Initial Reaction

I saw Thanksgiving (2023) the day before Thanksgiving, and now the day after Thanksgiving I am going to give you my initial reaction. Happy Thanksgiving by the way!

*** SPOILER FREE ***

Watching the trailer gives nothing away and it gives a pretty gauge for the overall feel of the movie. I would say that Thanksgiving is firmly planted in the suspense genre with a hint of a “who done it” murder mystery. The story revolves around a group of high school friends and the main character’s family who are slowly being murdered and/or abducted. If you like body horror then this movie is probably for you.

My only complaints that there are too many characters, no character development, and some of the kills, while they look good, stretch my suspension of disbelief.

Verdict: 3/5

*** SPOILER WARNING ***

Having seen the movie, If you are security or law enforcement, the trailer kind of gives away who the killer is with the close ups on the boots. You might assume that the killer is some random person who was caught in the inciting event. However, you are introduced to all of the characters including a couple of red herring characters as well.

The movie starts with Black Friday which starts on Thursday night and not Friday morning. Cut to the big box store with an insane crowd of irate impatient shoppers. Because our main characters get in before everyone else through an employee entrance, Football Jock gets his hands on a megaphone and causes a stampede leading to the deaths of at least two people. Several other NPCs get killed due to the ensuring mayhem. And because capitalism bad of course the business owner gets the blame for only having two security guards on duty (one of whom died trying to save the Football Jock). Due to the utter inhumanity of the crowd and lunacy of the scenario pushed my suspension of disbelief to the limit. According to BlackFridayDeathCount.com there have been 17 deaths and 125 injures on Black Friday from 2006-2021. I am not going to go into that any deeper until the review.

Anyway, this inciting incident motivates the killer to to go on a killing spree against the people he blames for the deaths, mainly our main characters, Football Jock and his Cheerleader, snobby Waitress, cowardly Security Guard, and the protagonist’s father and step mother who own the store. The kills look good even if they do not follow the laws of physics or may be convenient. There were a few scenes that made me chuckle although it may have just been me.

Overall the characters act like relatable yet stereotypically stupid teenagers and the police are not negligently incompetent but actually somewhat believable. I feel they could have written a better story and added some depth to the characters not just for the killer. I would say anyone who are fans of body horror and slasher films will probably enjoy Thanksgiving.