- Downer Beginning: The film starts with the infamous Black Friday Riot at the local RightMart the previous year, that left at least three people dead and hundreds more injured during the riot.
- Ear Ache: After Yulia finishes cleaning her ears with cotton swabs, the killer sneaks into her room and stabs her in both of the ears with corn holders. It not only deafens her but destroys her sense of balance so she can't run away.
- The End... Or Is It?: Sheriff Newlon is believed to have died in the explosion; however, Jessica suspects one of the firemen wearing a mask is possibly him and her nightmares in the end suggest she thinks he is still out there.
- Engineered Public Confession: When Sheriff Newlon talks about his motivations as the killer to Jessica, she records the video live on the same smartphone John Carver had used to broadcast his activities to his own audience.
- Even Evil Has Standards: John Carver is a brutal psychopathic killer out to take out those involved with the Black Friday riot. That said, he doesn't kill Manny's cat after slicing his head off. In fact, he even makes sure to feed and pet the little guy before leaving the scene. He also makes the effort to only tranquilise those who are not on his kill list but are in his way, like Yulia's father, Labelle and another officer.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Jessica made it clear that she did not like her stepmother Kathleen, but she was as horrified as everyone else when the Carver served her cooked corpse.
- Also, while Jessica and her friends didn't really like Evan, they were horrified when the Carver caved his skull in.
- Evil All Along: The Carver is revealed to be the seemingly kindly Sheriff Newlon, out for revenge for the death of his lover and unborn child in the Black Friday riot.
- Evil Wears Black: Like in the fake trailer, the killer is clad in black.
- Fan Disservice: A lot of attention is lavished on Kathleen's body, especially her face, legs, and feet… as the killer is prepping her for the main course of his Thanksgiving dinner, and later as she's being roasted alive in the oven.
- Fanservice Extra: Amy the cheerleader. While she was present at the Black Friday riot with her boyfriend Lonnie, her main contribution is to recreate the trampoline scene from the fake trailer, in which she arouses Lonnie (and some of the audience) by removing her underwear from under her skirt and showing off her bare butt.
- Final Girl: Jessica has all of the hallmarks of this, although several other characters survive, including Ryan.
- Foreshadowing: After the essay fiasco, Scuba jokes that Evan might just killed before being suspended for plagiarism. And that's exactly what happens.
- Genre Savvy: Upon realizing Yulia is being targeted by the Carver, her father's immediate reaction is to take her out of state. Unfortunately, the Carver gets to them right before they can leave.
- Guns Do Not Work That Way: McCarty gives Scuba a SIG-Sauer P226 and puts it on the safety so that Scuba doesn't shoot himself by accident. This screws over Scuba later when he has a clear shot to take out the Carver, but forgets to take off the safety, leading to Yulia's death. However, a real P226 doesn't have a safety; the closest thing it has is a decocker, which only uncocks the hammer and switches the gun to double action note . In other words, Scuba should've still been able to fire the gun. Though, it's possible that McCarty gave him one of the single action only variants of the P226, but it's unlikely one of those would appear in a movie armory.
- Gun Nut: McCarty, the local arms dealer, is a somewhat positive example. He's rather loud and abrasive at times (especially if you press his Berserk Button), but he's perfectly willing to offer Jessica and Scuba some of his guns and hidden knives for protection without payment after Evan and Gaby are kidnapped. Later before the parade, McCarty even gives Jessica a simple-looking ring he says is for good luck, which she thanks him for and accepts. As it turns out, it too has a hidden blade which helps her and Scuba escape from John Carver's binds during his Thanksgiving dinner.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: The killer uses a car to smash into a dumpster that Lizzie was frantically trying to jump into, causing it to shut and bisect them. The lower torso is placed over the RightMart sign to announce the killer's presence (and as a sick reference to the "50% Off" Black Friday sale).
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Evan hires another student to write essays for him, then denies him payment and bullies him into it instead. The other student gives him an "essay" that was copied directly from the teacher's blog. It's even implied that the other student gave Evan one last chance by writing two essays; if Evan had paid him his due, he would have given Evan a real essay.
- Hollywood Silencer: The tranquilizer gun used by the Carver makes high-pitched “pew-pew” noises as if it was silenced.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: As the trailer shows, it's Thanksgiving and the whole town is decorated for it - including the killer.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: When the Mayflower float driver is forced to suddenly brake due to the stilt-walker falling onto his hood, the unsecured ship slides forward and the prow ends up punching through his head.
