Reviews
‘Thanksgiving’ (2023) Review: Eli Roth’s Gory Slasher Triumph
But when Roth has the sauce, he has it, and this movie is drowning in pure gravy. If you were waiting for a top-tier slasher packed with pitch-black humor and crimson blood everywhere, you’ll be pretty happy. If you were waiting for another one of those rare, legitimately great holiday horror films, you’ll be ecstatic. But regardless of what you’re waiting for, you should absolutely head to theatres to see Thanksgiving.
In a year with one of the grimiest Saw films yet, a blood-flooding entry in the Evil Dead franchise, and the notoriously nasty sleeper hit When Evil Lurks, you would think horror fans were full on all the brutal, mean-spirited kills they could get. But Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is some of the best seconds, thirds, and even fourths we could have gotten in a landmark year for horror like 2023. It may have taken 16 years and some change to see a fictional trailer realized into a feature-length film, but the long cook time was worth it for the absolutely rich modern-day grindhouse feature that we got.
An Old Trailer Brought to Life
If you’re confused about what that last sentence meant, in 2007, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino made Grindhouse, a double feature of two throwback movies that evoked the old exploitation fare: Planet Terror and Death Proof. In the film were several fake trailers for exploitation movies that were never meant to be made, including one for a film called Thanksgiving, about a pilgrim-masked killer slashing through the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and leaving no leftovers (which is all the plot summary you need to understand this review). A few of these trailers were so well received they became real films, like Machete and personal favorite Hobo With A Shotgun, and Thanksgiving was set to become one of them too.
Despite the “Splat Pack” alum beginning a script in 2010, Thanksgiving was sidetracked by Roth’s other projects. And while it’s easy to say now that it should have come out sooner, I’m glad it came out when it did. Thanksgiving is rivaled only by Terrifier 2 as a snapshot of the great modern-day grindhouse revival that’s starting to warm up in American cinema as we get deeper into the 2020s. An original slasher with a simple plot and people being chopped to bloody bits is like a slice of warm pecan pie to horror fans; it’s comforting, it’s gooey, and it can get messy.
Eli Roth Brings Us a New Horror Classic
Roth nails the exploitation feel promised by the trailer, though, as anyone who has seen the promotional material will know, has abandoned the 70’s sepia aesthetic in favor of crisp digital cameras. Thanksgiving’s more familiar tones come from the original My Bloody Valentine most prominently, with colder undertones of 90’s slashers popularized by Kevin Williamson’s work on Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, and it works well in calling back to them.
Roth paints that classic picture of a quaint small town with residents who are rotten to the core. There are sappy love triangles, greedy business people, obnoxious homecoming heroes, and deadbeat super seniors, all waiting to be run through by a vengeful killer like a turkey getting stuck with a meat thermometer. The citizens of Plymouth this time around are about as obnoxious as most of Roth’s characters; their idiocy is played up for humor that is not quite whip-smart, but still manages to be witty often enough to catch you off guard with plenty of great jokes.
Despite having character actor heavyweights like Gina Gershon and Rick Hoffman present, the onus of the entertainment provided comes from the younger cast. Nell Verlaque’s Jessica is a solid final girl surrounded by some very funny friends; Tomaso Sanelli was born to play the role of comedically evil jock Evan, a quarterback obsessed with going viral & prone to dragging his friends into trouble. And despite the love triangle having Verlaque’s Jessica at the center of it, the best moments involving that B-plot come from Milo Manheim’s Ryan and Jalen Thomas Brook’s Bobby, whose interactions where they constantly go tit-for-tat and bicker for romantic attention are incredibly funny. It really does seem like everyone had fun with the material they were given because the film gets laughs effortlessly.
Will The Carver Find His Audience?
