Thanksgiving - Grindhouse trailer adaptation

So Eli Roth has made a movie out of the fake trailer he made for Grindhouse. It’s called Thanksgiving and it’s about a masked killer who stalks a town on Thanksgiving. It’s got Patrick Dempsey and Addison Rae. Here’s the trailer from Grindhouse:

And here’s the trailer for this one:

I know they did something similar for Machete, but I feel like Grindhouse was so long ago that making a movie off one of the fake trailers now seems odd.

I think it’s just something he wanted to do.

I'm intrigued by the concept and casting at least. There've been times where I conceived of fake placeholder movie ideas and then decided to make actual movies out of them instead certainly. I wonder if the concept of this revolves around a family is purposely invoking You're Next or not as well.

Bro you got the wrong fake trailer. I think you mean this one. Nsfw warning.

Why did you pick the wrong one? Was it a mistake? And I'm surprised that no one noticed it before me.

Edited by Bubblepig on Sep 8th 2023 at 5:53:15 AM

It was a mistake. Apologies.

It's fine.

Anyway, I'm surprised that they put the trampoline scene in this movie.

As someone who only just saw both trailers, credit where credit's due on having a concept all these years that people really wanted to see and now finally making it into an actually movie. It says a lot about it.

New trailer:

Hobo with a Shotgun was made into a real movie too, but apparently it wasn't very good. Thanksgiving looks more promising, I hope it's fun.

Once this one comes out the only two that won't have been made into real movies will be Werewolf Women of the SS (which is already loosely based on exploitation films like Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS) and Don't (which didn't have much shown to go off of).

There's a large, definite amount of effort put into it based on the trailer. I think this probably reignited Eli Roth's passion and why he got into it to begin with. That said, I haven't seen many of his movies—if only one, so I'm not the one to go by then.

A creative idea that you're definitely amazed was never done before. With Violent Night last year, while a common concept to see Santa fight bad guys nowadays, it still knew to be creative and make effort with it premise—and Thanksgiving looks like it'll definitely deliver.

On one hand, Eli Roth is a director whose passion for and knowledge of the genre vastly outstrips his ability to make good movies, and he also doesn't seem to know how to not resort to trite edgelordy antics. On the other hand, a trashy holiday slasher seems like something he'd be much less likely to fuck up.

As for the remaining fake trailers, Don't will very likely never be made, but theoretically speaking, I could see it as a Shudder original done in the style of late 70s/early 80s UK video nasties. Werewolf Women of the SS could be a lot of fun if done right, but this is Rob Zombie we're talking about - not only has he not made a quality movie in almost twenty years, but he's made some of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life.

While I probably already said this, I watched the original trailer from Grindhouse when the first teaser came out and given the high-concept and creativity behind it, I can see why there was a lot of hype behind the idea of it getting made into a movie.

Speaking of, I have noticed they make it more serious than the fake trailer itself. Especially the Black Friday flashback.

The trailer from Grindhouse was clearly made to be an over-the-top satire. This is trying to also ground it though clearly.

Yeah, I think it's safe to say that it's still going to be campy as hell, you can't do a Thanksgiving-themed slasher and play it too seriously, but the original played up the trash and sleaze because it was supposed to be nothing but money shots, and the kind of movie that it paid homage to was typically absolute dogshit dressed up with lots of gratuitous sex and splatter.

Well given it's gonna try selling itself to the R-rated Horror crowd, the teens—actually all 20 year olds in real life probably—are gonna probably partake in the appropriate antics for such a movie I'm guessing.

Writing as an apologetic apologist for Roth (and a mostly-unapologetic one for Zombie—would love to see Hastur's "worst films" list even as I refuse to stick up for some of that man's projects), this movie seems to be playing it pretty safe from the trailers..? I honestly expected something a little more transgressive, even from a mainstream production company like Spyglass; surely we won't get gags as tasteless as the trampoline bit from the fake trailer, but this seems a little more post-Scream than '70s/'80s schlock. I guess that'd make sense, given they also produced the new fake Screams.

As someone who's followed Roth's career to some degree, I'm really expecting this one to be going for the gags more than the trailers let on, as literally every single movie(except his family-friendly horror-comedy) he's done has been advertised without his dumbass frat boy sense of humor; you'd expect The Green Inferno to go pretty hard from the marketing, but it's got weed and poop jokes and grisly gore played for laughs. Which I could be okay with. Some of my greatest guilty pleasures are failed comedies with graphic horror violence. I just feel there's a trollish sense of humor lurking beneath the surface of this one—I mean, they keep the absurd visual of a decapitated turkey mascot, and using corn holders as a weapon is inherently goofy.

I mean it's high-concept. You either open your mind to what they're doing or you don't. Simple as that.

Well, the movie is sitting at a shockingly good 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and I’ve been hearing good things about it online. This is gonna be fun…

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thanksgiving_2023

Well it looks like it'll be good, so yeah. Not surprising that critics reacted well to it…though maybe a tiny bit however.

I think it's surprising when you take into account that Roth only directed one other Fresh movie(EDIT: two, actually, but only one that was horror) in his entire career, and it barely qualified as that.

Edited by Prowler on Nov 15th 2023 at 6:14:49 AM

Oh yeah. I forget that Eli Roth doesn't have the most impressive resume.

Again, high concept and something everyone was pretty interested in when it was first introduced years ago too, so that helps.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Nov 15th 2023 at 4:58:01 AM

Okay, I’m seeing it in one hour.

After, I will give a mini-review and if there is a post credits, then start updating the page.

I greatly admire that Roth reins in his most immature tendencies in favor of just doing a straightforward slasher with some funny characters in it. Less puerile than his other horror efforts, more charmingly mischievous. Great kills. The whodunit aspect was just functional(I guessed who it was immediately after the prologue), but everything else operates on levels ranging from solid to great.

I laughed out loud at the hideous outrageousness of some of the deaths. Especially the bowsprit bit.