- Innocently Insensitive: Thomas refuses to close RightMart on the one-year anniversary of the riot, which prompts massive backlash from people accusing him of being greedy. It turns out he was just throwing himself into his work to deal with the pain of his wife's death but didn't consider how insensitive he was being until being called out on it by multiple people including Jessica. note
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: McCarty is an obnoxious Gun Nut who happily sells alcohol and firearms to teenagers, but he's nice enough to let Scuba and Jessica borrow some of his weapons free of charge. He even gives Jessica a ring he claims is a good luck charm - and also has a hidden blade on it.
- Jerk Jock: Basically Evan's entire character. He's oddly obsessive about the "jock" part of it, screaming that he's going to play anyway, by himself if need be, when the football game against a rival school is cancelled.
- Also the rival player from Hanover that Evan gives a black eye before the movie begins. The one who actually triggers the riot.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Because Kathleen deleted the security footage, none of the participants in the Black Friday riot face any repercussions, even though three people got killed. That is until a year later when the Carver starts killing some of the major offenders. Kathleen herself gets probably the most gruesome death in the entire film.
- Killer Cop: The Carver is actually Sheriff Newlon.
- Kill It with Ice: The Carver is introduced dunking a waitress into a sink full of water then sticking her onto an open freezer door, seemingly intending to freeze her to death. Ultimately, he just leaves her stuck there as he goes to get his axe, allowing her to escape by tearing herself away.
- Lack of Empathy: Kathleen spends the movie being self-absorbed and uncaring of how the riot impacted people including her own stepdaughter. When Thomas agrees to close the store on Thanksgiving, she seems more annoyed at him instead of worried that people are being murdered. Though she, at least, has the decency to be horrified at the Carver keeping a barely-alive Amy in his fridge, and assures her that she'll come back and get help.
- Large Ham: Once the Carver's true identity is revealed, Sheriff Newlon immediately starts chewing scenery.
- Lighter and Softer: Zig-zagged. The tone of the movie is Darker and Edgier than the campy Grindhouse trailer invoking a classic slasher film vibe, but it changes or removes some of the more raunchy elements; the cheerleader on the trampoline gets stabbed in the feet and back instead of the vagina, and when Kathleen's roasted, desecrated body is presented like a turkey, it doesn't have stuffing or a meat thermometer sticking out of the asshole like the dead body in the original trailer. Also the killer never humps an actual turkey.
- Lovable Jock: Scuba demonstrates his selflessness early on when Yulia is knocked down during the riot and he jumps on top of her to protect her from being trampled.
- Made of Plasticine: Mostly only to the degree that's standard in slasher movies (effortless Neck Snaps, cutting someone's head off with one swipe of an axe despite them being in a padded costume, etc.) but even by that standard, cutting someone clean in half with a falling dumpster cover is worth mentioning.
- Male Gaze: The trampoline scene, in which Lonnie (and the audience) is treated to Amy jumping up and down in her cheerleading uniform and taking off her panties to give a view of her bare butt.
- Malevolent Masked Man: As the teaser shows, the slasher of the film is an individual in a darkly-colored pilgrim mask.
- Monster Clown: The parade that the authorities use to smoke The Carver out into the open has one in the crowd that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's actually the Carver, who wore it as a different disguise in order to slip into the parade.
- Mythology Gag:
- As in the fake trailer, the real teaser has a brief shot of a cheerleader on a trampoline and the Thanksgiving parade with the guy dressed as a turkey. The official trailer also shows him being decapitated.
- The end of the fake trailer depicted the killer serving a family a fat man who was cooked like a turkey. In the film proper, this fate befalls Kathleen.
- This outdoor ad references the bleeding turkey that appeared on the title screen in the fake trailer.
- Neck Snap: The guy watching the cheerleader on the trampoline gets his neck snapped by the killer 180 degrees.
- Never Found the Body: This combined with No One Could Survive That! creates the conditions for The End... Or Is It?
- Not With the Safety On, You Won't: Jessica and Scuba catch the killer at Yulia's house. Scuba aims the gun and fires... but he forgot to turn the safety off.
