The Horrors of Halloween: Thanksgiving (2023)

Showing posts with label Thanksgiving (2023). Show all posts

Monday, November 17, 2025

10 Thanksgiving Horror Movies You Must Watch — Where to Stream (Video by @AVAPopCulture)

Get ready for a spooky holiday season with these horror movies perfect for Thanksgiving! This video dives into the realm of slasher movie madness and ranks the best of the best in a horror movies tier list. Check out these scary movies and get your fill of Thanksgiving horror this holiday season!

Watch below or at YouTube. Video by @AVAPopCulture:

Hey everybody, it’s Chase with AV Pop Culture, and yeah… Halloween may be in the rear-view mirror now, but around here? Horror never actually leaves. It just curls up for a short seasonal nap. So it’s officially time to swap out pumpkins and haunted houses for something far more chaotic:

Thanksgiving horror.

Now, sure — it’s not as stacked as Halloween horror or even Christmas horror, but trust me, there is plenty of grimy, twisted quality stuffed inside this tiny subgenre. So today, we’re carving into the 10 best Thanksgiving horror movies ever made. From murderous pilgrims to homicidal dads to Black Friday wipeouts, we’re digging into all the madness.

Pop that tape in. Let’s do this.

10. Pilgrim (2019)

WHERE TO STREAM Pilgrim (2019):

Blumhouse took a big swing with this one — and it’s Thanksgiving horror done right.

A suburban mom hires a group of “authentic” colonial reenactors for a historically accurate feast… but these people take authenticity to homicidal extremes.

Fake smiles, creeping tension, family dysfunction, and a dinner table you absolutely do NOT want to sit at. If you’ve ever had an awkward Thanksgiving go off the rails, Pilgrim shows you just how lucky you really were.

9. Chopping Mall (1986)

WHERE TO STREAM Chopping Mall (1986):

Okay, okay — technically this isn’t a Thanksgiving movie. BUT it’s 100% a Black Friday movie in spirit, and that counts in my book.

Teenagers trapped in a mall + rogue Johnny-5-looking murder robots = the purest post-turkey B-movie fun imaginable.

Exploding heads, neon lights, food courts, Kelly Maroney, Barbara Crampton — the full 80s buffet. When killbots chirp “Thank you, have a nice day” after vaporizing somebody, that is Thanksgiving retail energy.

8. Thankskilling (2008)

WHERE TO STREAM Thankskilling (2008):

A talking, murderous turkey stalks college kids over break. That’s the movie.

It’s vulgar. It’s stupid. It’s perfect. A foul-mouthed puppet bird, terrible puns, “gobble gobble, motherfucker,” and pure Troma-style chaos.

Best watched with friends, drinks, and zero shame. Not all Thanksgiving meals need subtle flavors — sometimes you just want junk-food horror in its purest form.

7. Kristy (2014)

WHERE TO STREAM Kristy (2014):

A sleek, underrated little thriller.

A college student stays behind on campus for Thanksgiving break… and is hunted by a masked cult targeting women named “Kristy.”

Minimalist, cold, tense, and beautifully shot — you can feel the empty dorm halls and flickering fluorescent lights. If you like The Strangers or You’re Next, this one is worth adding to your plate.

6. Blood Rage (1987)

WHERE TO STREAM Blood Rage (1987):

The definitive Thanksgiving slasher.

Twin brothers — one homicidal, one framed — and suburban turkey night turns into total chaos.

Cranberry sauce murders, over-the-top gore, VHS fuzz, and the legendary line: “It’s not cranberry sauce.” If you want real Thanksgiving carnage, Blood Rage is your bird.

5. Thanksgiving (2023)

WHERE TO STREAM Thanksgiving (2023):

After years of teasing his faux Grindhouse trailer, Eli Roth finally delivered the real thing — and it’s nasty in the best way.

Set in Plymouth, it follows a masked pilgrim avenger picking off townsfolk after a deadly Black Friday stampede.

Mean, funny, gory, and gloriously over-the-top. Time will tell if it becomes the definitive Thanksgiving horror… but the leftovers are strong.

4. Deadly Friend (1986)

WHERE TO STREAM Deadly Friend (1986):

Wes Craven crafted a bizarre hybrid of teen romance, robot resurrection, and exploding head basketball kills — and somehow it still feels cozy and autumnal.

Kid loses girl next door → brings her back with a computer chip → chaos.

A strange, melancholic little fall horror story with Craven’s fingerprints all over it.

3. Addams Family Values (1993)

WHERE TO STREAM Addams Family Values (1993):

Not strictly horror, but it has the full macabre flavor.

Wednesday Addams burning down an overly sanitized Thanksgiving play is one of the darkest, funniest moments of 90s cinema.

