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Thanksgiving
Manage episode 452511119 series 98583
Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Listeners! We celebrate with a look at Eli Roth’s long-promised Thanksgiving horror film from 2023, based off the fake trailer he shot for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse double-feature. A masked John Carver (har har) seeks his revenge for a Black Friday event gone horribly wrong the previous year.
It’s a modern horror film with a classical sensibility that was a feast for the senses this holiday season. What are we thankful for? As always, we’re thankful for you and the community that we share. Cheers to all of you!
Thanksgiving (2023)
Episode 417, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig. Happy Thanksgiving, Todd.
Todd: Happy Thanksgiving, Craig. It is that time of year again. Are you getting ready to settle down to some turkey and cranberry sauce?
Craig: I will do the same thing I do every year and get together with my family and eat some really good food and appreciate almost a full week off of work.
I think it’s going to be a very much needed break. I’m very much looking forward to it.
Todd: I can guess that. Yeah, I’m spending it with my son. And that, uh, Yay! This will be the first Thanksgiving I’ve spent with him in two years, I guess. So yeah. That’s wonderful. So last year, in 2023, Eli Roth made good on his promise to make a movie out of that hilarious, that hilarious fake trailer that he made for Grindhouse.
That Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino movie that had all the fake trailers in between was done as like a double feature. Yeah, because it was like
Craig: a double, it was a double feature.
Todd: Yeah, I, gosh, I loved that movie, and I loved the trailers, I loved the whole concept of what they did, but I never had imagined that those, those silly trailers would actually be made into movies, and yet, three of them happened.
Almost all of
Craig: them have, yeah. So crazy. And it’s three of five, I think, right?
Todd: Uh huh, and I know that Eli Roth almost from the get go was like, no, we’re making this movie. Apparently, he and his childhood friend had written a screenplay, or a script, or treatment, or something, for this movie that, basically a slasher movie that would take place at Thanksgiving, back when they were 18.
So, I think they had this idea in the works for quite a while, and that provided the impetus to do it. But he took his time with it. I mean, he took a good solid, what, Almost, what, 15 years? What, that came out in what, 2007? And so between 2007 and 2023 is what? How’s my math? I know it’s all 13, 16 years! 16 years.
And it kinda got in and out of development here and there. Roth was just basically like, We’re waiting for the script to get good enough. And This is what they put together. Like I said, it was his childhood friend, Jeff Rendell, who wrote this. Yeah, so last year, the timing wasn’t right, plus me being here, it’s kinda hard for me to see a brand new movie, so we weren’t able to do the 2023 Thanksgiving.
on Thanksgiving Day. Instead, we said we’re gonna do it next year. So here we are in 2024, and we have a movie called Thanksgiving that we can do on Thanksgiving. So, doesn’t get any better than that.
Craig: I was talking to Alan yesterday, and I was like, we’re recording our Thanksgiving episode tomorrow, and he said, what’s the movie?
And I looked at him with a big shitty ingrat on my face, said, Thanksgiving.
It’s hilarious. It’s funny to me that I didn’t know the things that you just said, that it was an idea that he’s had for a really long time. I didn’t know. It’s a great idea.
Clip: You know,
Craig: like there, there are hundreds of Christmas horror movies. I think that horror movie fans like us, When the holidays come around we’re like hmm.
I wonder if there are any Arbor Day horror movies
Like we’re actively Looking for them and there aren’t as many Thanksgiving ones. We’ve done some really fun ones. Oh we have But there there aren’t a lot. So I think it’s a brilliant idea. I Honestly, just okay. So I I Had never seen the movie. I just watched it yesterday, but I had actually never seen the trailer either And I just watched that about 10 minutes ago.
I will say, I will say that I enjoyed the trailer more than the movie Oh, yeah, but I don’t think they could have gone as gonzo As the trailer suggested. Yeah. For the whole time.
Todd: No way. The whole time.
Craig: I don’t think they could, I don’t think they could have pulled that off for an hour and a half or an hour and 45 minutes or whatever, cause it was crazy.
But yeah, probably Eli Roth felt a little bit responsible to including some of the details from the trailer. And, and some of the most shocking things from the movie are things from the trailer.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I think I’m glad that I saw the movie first, because I think I may have been a little bit let down if I had seen the trailer first.
I think that I would have been expecting something, like, like, Oh, holy shit, I can’t believe he’s gonna make this movie. Right. This might have felt a little tame. Mm hmm. But I did read something about that. Did you read that too?
Todd: Yeah. He
Craig: said the trailer that he made and that people saw was for a movie that was made in the 70s or something.
I don’t know. Don’t fact check me.
Todd: He said, let’s pretend this Thanksgiving was a movie from 1980 that was so offensive that it was That every print was destroyed, all the scripts were burned, the director disappeared, the crew members changed their names, and one person saved the trailer and uploaded it to the darkest corners of 4chan, and now it’s made it out.
So this is the 2023 reboot. And he said, once they said that, it freed them up to, you know, have a little more flexibility. with the kind of movie they were more interested in. That’s
Craig: actually really clever. Yeah, it is, it is.
Todd: Cause I saw the trailer first. Cause I saw it way years ago when I saw Grindhouse and I thought it was shocking and hilarious but it’s a trailer that is very much supposed to be of this Like, again, early slasher era, low budget, cheap exploitation film that would show in a grindhouse and it’s brutal like those are.
It’s amateurish and it looks like a movie that could have been made back then. Yeah. Now I feel like Eli Roth, you know, I mean, it’s 2024, 2023. He’s 16 years older than he was when he even made that. He’s an older guy. He’s made kids movies now. So I think he’s probably in a different place than he was back then.
When I read that quote, it almost feels like it was like a sense of relief. Like, okay, we don’t have to make that movie. Cause I don’t feel like E. Roy Roth is above making a movie like that. I mean, hell, like, That’s what he’s known for. Cabin Fever and Hostel. They’re, they’re wild, crazy, intense, gory, some may say tasteless rides.
I’m happy I saw the trailer first because I was waiting for those iconic moments. I was really hoping he would, he would include those. And then when I saw those moments coming, I was like, Oh man, is he’s not going to really do that,
Craig: is he? Those things to me were shocking when I saw them, you know what I’m saying?