- Off with His Head!:
- Manny, the cowardly security guard meets his end this way after his head is cut off with a wire cord.
- Another victim is decapitated with an axe during the parade while wearing his turkey outfit no less. He also happened to be shown to be present during the Black Friday Riot through the security camera photos, as well as being the other costumer who hit Amanda in the head along with Lizzie.
- Ominous Crack: As people begin getting crushed up against the windows, Doug the security guard rushes to the storefront to unlock the doors. Then, cracks begin forming in the glass just before it bursts and allows a horde of people to flood into the store and trample him in the process.
- Parental Neglect: Thomas became more emotionally distant from his daughter Jessica after his wife's death, burying himself in his work to cope. Things only got worse when he married Kathleen, who exacerbated this behavior and treated Jessica terribly herself. As the John Carver killings escalate Thomas starts realizing how bad he's been, which is when he starts doing better by apologizing to Jessica and deciding to close RightMart on Thanksgiving. He notably survives the events of the movie.
- Pet the Dog: A literal example. Following one of his kills, John Carver is considerate enough to feed Manny's cat and even give it some head scratches.
- In a less obvious example, Carver clearly prefers to subdue people not on his kill list rather than kill them outright, and has a tranquilizer gun for this purpose.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Amanda's (and her unborn child's) death is what sets off Sheriff Newlon's homicidal revenge plan.
- Red Herring:
- There are a lot of clues pointing to Ryan, who turns out to be innocent.
- Mitch Collins seems like a prime candidate, seeing as his wife died as a direct result of the Black Friday riot. He is not the Carver, but his wife's death is the Carver's motivation for the killing spree.
- Bobby is another: he breaks his arm in the Black Friday incident and disappears for a year, returning the same week that the killings start. And of course, he's the one who is set up as a patsy by Newlon in the third act.
- A subtler example is Labelle, Newlon's new deputy. Little is known about him except he shows up the same week as the killings and is rather large, not unlike the actors who have played the great slashers over the years. His first scene has him interact with Lizzie in the dinner where she is killed that night, and be introduced to the John Carver mask. Ultimately, Labelle has little bearing on the plot.
- Redemption Equals Life: Thomas begins the movie seeming like a greedy, workaholic asshole who neglects his daughter and is more concerned with keeping RightMart open on Thanksgiving while taking no accountability for the riot the prior year. Gradually we learn about Thomas' painful past and how his worst tendencies got the better of him after his wife's death, something marrying Kathleen exacerbated. As the John Carver killings escalate he has a Heel Realization and starts doing better, even declaring that he'll close RightMart on Thanksgiving. He ends up surviving the events of the movie.
- Retail Riot: The catalyst of the film’s events is a massive riot at a local superstore on Black Friday, triggered by Jessica and her friends sneaking in through an employee entrance and being seen by the rabid shoppers. The carnage that results causes at least three deaths and Bobby's hand getting horribly broken.
- Rewatch Bonus: There are more than a few hints throughout the film that allude to both the identity of the killer and the motive.
- The film opens with what seems to be a Murderer P.O.V. camera shot, before being revealed to be Sheriff Newlon.
- Lizzie being the first victim of the killing spree makes sense considering it was her shopping cart that crushed her head and ripped off a part of Amanda's scalp. Naturally, Newlon wanted to take her out first.
- Whenever given the opportunity, John Carver never kills any police officers, instead opting to tranquilize them. Makes sense when you consider that John Carver is the sheriff and personally knows all these officers.
- Also to go along with the one above, John Carver uses a lot of fancy stuff to help him knock out and capture targets like tranq guns, as well as both flashbang and smoke grenades. The kind of stuff someone wouldn't be able to easily get unless they're a member of law enforcement.
- Some of the later victims aren't targeted until AFTER Jessica and Bobby show Newlon printed screencaps of the RightMart security camera footage featuring them, giving Newlon more targets.
- A young man happens to be briefly pointed out among the RightMart security photos, but is otherwise ignored by Jessica, Bobby and, seemingly, Newlon. He later turns out to be the one in the turkey costume who gets his head cut off by John Carver in disguise during the parade.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- When the Black Friday shoppers at RightMart start rioting and things spiral out of control, Manny (on duty as a security guard) bails. It puts him on John Carver's target list and he's the second victim.