But let’s talk about our butchering pilgrim, The Carver. He is every bit as evil as he seemed in his first appearance (sans that one bit of coitus with the cooked turkey, sorry if you were excited about that). Cutting a path through town as he looks for revenge, he serves Roth’s blood-soaked vision on a silver platter. The Carver would find a cozy home as Mortal Kombat 1 DLC character with the grotesque ways he takes out some of his targets, effortlessly cleaving through people and racking up not only a body count but several very memorable kills in the process.
Eli Roth’s commitment to creating a mean-spirited mise en scene is still unrivaled, with the nastier kills showing that undeniable finesse. Roth’s strong suit even in his less impressive films has always been setting up victims and teeing them off with the rawest deaths, which, when at his best, make you feel like you just got splattered in the face with their blood. And Roth is undoubtedly at his best in this film; one kill, in particular, got nearly everyone in the theatre to synchronize and let out one harmonious “Oh s**t!” like the world’s first swearing-only boys’ choir.
A Mostly Great Movie Let Down By a Less Than Stellar Soundtrack
That said, some aspects of Thanksgiving’s cinematography are more cold mashed potatoes than sweet cranberry sauce. The music is far and away from being the best I’ve heard this year, which is ironic since a lot of the worse-off exploitation films of the 70s did coast by having decent soundtracks. Most audience members will be too preoccupied wincing at where The Carver’s axe (and pitchfork, and hammer) lands to notice this, though. And I can’t lie, I didn’t notice it until later either.
When it comes to the story, the twist of who the killer is falls apart after one particular detail in the film, which is something Roth and company must have noticed since they included a throwaway line meant to dissuade audience members from guessing The Carver’s very clear identity. Chances are you will figure it out early on, so don’t sweat it, and try not to feel too insulted when they do that thing flashing back to the very obvious red herring lines throughout the film.
Why Thanksgiving Is a Must-See for Horror Fans
Roth’s work has always been a mixed bag for me. But when Roth has the sauce, he has it, and this movie is drowning in pure gravy. If you were waiting for a top-tier slasher packed with pitch-black humor and crimson blood everywhere, you’ll be pretty happy. If you were waiting for another one of those rare, legitimately great holiday horror films, you’ll be ecstatic. But regardless of what you’re waiting for, you should absolutely head to theatres to see Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving releases, exclusively in theatres, this Friday, November 17th!
A compliment first: once Evil Dead Burn’s first act ends, the film is cut loose to go wild like Sam Raimi running around with a camera strapped to his head (not a motorcycle, but thanks Bruce, it was a good piece of fake trivia while we believed it). And it’s at that turning point, when the film abandons most of the pretense of its very artificial, featherweight drama, that I started to love Evil Dead Burn. All in all, the film is a seriously entertaining endeavor in its second and third acts for how kinetic it can be.
The cold water second: Evil Dead Burn is poorly edited. But are Sébastien Vaniček and Philip Lozano’s directing and photography good enough to make up for it? Not particularly, no. But, is the story good enough to cover that up? Also no. But does it have great dialogue and humor to make up for it? Again no. But—you see where I’m going with this.
So, I’m sure you’re wondering what I actually enjoyed about this film, if it’s so flawed. And that is one simple fact: Burn is the Evil Dead franchise’s equivalent of a pro wrestling match. And Vaniček’s entry is taking you directly to a deadite royal rumble.
What Is Evil Dead Burn About?
The premise the film starts you off with would obviously never make that apparent. After her boyfriend Will is killed in a horrific car crash, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) is in shambles. Their final moments were a blow-out argument in a long string of abusive behavior on Will’s part. And to make matters worse, as she tries to reckon with that painful relationship, she is forced to attend his funeral and stay at his family’s home in the countryside. High emotions worsen tensions, as the in-laws that already ostracized her become even more aggressive.
But Will’s death was much more complicated than anyone knows: the grisly passing was set up to find the Price Family. Because Will’s brother Joseph has tampered with some very special occult items, and in the process awakened the evil dead to search for their personal effects once more. As one might expect from relentless Kandarian demons at this point, they will stop at nothing to find their possessions, even if it means tearing the family apart piece by bloody piece.