Gothic production design, razor-sharp satire, and a vibe that fits perfectly into the late-November mood. Creepy, kooky, rewatchable — ideal holiday comfort viewing.

2. The Stepfather (1987)

WHERE TO STREAM The Stepfather (1987):

This is Thanksgiving horror disguised in a warm cardigan.

Terry O’Quinn gives one of the greatest horror performances ever as a man obsessed with the perfect American family — and when they fall short, he simply kills them and starts over.

Suburbia, fall leaves, Norman Rockwell aesthetics… with a serial killer simmering under the surface. A family dinner from hell and the most quietly “November” horror movie ever made.

1. Black Friday (2021)

WHERE TO STREAM Black Friday (2021):

Bruce Campbell. Devin Sawa. Mutant shoppers. What more do you need?

Toy store workers are trapped during the biggest shopping day of the year when an alien parasite infects customers.

Part Dawn of the Dead, part retail nightmare, part holiday chaos — and 100% B-movie joy. If you’ve worked retail, this will feel like a documentary.

Final Thoughts

There you have it — 10 terrifying turkey-day horrors to keep your spooky season alive long after October ends. From killer pilgrims to dysfunctional dads and retail monsters, these films will make your stuffing curdle in all the right ways.

Which one is your Thanksgiving go-to?
Blood Rage? The Stepfather? Thankskilling? Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving?
Let me know in the comments — argue it out over some pumpkin pie.

More Thanksgiving videos are coming, and then we’re heading straight into Christmas nostalgia land. Hit that like button, subscribe, and if you want bonus content or support the channel directly, join the Patreon — link’s below.

Thanks for hanging out, and as always:
Be kind, rewind.
This is Chase with AV Pop Culture — see you soon!

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Watch at YouTube. Video by @AVAPopCulture:

Thursday, November 16, 2023

ELI ROTH’S THANKSGIVING (2023): “There Will Be No Leftovers” — Reviews + Official & Fan-Made Poster Art Collection

Official Posters:

Colors by @halloweenisforever:

Chinese Poster:

Make Your Own John Carver:

TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group will release Eli Roth’s highly anticipated new slasher Thanksgiving in theaters worldwide on November 17th, 2023. The film, an expansion/reboot of Roth’s faux trailer seen in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse (2007), has been rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language, and some sexual material.

SYNOPSIS: After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan. Will the town uncover the killer and survive the holidays…or become guests at his twisted holiday dinner table?

Roth told Collider. “We were trying to get the script right. For years, I was just connecting the dots between the trailer, and then I was like, ‘Am I just filming the scenes in between what I already did before?’ The big revelation was, (Jeff Rendell) said, ‘I have to just pretend that Thanksgiving 1980 exists and that it was so offensive that every print was destroyed, and the only thing that survived was the trailer. This is the reboot of what that movie was. Every copy of the script was burned. Every print was burned. The only thing that survived was that one trailer, on the darkest corners of the internet. So, we have to make a movie based on that. This is the reboot of what that was.’ That freed me up creatively to go, ‘I can use a couple of my favorite things in the trailer, but I don’t have to worry about recreating the trailer.’ That trailer was for a movie where every print was destroyed. Now, this is gonna be its own thing.“

Roth wrote the script with Jeff Rendell. Roger Birnbaum and Eli Roth are producing. The cast includes Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman and Gina Gershon.

WHERE TO STREAM Thanksgiving (2023)

Tribute Posters:

Roth mentioned other holiday-centric films that help serve as inspiration for Thanksgiving, including films like Friday the 13th, My Blood Valentine, Silent Night, Deadly Night and more.

“For sure. I mean, look, obviously, I grew up in Massachusetts, so every year at Thanksgiving, Jeff Rendell — who I wrote it with — we were waiting for a Thanksgiving slasher film,” Roth said. “It never happened. We had Halloween, you had Silent Night, Deadly Night at Christmas, you had My Bloody Valentine, you had April Fool’s Day, you had Mother’s Day. But there was never one for Thanksgiving. It seemed so obvious to us, so from the time we were 12 or 13 years old, we always wanted to do it, because Thanksgiving is obviously is a huge deal in Massachusetts with the pilgrims. You went to Plymouth Plantation/Plimoth Patuxet in Sturbridge Village and saw all these pilgrim recreation villages. So we really wanted to do a modern take and create a new mythology and a new slasher film. The way I think of it is that if you love Thanksgiving, you’re going to want your kids to be into horror films."