Like in the movie, as opposed to, I wasn’t. Waiting for them. So when they came, I was shocked.
Todd: That makes sense. And so I wasn’t as shocked, but the trailer was what shocked me. So yeah, I was glad I saw it beforehand because I liked having that anticipation. But I agree with you in your other point, and that is that I came into this expecting a different kind of movie.
I really came into this expecting him to make a movie like that. And at first, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t. Especially when it opens up with the whole Black Friday thing, and all these kids, and they’re all saying the F word every other sentence, and it’s his typical kind of smarmy, goofy humor.
But then, as the movie settled in, and it got past the opening scene, it started to feel very familiar to me. I was like, oh, this is actually a great homage to those earlier slasher movies. I mean, I was getting vibes of like any one of those that takes place in a high school prom night.
Craig: Yeah, and any masked killer.
Todd: Yeah. Down to the, I can’t remember which one it was, I, I wanna say it was, um, Final Exam, but I, I could be wrong, or maybe it was, uh, uh, anyway.
Craig: Valentine’s Day? It reminded me of Valentine’s Day.
Todd: It reminded me a lot, yeah. It remind, yeah, me too. But there’s one in particular that’s, that was a little more Giallo like, right, where the, where the killer would every, every time a person was killed, he’d pull out a, a picture and cross another person off of the photo of the
Craig: kids.
Uh, yeah, I don’t know, pieces, I don’t know. Something like right, I know what you’re talking about. It, it did to me also feel like, hey, this is an old school thing. That’s what he’s doing. And it’s good. Like I enjoyed that part of it. And I also want to say like, I don’t know really a whole lot about Eli Roth as a person.
And maybe that’s smart of him. You know, what, what I, what I do know about him is that he makes entertaining movies and he’s kind of hit or miss, you know, we’ve reviewed at least one of his movies. The Green Inferno that we didn’t like.
Todd: No.
Craig: But I don’t think it was poorly made. I just didn’t like it. I actually think that Eli Roth is a good filmmaker.
I think he’s talented.
Todd: Yeah, I think from the very beginning from Cabin Fever, he very quickly kind of got a signature style. You know, also, Quentin Tarantino supported him very early in his career and produced some of his earlier stuff and You can tell why they became good friends is because they both have seemed to have similar sensibilities, you know They’re both very interested in witty fun dialogue Kind of taking things to extremes but also being kind of tongue in cheek about it They love referencing old movies I bet those two get together and geek out like crazy over old horror and action movies and things like that and so like As Quentin Tarantino has sort of a signature style you can recognize right off the bat, I feel like when I pop in an Eli Roth movie, I’m always gonna get that.
And maybe when he kind of goes off the rails a little bit, is when he slips into less comfortable territory, and that’s when things become a little more missed than hit. You know, I know that his most recent action movie, Borderlands, was hilariously panned.
Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. I’m not an expert. I’m just a viewer.
And the movies that I’ve watched of his, I feel like he’s got an eye. I don’t know. His movies are, they’re well shot. They look, they just look good. Yeah. Even those movies like Cabin Fever. There are moments in that movie that are forever imprinted on my mind that I will never forget. When that girl. goes to shave her legs, and she shaves her skin off.
Yes. I, that will go, hopefully, to heaven with me, because I will never forget it. I’ll never forget it. That image of that girl. From Welcome to the Dollhouse. I can’t think of her name. Heather. Heather something. When she’s hanging in Hostel 2. Oh yes. When she’s hanging upside down and weeping and begging and her throat gets cut and bleeds down over that woman in a tub.
I will never forget that. Dementia will not be forgotten. Take that from me! Hahaha!
Todd: I’m glad these are the things. Whatever. That you will cling to as you Whatever
Craig: it takes! It will As you’re tying, yeah. That.
Todd: We gotta all have something to hold on to. We literally watched Hostile 2 yesterday.
Craig: Are you shitting me? That’s hilarious. I am
Todd: not kidding you. Yeah. It was kinda cool because it reminded me.
I was like, yeah, yeah. This is him and this is what I kind of enjoy about him. He feels young and fresh. His dialogue and the situations, they feel young and fresh. They also feel, like, I mean, the word fresh, I’m picking very specifically because even though these are, you know, how many horror movies are really groundbreaking?
But his always feel different. I think he knows how to write teenagers, he knows how to write Fun witty dialogue.
Craig: I think he knows how to be tongue in cheek about it. Yeah
Todd: Yeah, he
Craig: gets it. Like I get that. This is Cliche I I get that but I don’t know fresh is an interesting word because I did find this. I mean this is a traditional Slasher and that’s one of the things that I like about it.
It’s holiday themed. It’s a masked killer There’s a backstory Ultimately, there’s a motive but there’s just this person going around Killing people. I also love and this is you know, it doesn’t apply to Across the board, but everybody involved, like all the victims are tied to the backstory. Yeah. I like that.
Like it’s, it’s giving me everything. I want from what it’s supposed to be. Now saying that makes it sound like I’m giving this movie a glowing endorsement. The truth of the matter is there were so many characters. I didn’t know what was going on. A lot of the time. A lot of the
Todd: time. Like,
Craig: what? Who are you?
Todd: I felt the same way, but I also was secure in the knowledge that it didn’t matter. Like, I never once imagined that I would need to Like, I was so loose in my note taking. Some of the characters, I never knew their names. I never quite figured out how they were related or who was friends with who. But I knew from the beginning.
That this was going to be the kind of movie that, that wouldn’t even matter. And in a way I felt like he was rather restrained with this one in going in such a traditional direction. I expected, especially after the opening parts to get that sort of post scream era, self aware, meta, meta, slightly meta, but more just like self aware, jokey, Kind of thing and yet it really wasn’t
Craig: I mean no and and I liked that about it Yeah, this movie feels very much like Scream or I know what you did last summer and I say scream right after you say it’s not meta It’s not the these kids aren’t you know talking about horror movies?
Yeah, but it feels like those 90s Slashers. But,
Todd: well, it feels like the 90s slashers because it’s updated, I mean, cause the, maybe the cinematography or something like that. Sure. I mean. Yes. Yeah. I felt like though, it felt a hundred percent like those 70s slashers. And here’s why. There was no like real escalation of things, like in those older movies, like prom night or whatever, right?
