Ever since he was a boy, the director has wanted to make a gory movie about the holiday. “Thanksgiving” is adapted from his 2007 faux trailer.
For almost every holiday, there’s a horror movie, from “My Bloody Valentine” to “Black Christmas.” Thanksgiving, too. But the turkeys-beware holiday gets its own namesake movie with Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving,” featuring an ensemble cast that includes Addison Rae, Patrick Dempsey and Gina Gershon.
The movie (now in theaters) is based on the gory faux trailer Roth made all the way back in 2007 for “Grindhouse,” Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s homage to exploitation cinema. “Thanksgiving” centers on a masked killer who dresses like the pilgrim John Carver and terrorizes modern-day Plymouth, Mass., a year after a deadly Black Friday department store doorbusters riot.
In a recent phone interview, Roth said that he and Jeff Rendell, a childhood friend and his screenwriter on the new film, have been itching to make a Thanksgiving scary movie since they were kids.
“There was that lull between October and mid-December when it was all family films,” said Roth, who’s from Newton, Mass. “We were just waiting for another horror movie to come out. Our dream was to fill that void.”
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.
Confirming article access.
If you are a subscriber, please log in.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