- Manny decides to flee to escape the killer and Yulia's father plans to send her to Florida for the same reason. It doesn't work either time.
- Serious Business: The RightMart rioters really, really wanted those waffle irons they were giving out for free to the earliest shoppers. One man continues pursuing it after his jugular vein has been cut.
- The Sheriff: Eric Newlon, a Reasonable Authority Figure leading the manhunt to track down the Carver. Except, as it turns out, he is the Carver.
- Shout-Out:
- The opening shot of the film of a P.O.V. Cam outside of a house is one to the opening of Halloween (1978). It's even from the perspective of the film's killer.
- The Carver wears black coveralls reminiscent of some of the coveralls Michael Myers has worn, specifically during the H20 era. The killer also takes off his mask at one point and puts it on top of a heated industrial oven, which partially melts and burns it one side, making it look similar to how Michael’s mask looked for the remainder of the Blumhouse trilogy, when his mask got half burnt after Michael was trapped in Laurie’s burning house; the Carver wears the burnt John Carver mask for a while before replacing it with a clean mask.
- John Carver using a voice-changer to disguise their identity during the Thanksgiving livestream brings to mind the same technique used by the Ghostface killers in the Scream series.
- The film unintentionally follows one of the horror movie “rules” establish in the fourth “Scream” movie: that modern horror films always feature the latest technology and integrates it to the plot. The Carver taunts Jessica and her friend group through social media and later livestreams a messed up Thanksgiving “dinner” with the killer’s remaining targets. Jessica also ends up using the killer’s cell phone to expose his identity on his livestream while he confesses to her and declares his intention to kill her and her remaining friends.
- Kathleen finding a still-alive Amy inside the Carver's fridge echoes a similar scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974, when Jerry finds Pam in a similar place in the Sawyers' house.
- The opening shot of the film of a P.O.V. Cam outside of a house is one to the opening of Halloween (1978). It's even from the perspective of the film's killer.
- Shown Their Work: There are two instances in the movie were the filmmakers show they’ve done their homework to avert Artistic License – Medicine:
- When Yulia is stabbed in the ears, it not only deafens her, but destroys her sense of balance so she can't run away.
- Amy the cheerleader is explicitly shown to have been kept alive by the Carver for the macabre Thanksgiving scene. The “uncorking” Carver wants to use her for would only work if her heart was still pumping.
- "Shut Up!" Gunshot: Sheriff Newlon fires his gun in the air to stop the rioters after finding Amanda's corpse. It's unknown if it made a lick of difference since the title card pops up right after.
- Slashed Throat: One of the crowd in the RightMart riot is killed when he cuts his jugular vein on some broken glass as he enters the store. He doesn't bother trying to treat it or patch it, so he bleeds out just as he reaches the waffle iron he was so desperate to grab.
- Slashers Prefer Blondes: Of the characters killed by John Carver, Yulia and Amy are both blondes. Furthermore, Jessica is a brunette.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Amanda Collins. She dies in the RightMart riot, but her death and Newlon's reaction to it and inability to punish the offenders that had a hand in getting her killed by legal means kickstart the entire plot.
- Soft Glass: Subverted. The rioter who gets his jugular cut open happened from a jagged glass chunk that was still attached to the inside of the door.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The trailer starts off by showing the town of Plymouth celebrating Thanksgiving, with appropriate gentle holiday music. Said holiday music then plays over several shots of the killer attacking their victims.
- Spared By Adaptation: Bobby, who gets decapitated in the fictitious trailer, survives the film.
- The Stinger: The end credits conclude with an outtake of Rick Hoffman holding a sad reaction long after "cut" should've been called before grinning and giving the camera the finger as the crew laughs.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Scuba is not familiar with firearms. As such, when confronted with the killer it takes a while for him to even remember to take it out, and it ends up being useless since he forgets to take the safety off. The main characters in general aren't all that good with weapons, since they're teenagers in high school, and even if Jessica has been trained so that she knows how to fire a musket in the climax it takes her a bit to realize it's there and consider it as an option. Which might also be a clue that the Carver is not a civilian, consider how casually he handles weapons.
- As noted elsewhere on this page, Scuba has a very subdued, heartbreaking reaction to Yulia's death.
- The Carver avoids the police during the parade by simply using a different and completely unrelated disguise.