In the weeks leading up to prom night, people are getting killed and dropped off left and right. And if you just. Come into the movie at any point. You will never know how many people were killed before that, because the characters never really seem to care. Like, they’re gonna go through with prom.
They’re gonna go about their lives. Oh shit, my best friend just died. We’re gonna cry about it for a minute. And then the next scene is now they’re arguing over some boy, or they’re necking in the woods. You know what I mean? There’s this sort of like just detachment where the plot just flows improbably.
As everyone’s dying and yet the characters seem to like almost from scene to scene forget that this horrible traumatic thing happened And they should all just be locking themselves in their homes until they have found who has killed these, you know, six people Within the course of the last week Especially because so many of them know that they’re on the list because the killer and and and what I’m trying to say is like That’s how those older movies were Scream and the more modern ones are not quite like that.
They try to make it a little more realistic. And I felt like this movie was a throwback to a time where it was really just about body count and about creative kills. And, and that’s what I appreciated about it.
Craig: I suppose, I supp You don’t agree, yeah? I just, no, it’s not that I don’t agree. It’s just that I see so many similarities with those 90s ones.
Because I feel like the, the big mystery is who is it? Right. Is it, there is a backstory that that’s why it reminds me so much of like, I know what you did last summer, like everything’s tied together. And I felt like I kind of knew that from the beginning because It’s projected, you know, like the, the killer is taunting them with phone calls and videos and screen, like it’s projected to me that there’s a clear motive.
This isn’t just Jason killing kids cause they, you know, like,
Todd: yeah,
Craig: there’s a reason.
Todd: That’s why it kind of, it feels a little more like those, the slashers, like the burning and the, you know, that era, that like the 1981 era, where there was, there was a clear motive. Like it would always be some guy who got wronged, who came back, you know, the guy in the mine, who was left down there and who had to like eat somebody or whatever and was traumatized by it.
And that
Craig: was one of Roth’s clear inspirations for this movie. He said that, he said that he wanted to do exactly what. I’m saying, idiotically, he wanted to do a slasher like that. He was inspired by Friday the 13th. He was inspired by My Bloody Valentine. Like the final scene of the movie is virtually identical to the final scene of My Bloody Valentine.
Am I right?
Todd: Yeah, you’re right. It virtually is. It just takes place in a different location.
Craig: We should set up what the movie’s about, which is difficult to do.
Todd: There’s so much stuff.
Craig: It starts out The first thing that I wrote down is, I love the TriStar Pegasus. Yeah, I haven’t seen that in a while. Back in the late 80s and 90s, when I saw the TriStar Pegasus, I’m like, This is going to be a good movie.
You’ve said that before.
I love
Todd: it. So you’re going to carry that with you into dementia as well, aren’t you? I hope
Craig: so. And they’re in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This is Thanksgiving and Patrick Dempsey. God, I also, I have no idea what his name is. He’s the sheriff, but it’s Patrick Dempsey. McDreamy goes to Gina Gershon’s.
Thanksgiving. I have no idea what’s happening, but I’m frantically writing notes like, Patrick Tipsy? Gina Gershon?
Clip: What
Craig: is happening? Oh god, it was very exciting. And they’re at dinner, and then it’s Black Friday at this store. And some teenagers who are eventually going to be the people that we are going to follow for a while.
Somehow get in there early because Jess, the main girl, her dad owns the store. Is that right?
Todd: Yep. Yep.
Craig: So they get in there early and they’re kind of dicks about it and like taunt the people outside. And the people outside turn into a rage fueled mob and break into the store and people are slaughtered.
I’m surprised that this didn’t happen more often in real life because that shit used to be crazy. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. The pandemic was terrible, but if anything good came out of it, it killed Black Friday. I am so happy about that. Thank God for that.
Todd: Yeah, you know, it was funny because, uh, obviously shades of that movie Black Friday that we saw.
Yes. Shades of Krampus. Krampus! The beginning of Krampus, when they taught, when This is where I thought, okay, well, the movie’s going for this goofy social commentary. No, it really wasn’t. This is just an event, and there’s a lot of silliness happening. It’s the
Craig: inciting incident. Mm hmm. It’s Jason Voorhees drowning.
It’s the kid in the burning getting blown up in the, you know, outhouse or whatever. I don’t even remember, but people die. Remember friends later that it’s important that Gina Gershon gets trampled to death horribly in this scene. And it’s disgusting. And it’s, it’s very gory. Like everything about this movie is a hundred percent competent.
I want to praise it on that level. I want to praise it overall, but like it’s gory. The end. Dark and shocking. Yeah, I think in some respects, but when these things happened, like when Gina Gershon, I think her throat or her head or something gets stomped and then she’s just laying there very bloody. It’s very graphic and I was shocked, but I was glad to be shocked.
I was like, Oh yeah, I didn’t know. I, Oh, like here we are in the first five minutes.
Todd: A shopping cart whacks her right in the head and she kind of gets jammed between two of them. It’s horrible. She gets killed and there was a guy there who was manning the door who they break through the door. It’s kind of funny where he watches the glass slowly break.
It’s almost like that scene from Jurassic Park, the sequel, right? Where the glass slowly starts breaking. Yeah, so it’s got this these funny moments, but then these horrible things happen and it’s all about a waffle irons They keep referring to this incident because every everybody gets affected by this incident Obviously this girl and her family are affected her father has to go on a big tour of goodwill After this and it’s got a lot of damage to repair to the store’s reputation For even being open and allowing that to happen one of the security guards just took off Turntail and ran in the very beginning, but then there are these kids, even though they didn’t really, they kind of seem to have almost incited the mob, or at least they have some guilt from that, or they’re being blamed for that because they got in early, and how did that happen, and why did that happen, and, and so there was just kind of all these reasons for all these different people to either be angry about what happened, or for other people to be angry at them.
So, you’ve got a lot of possibilities as to who the killer could be right away when people who were involved in this incident suddenly start getting picked off.
Craig: As they do. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the impetus. It, it almost, God, I’m so dumb, I guess. It took me a second to realize that the people who were getting killed were all people who were directly involved in this.