The Deadites Are Really Just Here to Put Belt to Ass
The fact of the matter is, Evil Dead Burn only really has enough structural support for its true star: the ridiculously bloody action it has on offer. This is not a ponderous horror film on the nature of trauma, despite its efforts to prod at that. It’s not a surprisingly contemplative film talking about addiction like, say, Fede Alvarez’s 2013 turn at the wheel. It is, however, the cinematic equivalent of that one RAW promo where Triple H breaks into Randy Orton’s house and just starts putting belt to ass.
The film is at its best when it’s simply letting the deadites run roughshod with their host bodies and their human prey. Tossing each other into furniture and running the fade with extreme malice, it’s borderline action horror with how much they throw down. And it looks great too, in no small part to some phenomenal practical gore and physical acting on the parts of both the main cast and their stunt performers.
The Perfect Family (of Horrific Demonic Undead)
Alyssa Sutherland’s deadite Ellie Bixler was like a slinking undead spider, crawling around and waiting to strike when her victims were at their most scared. But the Price family of Burn is more like a herd of bulls rampaging through a hospital and aiming for the patients on life support. I really can’t emphasize enough how much the stunt performers run this film, since their physicality and wild movement is perfectly in line with their fellow lead actors who get to play the deadites.
The undeniable highlight of the film is Erroll Shand. His role as the slimy grieving father Edgar is almost as good as Ellie with how absolutely nasty and demented he gets; he has the particular pleasure of working a true gross-out moment that felt like watching a Brian Yuzna film for the first time, so bravo to him if it goes to anyone. A close second for shock factor is Luciane Buchanan, who gets multiple franchise great moments as Thya. But really, the entire deadite family is fantastic once they’ve shed the weight of the film’s bag-of-rocks dialogue and get to just be sick little freaks.
(All due respect to the sick little freaks reading.)
An Examination of Abuse Deflated by Amateurish Writing and Editing
It’s doubly disappointing that Evil Dead Burn’s script is so bad in places, because the conceit of Alice’s situation is rife with potential for some really emotional scenes. Touching on the complexity of abusive relationships and how people begin to blame themselves for staying in them is inherently intriguing. It’s so perfectly in line with the way deadites psychologically torture their victims that the allegory feels wrapped like a present with a bow. And Yacoub is at the very least competent enough to work with that, she’s very engaging when she grows into full final girl form to fight back.
But the dialog is so aggressively one dimensional and unsubtle in communicating the issue at hand, it converts what could be rich drama into something cheap and flimsy. When the film tries to stoke the dramatic fires of Alice’s turmoil, it starts to feel more like a tone-deaf Lifetime movie where things are so incredibly over the top you can’t take it seriously. It’s just a tonal clash with this film’s better, more chaotic half that I can’t get behind.
If You’re Doing the Stunts, And I’m Doing The SFX, Then Who’s Editing This Movie?
This is an issue only exacerbated by the film having some seriously inappropriate timing in its editing. Most noticeable are these disorienting cuts across the entire runtime that feel like the film reel skipping. But what really gets me is the placement of these harrowing flashbacks to Alice and Will’s relationship that just don’t work. They get popped in at inopportune times to emphasize how high the stakes are emotionally for Alice. Of course, this only lowers the stakes. In isolation, the footage might have been effective (read in a doubtful tone). But in the context they’re inserted into, it evokes the feeling of someone shoving both feet on the brakes; a jarring stop in the momentum, to say the least.
Is Evil Dead Burn Worth Seeing?
So yes, Evil Dead Burn is a film that is slow to warm with its clammy writing and ice-cold editing. But once things get heated up and the film’s ensemble cast of villains are off their leash, it provides an impressive enough spectacle to keep you surprised at the wackiness and violence it achieves. And that’s saying something given the franchise’s laundry list of grotesqueries and always reliable chainsaw shenanigans. It’s hard to say if this will actually become a fan favorite with its many hiccups, but at the very least it keeps the old adage true: there’s no such thing as a boring Evil Dead film.