Teaser Trailer:

Official Trailer:

John Carver Returns to Plymouth:

A New Horror Legend:

Featurette 1:

Featurette 2:

John Carver Scare Prank:

Grindhouse-style Fan Edited Posters by @unite_and_fight:

2023 Grindhouse Fan Made Trailer:

Stills:

Eli Roth, director of the horror film "Thanksgiving," poses with costumed characters at the premiere of the film, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, at the Vista Theater in Los Angeles:

Reviews:

“Bringing Thanksgiving into a contemporary setting is an asset here. All of the fake trailer’s highlights get woven in or repurposed in organic ways, but now there’s a meaty subtext (but mostly text) to the holiday’s history that presents a perfect setup for a slasher. Like curating the perfect holiday feast, Roth orchestrates a vicious, thrilling, and raucously entertaining slasher with a showstopper finale.” ★★★★ Bloody-Disgusting.com

“Roth’s reference points aren’t particularly obscure, but he earns the right to claim them through his proud commitment to horror for horror’s sake, a balm at a time when it feels like every other entry to the genre is buckling beneath the weight of its belabored trauma metaphors. He applies discipline to the disreputable, elevating choice cuts of trash not with put-on profundity but with a keener mastery of and appreciation for their foulest, basest pleasures.” ★★★★ TheGuardian.com

"It's been too long since a domestic theatrical slasher based on an original idea put an ear-to-ear smile on my face. Thanksgiving is one of the great modern American slashers, and Roth's return as a hardcore horror director feels right. It's been sixteen years since Grindhouse, and the wait was worth its reward. Hopefully a sequel won't take another decade plus change to release." ★★★★ DailyDead.com

“Thanksgiving is a mixture of Scream and holiday slashers like Black Christmas, but it gets its own, particularly nasty touch thanks to Eli Roth’s love for gore and grindhouse cinema. The pilgrim father, armed with an axe, fits wonderfully into the ranks of sadistic holiday killers, even if the film runs out of steam a bit in the final act.” Filmstarts [translated from German]

"Thanksgiving has everything you could want in a slasher: over-the-top kills, a wicked sense of humor, suspense, seasonal flair, the sexiest man alive, gratuitous Boston accents, and The Misfits over the end credits." @brokehorrorfan

"Last night I got to check out the premiere(ish?) of Thanksgiving which is every bit as fantastically twisted & disgusting as I dreamed it would be! 🥰 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Do not hesitate checking it out!!! Totally an instant cl-ass-sick I will be watching again ASAP!! AMAZING!!!! So much fun and great gore fx!!" Darcy the Mail Girl @dianaprincexo

“Roth manages to shake things up enough to keep you guessing how each act of violence is gonna play out. Sprinkle in a little Rick Hoffman and just a pinch of Gina Gershon, and you’ve got a pretty good dinner. Though the opening Black Friday scene alone makes this dish worthwhile, the bulk of the film may not measure up to the promise of the original trailer. But that will likely have more to do with the pressure of expectations of modern horror audiences…” ★★★½ Maddwolf.com

“Some of the dialog was funny, but the violence was frustrating. I couldn’t tell if some of the deaths were intended to scare me or just gross me out. It seems Eli Roth intended horror, laughs and senseless deaths. I’m split on the movie because there were entertaining scenes and forced scenes and the characters were so laid back as victims.” 6 out of 10, MJB784

“I’m not sure noting that the script is seemingly intentionally bad is an endorsement. That really plays into how stupidly easy it is to figure out “whodunit.” The misdirections and false leads are barely attempted. And the film’s utterly deflating finale isn’t amusingly awful. It’s just awful and in the most half-@ssed ways.” ★★ RogersMovieNation.com

“Thanksgiving definitely leans hard into its slasher influences and pays tribute to the ’80s throughout, still lingering on the final girl premise. And fortunately for audiences, it all works. The practical gore effects are hands down some of the best of the year. John Carver is a perfected reintroduction to the slasher sub-genre that reinforces exactly what drew people to these movies in the first place.” SpoilerFreeMovieSleuth.com

” …a movie like this needs a far more interesting final girl than Verlaque’s Jessica, who is as bland as unsalted popcorn. In attempting to line up potential suspects, the movie is filled with too many characters, some of whom disappear for long stretches as though the writers have forgotten about them. Thanksgiving does just enough to deliver on its premise, but despite some fun kills, it feels like a missed opportunity to kick off a new slasher franchise.” ★★★ TheMovieWaffler.com

“The film does not have the look that the fake trailer had, so do not expect that B-film cinematography, we are looking at a film totally of our time, with a current bill, more in the Scream style than the trailer that he proposed at the time. What you can expect is humour, even with scenes inspired 100% by the trailer. Nor does it skimp on blood and funny deaths, nor on the suspense of murderer and victim playing cat and mouse.” TerrorWeekend.com [translated from Spanish]