Luckily for dummies like me, The movie eventually tells us that like, like when people start looking into it, they start to figure out, Oh yeah, all these people are connected. Me, big dummy, trying to take a bunch of notes, trying to write down all these people’s names. And there’s like 500 characters in this movie and some of them look just alike.
There were two guys. Who looked exactly the same and I couldn’t figure that one of them was Bobby, but there was another guy, Evan or something. I don’t know that they were identical to me, even though I’m sure if you put them side by side, they probably are easily distinguishable. I couldn’t figure it out.
It was so hard for me to keep track of who was who. And because there were so many people, it took me a while to figure out that Jess. I have early in my notes, Jess is the main girl, like probably the final girl. But then there are so many people that come in and out. I just kind of found it hard to follow.
Ultimately it doesn’t really matter. There’s just this guy and he’s dressed as a pilgrim and he’s wearing a John Carver mask.
Todd: So funny.
Craig: Now, apparently John Carver is an actual historical figure whom I know nothing about. Do you know anything about this?
Todd: I should have looked up John Carver. I’m frantically looking him up right now.
Craig: No. Who cares? Nobody cares. He’s a pilgrim. He was the governor.
Todd: He was a Mayflower passenger. And a New World colonist. He was the first governor of Plymouth County. He was in office from 1620 to 1621. So, yeah, that’s fascinating.
Craig: Anyway, he’s a pilgrim and he’s killing people in pretty creative ways. The first person I think that he can, and when I say a pilgrim, he’s dressed like a pilgrim, but he’s also wearing one of those plastic Halloween masks that don’t even really exist anymore.
No. Those really thin plastic mold masks that would, like, cut your face because they were razor sharp. And it just secured, secured around your face with just a little piece of elastic. Did you say fifties? I wore those masks, Todd. Did you not?
Todd: I said, I said from about the 50s through the 80s is when I think that was happening because those were always the masks that were sold with the Outfit that was nothing more than like a printed like a poncho.
Yeah So hot and sweaty, but man, I guess it just got the job done when you were, when you were in a pinch. Oh man, yeah, whatever. So he’s,
Craig: yeah, so he’s in one of those messes, and he kills a bunch of people. The, the first one he kills this lady who works in a restaurant, I think? Yeah, she
Todd: was the lady who, she got the most screen time, it seems like, during the shouting crowd scenes, because she was, uh, she was so angry, and, you know, Pulling waffle irons out of people’s hands and stuff like that.
Craig: Oh, right, right. Yep. Yep. I remember that he Dunks her in water and it seems like that shot that we’ve seen a million times where somebody dunks somebody in Hot oil or hot water, but it’s not even that. It’s just regular water. And then he pulls her out and he opens the freezer door and he sticks her face to it and it freezes to the door like that would happen to the tool.
Todd: It’s so dumb.
Craig: I don’t know, but I thought that was a really clever. I actually thought that that. That may have been my favorite kill and there are other good kills that you may have to recount because this is where things get fuzzy for me, the whole middle of the movie. I was just really kind of.
Confused. I didn’t know what was happening.
Todd: Yeah, well, well, the way she finally gets it, ’cause she manages to peel her face away and half of the skin comes with it. But she runs outside and dives into a , dives into a dumpster, just as the killer is driving a truck into the dumpster and somehow. That man just to bisect her so that her legs fall off and it’s really gross but really creative and then the killer sticks the legs over the star in the right, it’s called the right mart or whatever like that and there’s like a star in the logo and whatever way up high and uh, so he’s kind of marked the store
Craig: and he sends, he sends, I guess, pictures To Jess and the other teenagers of a table set for dinner and I know that at least that, the top half of her torso is there.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I don’t remember at what point, like, this person is obviously setting this table with the victims, and then taunting the other victims.
Todd: That was sort of the throwback, you know, element. Updated to modern times. This, the, the killer has an Instagram account, basically. That he’s obscured through several cell phones and some kind of technology.
So they can’t track him down, but he is able to post taunting photos. And he’s got the Thanksgiving table set. And then later on, they notice that there are place names set at each spot. And then we, every now and then, not often enough, I thought, because like I said, in those earlier movies, after another person dies, you’ll get this nice closeup from the killer’s point of view as he crosses another person off of his list or scratches someone’s face out of the photo or whatnot.
But yeah, every now and then we get to see him setting up a torso next to the table or putting someone’s head on a plate next to their own name plate and things like that.
Craig: Yeah. And it’s, it’s classic slasher. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a little bit giallo. I would say, you know, A lot of focus on these black gloves.
You know, it’s all a mystery of Who is it? It, it, it has to be somebody who’s involved, right? Yeah, so it has to be. And there’s some red herrings. There are a million red herrings. Everybody’s a red herring. I feel like we’re basically following Jess. So, you know, it can’t be her, but there are boys all around her.
There’s her new boyfriend who nobody really likes, but her, but they kind of tolerate him. There’s her old boyfriend who was involved in filmed the whole thing, but he was. baseball player and he got injured and like after this happened, he just disappeared and they don’t know where he is. And again, all red herrings, basically.
Right. But meanwhile, you’ve got this masked, gloved person. And just before, I turned it off as I was answering your call. But I was watching an interview with Eli Roth. And he said that he really wanted it to remain a mystery who the killer was. So he had All of the actors and then also various like stunt people or whatever in that costume.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: In different scenes. So anybody who you thought that it might have been, might have been in that costume at some point. That, that’s, that’s Easy, you know, but it’s kind
Todd: of cheating, but okay,
Craig: I like it.
Todd: Well, it also had me thinking at one point that maybe there were two.
Craig: I wondered or more. I wondered that too.
Like it could be too. It could be more. I had no idea what was going on because and this is smart too. They lots of movies have done it since scream, but Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. Were masked killers, but it’s not like there were a bunch of them running around and you didn’t know which one was the Right, you know ever since scream with the ghost face mask everybody and There are people lots of people running around in these masks.
Yeah, so You don’t know
Todd: who one of those the killer
Craig: is. And at one point, one of the most shocking parts to me was a part that’s in the trailer, but they changed it. There’s a part where for some, you know, the kids already know there’s a killer. They’re looking out for them, but for some reason they’re in the parade.