I’ve said time and time again that horror comedies/dark comedies aren’t my forte. Filmmakers often don’t find the right balance between horror and comedy, usually resulting in a mishmash blend that feels unfocused and lacking. Moreover, I love ambitious films; horror comedies don’t often lend themselves to ambition. (That’s not a diss by any means.) Films like Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Draft!, and Chainsaws Were Singing are just a few that really broke the mold for me. Thanks to the lovely programmers at Chattanooga Film Festival, I can now add Frankie, Maniac Woman to the list of exceptional horror comedies.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Delivers a Bloody Twist on Horror Comedy
Frankie Ramirez (Dina Silva) is trying to break into the industry one way or another. Little did she know that her fame would come at a bloody price. Denial after denial, being told she’s not skinny or pretty enough, when enough was enough…Frankie takes her revenge. Can Frankie slash her way to the top of the charts? Or will her path of violence become too much for her to handle?
Co-written by Dina Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis and directed by Pierre Tsigaridis, Frankie, Maniac Woman is truly a sight to behold. Pierre Tsigaridis’ third feature film takes us to a deeper level than we’ve seen before (though that might not be fair to say, as I’ve only seen his first film, Two Witches). But much of the joy from this film comes from Silva’s co-writing and performance. Oh yeah, and the gloriously violent nature of it all.
Dina Silva Creates One of Modern Slasher Horror’s Best Villains
Dina Silva’s occasionally masked portrayal of Frankie brings us one of horror’s greatest villains of all time. Rarely do we see women in horror take the main stage as such a violent force of nature. And what we also see is a devilishly smart script. Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis’ creation of Frankie brings us both a protagonist and an antagonist. Frankie wants this life where she can live as the performer she is meant to be (because Silva’s voice is gorgeous). On the other hand, Frankie’s direct actions will make sure she never has a career, you know, with the slayings and all.
The beautiful nature of Frankie’s character is the moments of realization that she has warped the trajectory of her future with each subsequent kill. She could stop, sure, but what if killing is what she was meant to do all along? Frankie does have an amazing voice, but Frankie is a fantastic serial killer. If only there were a world where she could do both.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Proves Great Slashers Need Great Stories
Now I’m unable to access the screener again, and the IMDb credits do not show the name, so I can’t fully praise the people in charge of Frankie, Maniac Woman’s SFX. A film like Frankie, Maniac Woman shows me just how wrong modern slashers are. Take Terrifier, for example. Terrifier’s story is bland, uninspired, recycled, and lazy. It’s nothing but filler around a series of fine kills. Frankie, Maniac Woman uses its kills to emphasize its incredibly well-written story. A fine film has a story that’s enough to pass the time; a great slasher has a story that uses kills as exclamation marks.
Frankie, Maniac Woman’s kills are punctuation marks that are a level above exclamation marks. Whatever that may be. Frankie is an unstoppable killing machine, until she can be stopped. She’s not this infallible entity who can take six bullets to the torso and keep lumbering on…she’s just a person. A person with feelings, stamina, and brilliant comedic timing. She’s someone you could easily see yourself being friends with (as long as you didn’t know about the killings (hell, maybe even if you knew about the killings if that’s your thing)).
Frankie, Maniac Woman Is One of the Best Festival Horror Films of the Year
Frankie, Maniac Woman is a devilishly stylized slasher that exudes camp and craft. When was the last time a film made you cry from laughter and sadness? When was the last time you watched a film so viciously riotous that you hoped things would just…work out in the end? On top of being funny, brutal, and bloody as hell, Frankie, Maniac Woman is a genuinely ‘G’reat film. It’s one of the few festival films I’ve seen that’s unquestionably Criterion-worthy.