- Unlike other slashers, the Carver takes pains to not target innocent people (or at least the people he doesn’t blame for the riot), and when having to deal with people in his way, he uses a tranquilizer gun on them. However, he still manages to cause some unintentional casualties despite his careful planning during the parade scene, because after he throws everyone into a panic after decapitating the guy in the turkey costume, the truck with the Mayflower float ends up non-fatally hitting a street performer on stilts and the driver of the truck gets killed when the float breaks free of its ties during the crash and the bow skewers him through his head, in front of his granddaughters no less.
- On the tranquilizer gun, the victims don’t stay tranquilized for the same amount of time, which becomes detrimental to the killer’s plans. Jessica, Scuba, and Thomas wake up at the same time, but Kathleen manages to wake up while she’s getting prepared by the Carver to be put into the oven and nearly escapes, and Bobby, who was tranquilized, kidnapped, and dressed to look like the Carver wakes up offscreen and manages to knock out the Carver (who at the time was undisguised as Shieriff Newlon) with a tire iron and escape.
- Even after she survives the events of the film, Jessica has PTSD and nightmares about Newlon coming back to kill her.
- Thanksgiving Episode: If the title and Thanksgiving imagery - turkey decorations, parades, and killer pilgrims - all over the trailer didn’t give it away, the movie is set at Thanksgiving.
- Trampled Underfoot: In the Black Friday riot that set the events of this movie off, Doug, a security guard who was desperately trying to open the doors, is killed when the crowd's force knocks the door over, pinning him under it as the crowd fly in.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Quite a few examples:
- Evan persuaded Jessica and others in the group to sneak into the store via the employee's entrance to grab a few things before the crush, but this led to him taunting some of the people outside as a "joke" and started the riot. Further, Amanda being killed during said riot snaps Newlon mentally, and results in further deaths.
- In a subtler example, Kathleen deleting the camera footage in the store meant that nobody involved in the Black Friday riot faced any legal repercussions for what happened. This likely angered John Carver enough to take matters into his own hands and dole out punishment his way.
- Jessica and Bobby find the backup footage from the store on her father's computer and show it to Sheriff Newlon, pointing out some other people they recognize. This gives Newlon more targets connected to the tragedy and leads to those people dying at his hands.
- Villain Has a Point: Every point John Carver makes about how everyone's greed, selfishness and pursuit of fame resulted in the deaths of innocent people during the prior year's Thanksgiving retail incident is spot on.
- Villainous Valor: Kathleen is a real piece of work, between mistreating her stepdaughter and erasing the files from the security cameras so no one can face accountability for the riot. But you have to hand it to her, she gives John Carver one heck of a fight.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: After John Carver kills Kathleen by incinerating her in an oven he presents her as a Thanksgiving dish to the captured characters, cutting a slice of her leg and trying to force Thomas to eat it. Thomas very understandably retches pretty gruesomely through his mouth binding.
- Weapon Specialization: The killer uses weapons themed around Thanksgiving, including an old-fashioned bearded axe, an electric meat slicer, a meat tenderizer, and corn forks.
- After the parade attack, the weapons used by Carver lead to speculation that he has some sort of military background. It's at least partially correct since Sheriff Newlon would be trained in using gas canisters and flash-bangs for crowd control.
- Wham Shot: Both of them around the end of the movie.
- Jessica noticing that Sheriff Newlon has the same burrs on his pant cuffs that she got while she was fleeing from the Carver House, meaning he is the Carver.
- Soon after this, we see on The Carver's sort of murder board pictures of Amanda, and next to them, an ultrasound. Oof.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Every word Mitch says about the culpability of the Wright family for the deaths in the Black Friday Riot is absolutely correct.
- Wicked Stepmother: Kathleen was a realtor who sold the Wrights their home, and is implied to have taken advantage of Mr. Wright's grief over his late wife to marry into the family. She's stated to be a terrible influence on him, having been responsible for pushing him to hold the ill-fated sale on Thanksgiving and getting frustrated at him considering canceling the sale the following year. She also doesn't get along with Jessica, with Bobby comforting the latter by suggesting a quick engagement will hopefully mean a quick divorce. Kathleen is also responsible for the stalled investigation into the riot, deleting the security footage to protect her family from a potential lawsuit, leading to the Carver to take justice into his own hands.