And they’re all dressed as pilgrims too, and they’re looking out, but there are tons of people dressed as the pilgrim, and that’s the people that they’re looking at. There also has, happens to be a nightmarish clown. Yeah, what was that? Walking around in the parade. And I was like, what? I don’t think this guy understood the essential.
This is like, like cool costume, bro. But this is like a Thanksgiving day parade. I don’t think you get it. And then that clown. Takes an axe and chops somebody’s head off. Yeah. The, the turkey, like, like a guy dressed as a turkey. Yeah. And that moment is in the original trailer, but it’s the guy in the pilgrim mask.
But that, that shocked me so much. I was like, what is happening? Yeah.
Todd: Well, that, that happens later. Other people die. The store security guy who would run off. Comes home and I think after the woman is found dead, he decides he needs to get out of Dodge with his cat. He has this cute little cat and he’s putting his things together and of course something’s missing and so he’s looking for it.
Senses someone’s in the house and he’s right. This guy comes out from, I think, under the table and stabs him with one of those electric carvers, which was, uh
Craig: Oh, that was, that, that scene was really funny because like he heard somebody in the house and so like he was walking around and he said something like,
But then he gets chopped up with an electric carver and it’s very gruesome. The, the scene is also funny because for part of it, he’s talking. to his cat. Yes. And he asks the cat, he’s like, where is it buddy? And the cat like does a take to the side. And it turns out that that’s not even really where the person is.
But my favorite bit of trivia that I read about this was that Eli Roth said that the cat actor was so good. Like that cat would just do anything that it was told to do. It was apparently the cat that was in The Pet Sematary remake. And I remember reading about that movie and reading that the trainer talked about how amazing that cat was.
But I also, and I like cats and I know you like cats too.
Todd: I love cats.
Craig: What was it? I lost what I was going to say.
Todd: He, he, he nicknamed the cat Leonardo DiCaprio.
Craig: Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s hilarious. What I was going to say was he also wanted to answer the question, what happens to the pet? And honestly, that is a question that I have asked myself when I watch these movies.
You guys are so weird.
Todd: I have never once asked that question.
Craig: What’s going to happen? Todd, you had cats. If somebody had come and slaughtered you, I mean, your cats would have eaten you, but then what happens after that?
Todd: Right.
Craig: Probably go
Todd: take a nap for a while is what they do. Oh
Craig: God. That would be, that would be my first concern.
My first concern. I don’t have kids. I get it. You have an actual human kid. No,
Todd: I hear you. So, so the killer as he’s walking out pauses, turns around, looks back at the cat before he puts some food in his bowl so the cat could eat as he’s walking out the door. I thought that was hilarious. Thank you.
Craig: Thank you for making that point.
Todd: Yeah, it was cute. Oh god.
Craig: Yeah, I, I, I thought that was funny. There are a lot of things in the movie I think are funny, and I think that are Intended to be funny. Yeah. Yeah, it’s just at some point. I was done. Okay, all right, let’s get to it. Let’s get to it. Who’s the killer?
Todd: Honestly,
Craig: things get muddy for me here because there are still so many of them.
There are people that we haven’t even talked about. And
Todd: they’re all interacting with each other in all kinds of ways. Like Ryan and Bobby. So Bobby’s come back into town and that seems mysterious. And Ryan and Bobby have kind of a jealousy thing because Ryan is now dating Jessica. I don’t know.
Somebody’s father tries to pull her out and I Then they’re getting more of these, these photos, and they’re involving the sheriff again, and the sheriff’s got an assistant. Well, assistant. He’s another deputy or whatever, you know. There’s Stube, we haven’t even talked about him, he’s like the token black guy.
There’s Scott, who is Ryan’s Scooba, yeah. Yeah, roommate who kind of comes in and then kind of leaves for a while and then pops back in every now and then. At one point I thought it was him, because I was like, he’s gonna be somebody we haven’t seen much, you know? And that guy might have a reason, and then they go back and they review the tape.
There’s this whole deal where They want to get back to that night and figure out if anybody knows anything from that, that night a year ago that they’re not saying. And I’m also sitting here thinking, why is this really that important? Like, how are you going to get a clue? Everybody knows what, already knows what happened at that event.
You know, what new clue are you going to get? After the event, nobody went to that event knowing all that shit was gonna go down. So it’s not like anybody was preparing anything, you know? But they review tapes, Jess Jess kind of just suddenly says, Well, you know what? I’ve known all this time that my father had backups of those of that.
And I just never brought it up to anybody or brought it up to the police, but I’m gonna go in and and look at them. And she gets some stills and it it turns out that Somebody knew somebody and somebody I mean it’s like I was all I was also sitting here going like I think all this is pretty flimsy
Craig: Yeah, ultimately nothing.
It doesn’t matter
Todd: busy work for the move It’s just stuff for them to do in between killings Honestly,
Craig: right the the person the person who is doing this the person who has a vendetta We’re not learning anything new. No, we’re not. The reason that this person is angry is because they got in there early and flaunted it and caused the riot.
Yeah. We know that from the first scene. There’s no question. We don’t learn anything new. No. But it is a lot of investigation. There are moments from this movie that I thought were just hilarious. It is. Out of context, I have no idea when this happens. I feel like it happens on TV. Like they’re interviewing some kid, this kid named Chad, and he says, and that’s why I won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving this year or any year.
And then he pulls up the corner of the bottom corner of his shirt to wipe a tear from his eyes, just to show like his rock hard abs.
Todd: While the two girls sit next to him are like, Oh Chad, it’s okay.
Craig: I think I get Eli Roth’s sense of humor. Yeah. I think he has kind of a dark, twisted sense of humor that I get. He does.
Todd: And
Craig: there’s so many,
Todd: there’s so many moments like that in this movie, but they’re also like, they just come and they go and they’re, it’s just so unlike his other ones where it seems like there’s a joke like that.
All the time, you know, going on. Whereas in this one, they still happen, but it’s a much more restrained to the point where it doesn’t make the movie feel like a comedy, like, like his other movies kind of do, I mean, even hostile to a certain extent, there are moments where it just kind of just becomes comedy.
