Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving: Turkey Day Slasher Flick is Tasty, But Not Cooked All the Way Through.

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If the premise here, a blood-soaked Thanksgiving-themed slasher film directed by the guy who did those Hostel movies and Green Inferno, sounds like a joke, that’s because it started out as one.

The film now simply, and sort of confusingly, titled Thanksgiving, first came to life as a fake trailer in another movie, the Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s double featured horror comedy Grindhouse showcases Rodriguez’s films like Planet Terror and Death Proof, released in 2007. Just over fifteen years later, this gag trailer is ready to come out of its cocoon and take center stage as Hollywood’s foremost Thanksgiving-themed horror movie.

Hey. If Valentine’s Day can have one, then sure. Why not?

Eli Roth is known for a lack of restraint and a love of gore, and on the gore front, there are scenes in this movie that absolutely do not disappoint. The film’s opening salvo is a demented Black Friday riot gone awry that had me chuckling and cringing in equal measure—never before have shopping carts been used to such devastating extent on a human body!

After the riotous good time of the opening kills that the movie sort of becomes rather bland, like under-seasoned stuffing. An ordinary by-the-numbers slasher film ensues you’ve got a small town, a dutiful sheriff, a vengeful killer with a hidden identity, and plenty of douchey teenagers and frumpy waitresses to stand in his way as victims. The requisite turkey time twists DO get thrown in—our axe-murderer is themed after the first governor of Plymouth, y’see—but it doesn’t do enough to live up to its outrageous origin as a parody trailer, it’s funny premise, or even its rollicking opening. The gore stays punchy and gross most of the time, but a few key moments go too far and come off as particularly fake-looking.

Outside of the opening, some of the kills do deliver, and some of the scenes of the Pilgrim-themed killer stalking his prey are a bit frightening when they’re allowed to properly simmer, but this movie didn’t make me laugh enough to qualify as a good horror parody or freak me out enough to stand out as a legitimate screamer. With nothing left to fall back on besides a unique premise, a great opening, and a few scant thrills, I was left a little hungry by the end of this would-be feast.