And this movie never really felt that way, which is. Again, why I thought it was such a great homage to those older movies while still giving him a little bit of his own particular style and updating it a little bit.
Craig: Some of the big things, like things from the trailer, like, I don’t remember how it happens, like the killer just gets people when he needs people.
Yeah. At some point I feel like he gets a bunch of them. At the school. And they’re all tied up around, and maybe at some point they’re all tied up around the table or whatever. That’s at the end,
Todd: yeah. Toward the end
Craig: the stepmom he gets the stepmom at some point. Oh god. She wakes up on a table like surrounded by
Todd: potatoes and carrots and shit
Craig: And then and then she she wakes up and she realizes that he’s there so she still pretends to be asleep while he Bastes her, like he like, brushes her with butter, and we know that she’s awake and conscious while he’s painting butter on her face.
Todd: Sprinkling rock salt on it.
Craig: Oh yeah. Oh, he seasons her. He sticks like, yeah, like rosemary between her toes.
It’s, it’s great. Like, it’s great. I feel like this is even like a throwback to like, Chainsaw Massacre, you know, like this, this guy, he’s sick, he’s twisted. And then there’s a whole scene where she wakes up and she runs away and it’s very tense and she’s running around and she finds other bodies and whatnot, blah, but like, it’s great.
It’s, it’s fairly typical. It feels like something right out of, I know what you did last summer, that kind of chase, but eventually he gets her and he puts her in the oven. Where does this oven exist? Oh, I know, right? It’s like the, I guess it must be the biggest pizza oven in the world because she, her whole body fits in there.
And he turns it on and she starts to freak out cause like the burners start to glow. But then he opens the oven door and reaches in and stabs her with something and then closes the door again. And it’s one of those turkey thermometers.
Todd: Oh, so funny. So funny.
Craig: And then she cooks and then when she’s cooked it pops. Oh
Todd: my God. Oh.
Craig: That’s funny, that’s funny. If you’re gonna make a Thanksgiving horror movie and call it Thanksgiving, you gotta do it. And then later, and then later he serves the mom trussed up like a turkey.
Todd: Legs in the air. Fold it over.
Apparently, apparently there was a scene on the blu ray that didn’t make it where Instead of wearing her skirt there or whatever her lower half of her body was naked and stuffing was stuffed between her legs Oh my god, that’s disgusting But more in keeping actually with the trailer the fake trailer that this was based on even more disgusting stuff happens in that Do you remember that?
Clip: Yeeeah. That’s the very last
Craig: image. Yes. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but now that you said it, okay, yeah, gross, gross.
Todd: He doesn’t go that far. Yeah. But yeah, you’re right. It’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was getting totally those vibes as everyone is tied up around this table screaming as this woman is put down there and he casually walks around it and from behind his mask And with like a voice changer, is telling them all, basically taunting them and telling them why he’s doing what he’s doing.
Clip: Now, we’re all going to go around the table and say what we’re thankful for. You’re on live, so choose your words wisely.
Todd: And then he completely tenderizes one of the boys head with a meat tenderizer.
Craig: Holy shit! That was brutal. That was It was brutal and not unexpected because as soon as it started to happen, I knew it was going to happen, but it was so brutal.
Like he had taken the time to tie them all up around the table.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Only for as soon as they all woke up to Smash one guy’s head down on the table and just beat the shit, like with a mallet, just destroy his head. It was violent. It was brutal. The movie is, the movie is violent and brutal and bloody. And I, you know, that’s not, gore is not my thing, but when it’s well done, it’s well done.
And I think that it’s really well done here. And somehow I can’t explain it. But there is sometimes when gore is done in a spirit of fun that I can get behind it.
Todd: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Craig: That’s what this seems like. It seems like it’s in a spirit of fun. It doesn’t seem like I’m just trying to traumatize you.
Todd: That’s, that’s how those old movies kind of were too, you know? And back then the effects weren’t even that great, so it was even more fun. Where are we going with this? I guess, you know, he’s got them all around the table. The, they start to peel away and run off, uh, there’s some chasing going on, all this is muddied in my head too, like, I really didn’t know who was going where and what was happening, because then at some point, they’re far away from this house, and Jessica, Jess suddenly stumbles upon one of the sheriff’s cars with the, uh, trunk open and his deputy is laying next to it.
And I was like, what happened here? And why did she just stumble on this? And so then, like an idiot, she wanders into the nearest building and has another encounter that she barely gets away from with this guy. I don’t remember how I have no
Craig: idea. I have no idea what is happening.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: There is that car, there’s that car wreck with the police.
I thought that was Patrick Dempsey who was on the road. Yeah, I did too at first.
Todd: No, it was the other guy. Okay, so, okay,
Craig: all right, okay. Because I was so confused because then he shows up later and he doesn’t have road rash. Or does he? I don’t know. Is
Todd: this? It’s in this building when they’re doing the chase that her friend is also there and I don’t know why her friend was there No, no, no, no
Craig: her one of her friends is there She follows she she takes the gun off the cop that she finds in the road And then she goes in this house and she sees the guy the masked guy She follows him And he takes off the mask and it’s one of her friends, Bobby, I don’t know, one of the curly haired ones that looks just like one of the other ones.
I don’t know. But she’s like, Oh shit, it’s Bobby. But then Patrick Dempsey shows up and she’s like, Patrick Dempsey, it’s Bobby. And he’s like, okay, go outside. I’ll take care of it. And she goes outside and closes the door. And immediately I was like, no, F you, Patrick Dempsey. This is shady as hell. But he goes inside and she just hears three gunshots.
Todd: And
Craig: he comes back out and he’s like, Oh yeah, it was Bobby. I think I shot him, but he ran away.
Todd: And now you know, okay, now we know what’s going down.
Craig: I felt like it was a little clumsy, and I also felt like the reveal, she’s just a big dum dum up until now, but then she’s sitting, like everything’s, I don’t know, Patrick Dempsey comes in and like, everything’s fine, I don’t know, everything’s fine, I need to go away for a second so you can have a revelation, I’ll be right back.
Right. She’s just sitting there, and she looks at her pants, she’s picking burrs. And then she just flashes back to a million things and I guess it’s when he comes back in and she sees that he also has burrs on his pants and shoes. Yeah. She flashes back to a million things. And the thing that’s, uh, She flashes back to are him saying like I’ve needed you all along I never could have done it without you and I guess we’re to believe that that’s true because he finally does come back and She’s a big dum dum and can’t just play it cool and totally Blows her cover and he’s like, oh, I guess, you know, now I have to kill you.
Todd: Yeah I don’t know what he needed her for i’m not really sure what she did that helped him in any way he could have just I guess
Craig: like she was just his liaison and like Letting him know where people were gonna be
Todd: That was clumsy. I don’t know. I called it by the way. I called it halfway through the movie I was like, it’s got to be him.
Craig: I didn’t. And the, the motive is that he was f ing Gina Gershon and he was in love with her, even though she was married to the Rite Aid store owner or something. I don’t know, but she was pregnant and, and she got killed in that. Black Friday disaster, and that’s why he’s after everybody. All right, fine.
Todd: I mean, that was the first scene in the movie, really, was him coming up to the door and and and her opening it, and I was like, Oh, they had a look, you know, they had a moment.
And so when I was going back, especially when they pointed out, Oh, well, maybe somebody’s mad that that guy You know got trampled by the door. I thought well who else got killed there? Well, it was that that woman and I thought oh, yeah It’s I mean, it’s not her husband because he’s barely been around so it must have been be this guy was in love with her Maybe that’s what it was.
I did not I
Craig: was just like I was like Patrick Dempsey Gina Grisha
I was Yeah, I was just shocked that they were both in it. They were even in it. My question to you, my question to you is, why is it that when he realizes that she has figured it out, why does he turn into Robert De Niro? What do you mean? Todd, didn’t his accent change? Entirely Change, I mean, I’m surely not making this up like I feel like he talked he talked in a certain way throughout the whole movie and then as soon as As soon as she figured out he’s like You talking to me?
You talking to me?
Todd: He had a bit of that accent through the whole movie though, maybe it was just a little more intensified at that point I thought it was interesting because the whole accent was not something I normally hear out of his mouth But I was reading through the trivia and apparently that’s his actual way, his original Eastern, you know, New England accent that he had to suppress when he got started in acting and part of why he was excited to Do the movie was that he could just kind of let it go So maybe yeah, maybe he got very into that scene and decided to really let it go
Craig: I don’t know.
Shout out to Patrick Dempsey. I really like Patrick Dempsey. I’ve liked him for a long long long time
Todd: Ever since Can’t Buy Me Love, is that what you’re gonna say? Uh huh.
Craig: Can’t Buy Me Love, that movie where he was like a gigolo pizza boy, likes that movie.
Todd: He looks the same. Good guy. That guy doesn’t age.
Craig: Yeah,
Todd: it’s kind of amazing handsome
Craig: handsome guy. Good for you. Patrick Dempsey and good for you for maintaining a career And you know, he’s he’s popping up in horror stuff. You know, he was one in one of those scream movies Recently. Anyway, great. Whatever. He’s the killer. So then he chases her around and other stuff happens and they’re filling up a giant inflatable turkey That he doesn’t notice and some of them are running away.
I don’t even remember who’s with her at this point. Like, I feel like Scuba and Gabby, and I don’t even know who these people are, but some of the people, some of the people who are left are with her and are helping her get away and they’re running away. And she loads a musket, which she had shown us that she could do earlier in the movie.
Bye. She looks at, and McDreamy is chasing her. But he, you know, he’s standing in front of this giant turkey that’s inflating behind him. He says,
Clip: sorry, Jessica. This year there will be no leftovers.
Craig: Oh man. Oh, gosh, and then it looks, it looks like she’s going to shoot him, but she’s not. And she even indicates that to him, like, ha ha, dummy, I’m not going to shoot you. I’m going to shoot this giant inflatable turkey behind you that we’ve been filling with like, I don’t know, propane? Some kind of
Todd: flammable gas.
Craig: And she shoots it, it explodes, and it explodes him. Something that was funny to me about the ending of the movie is he Was he obsessed with her? Because he keeps saying her name and so weird.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: When the explosion happened, I had earbuds in. I don’t know how you were watching it, but I swear to God, I heard him scream,
Clip: Jessica!
Craig: He did. What?
Todd: Why is he so obsessed with her? There’s kind of a weird ending, like a tag on to this, that reminded me of The Guest a little bit. I mean, so much like The Guest, they’re sitting by the ambulance, and all the first responders are coming out, and they’re clearing the area, and one of them comes up and says, You know, we searched the whole place, there’s no way anybody could have survived in there, but everything was burnt to ash.
But then, implied in that is that they never could find his body, right? They just assume it was all burned up. And then she thinks, she kind of in her head, thinks she sees a guy walking out. No, she does see a guy! Well, she sees a guy, but she kind of in her head imagines it might be him. And maybe it is supposed to be him, because they’re going to do a sequel.
Maybe
Craig: it isn’t, but I mentioned that at the beginning when we started talking. I said the end is almost exactly the same as My Bloody Valentine.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I think that happens at the end of My Bloody Valentine, too. He just runs, skipping down the, down the mine. No, we see somebody come like everything’s over everything’s okay, but we see somebody coming out of the mine Who is in a mask, you know, like you don’t know who’s behind that.
Todd: Oh, you’re talking about the second one About the remake. I’m talking about the first one. Remember where he literally is skipping away down the mine going, Happy Valentine’s Day! Woo wee! But they can’t get to him because half of the mines caved in. I don’t remember
Craig: that. I don’t know. Like, overall, I Watch it.
Hello, friends, horror lovers. You’re looking for something to watch on Thanksgiving with your significant other, or your adolescent teenager kid, or your friends who love horror movies. And you’re in the Thanksgiving spirit. Yep. Watch it. Watch it. Is it amazing? No. It’s not amazing, but it’s really not bad.
It’s not bad. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel the need to watch it again. This isn’t gonna be, for me, something that like, oh shit, like yeah. I’m gonna watch this every Thanksgiving from now on. But I do think that Roth accomplished what he was going for. I think he was going for an old school slasher.
Yeah. I think, like us, he’s like, Let’s let’s make this a holiday movie. Why not and it is I mean it is thanksgiving
Todd: Yeah
Craig: through and through and I love that about it And that’s why I definitely say yeah, check it out. Check it out. I don’t want to set the bar too high I I don’t want you to go in and To it thinking that it’s gonna be amazing because I personally don’t think it’s amazing, but I did enjoy it.
Todd: I mean, I literally enjoyed it as much as I enjoy watching those older slasher movies, and that says something. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, you just throw it on the pile.
Craig: That’s fair.
Todd: You know, I’m not gonna go watch, re watch any of those either. But I have fond memories from them, and I really enjoyed watching them.
Maybe I’ll go back and watch like, The Burning or, Final exam or something one more time pieces or something like that, but generally no You know, but I loved them. I loved them in the moment They delivered exactly what I was looking for and part of what I enjoyed about it was its formula It’s sort of predictability and it’s in predictability and the fact that It, there was like a mystery to it, you know, you’re, you’re guessing.
Sure. And that’s more fun. Like, you know, those slasher films are in a bit of a different category than, like you said earlier, like the Friday the 13th and the, the Freddy ones. You know, there’s no mystery involved in those movies. And that, that’s fun. Style of slasher movie where it’s just some supernatural killer.
We know who he is. Oh, it’s Michael Myers, right? Mm hmm These always had the the big whodunit aspect to it and all the red herrings and I really enjoyed that part of it You know, so yeah, no and plus with the really shocking really gory brutal kills Gosh that scene with the girl on the frickin table saw Jesus.
Oh my god Oh
Craig: Right after she had been stabbed in the ears with corncob holders
Todd: He had a lot of fun trying to come up with these unique kills and fun That’s another thing that those horror movies did, you know, that’s why you watch the sleepaway camp movies What weird way are people gonna be murdered in and so yeah, I enjoyed it.
I thought it was fun And like you said, Perfectly fine. Nothing super outstanding about it, but very solid. And I’m glad I watched it. I had a good time.
Craig: Me too. Me too. I, I just wanted to say this, you know, this is our Thanksgiving episode. And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to thank a lot of people. I want to thank everybody who listens.
all the time regardless of where you find us. I want to thank the patrons who support us in a different way and who we get to have some really cool interactions with. And Todd, I want to thank you for doing all the work. And just for all of you, and Todd, you especially, thank you for being somebody that I can just talk to and be with and, and trust.
And this, this to me, all of this, the, the podcast, the Patreon stuff, it’s a wonderful escape to A happy place. So, thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you, all of you.
Todd: I echo with that, Craig. And I want to thank you, too, for being a friend. Da da da da, travel down the road and back again. I also, but seriously, though, no, really, this is something I look forward to.
Every week is sitting down and chatting with you and, you know, we know where we stand and we, we’re good buddies in that way and you’re somebody I can always chat with and confide in and, and also just goof on, on great horror movies. We have a really good time with that. Thank God. And this, yeah, right? We need these escapes sometimes.
And, uh, I also want to thank, obviously, just like you, our listeners out there who have been with us through thick and thin, and who have stuck with us all these years, and who take the time to reach out and chat with us. We love our interactions with you. Thank you so much for making us a part of your entertainment, your day.
There’s a lot of stuff you can do with your time, and the fact that you’re interested in hearing us gab back and forth is very humbling, and Just, thank you for that. Thank you for giving us a reason to keep doing it. Also, I really want to thank the people who have, um, joined us on our podcast this year.
You know, we’ve had a few more guests on than we normally had before, and those have turned out to be really wonderful experiences. But I want to thank you guys as well for taking the time to come on and share your love of horror with us in the audience as well. There will be more of that to come. Well, thank you guys again.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who would be just as interested. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there. Happy Thanksgiving. We are two guys in a chainsaw@chainsawhorror.com, patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Find us in those places. Just let us know what you’re thankful for this year.
And, uh, we have Christmas right around the corner. So if you have ideas for Christmas movies, we are going to get started right away. So, uh, send us those. Uh, we still haven’t decided exactly what we’re going to do. We have a few ideas, but it’s not set in stone yet. So please reach out to us and might as well throw in New Year’s as well.
Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.
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Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Listeners! We celebrate with a look at Eli Roth’s long-promised Thanksgiving horror film from 2023, based off the fake trailer he shot for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse double-feature. A masked John Carver (har har) seeks his revenge for a Black Friday event gone horribly wrong the previous year.
It’s a modern horror film with a classical sensibility that was a feast for the senses this holiday season. What are we thankful for? As always, we’re thankful for you and the community that we share. Cheers to all of you!
Thanksgiving (2023)
Episode 417, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig. Happy Thanksgiving, Todd.
Todd: Happy Thanksgiving, Craig. It is that time of year again. Are you getting ready to settle down to some turkey and cranberry sauce?
Craig: I will do the same thing I do every year and get together with my family and eat some really good food and appreciate almost a full week off of work.
I think it’s going to be a very much needed break. I’m very much looking forward to it.
Todd: I can guess that. Yeah, I’m spending it with my son. And that, uh, Yay! This will be the first Thanksgiving I’ve spent with him in two years, I guess. So yeah. That’s wonderful. So last year, in 2023, Eli Roth made good on his promise to make a movie out of that hilarious, that hilarious fake trailer that he made for Grindhouse.
That Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino movie that had all the fake trailers in between was done as like a double feature. Yeah, because it was like
Craig: a double, it was a double feature.
Todd: Yeah, I, gosh, I loved that movie, and I loved the trailers, I loved the whole concept of what they did, but I never had imagined that those, those silly trailers would actually be made into movies, and yet, three of them happened.
Almost all of
Craig: them have, yeah. So crazy. And it’s three of five, I think, right?
Todd: Uh huh, and I know that Eli Roth almost from the get go was like, no, we’re making this movie. Apparently, he and his childhood friend had written a screenplay, or a script, or treatment, or something, for this movie that, basically a slasher movie that would take place at Thanksgiving, back when they were 18.
So, I think they had this idea in the works for quite a while, and that provided the impetus to do it. But he took his time with it. I mean, he took a good solid, what, Almost, what, 15 years? What, that came out in what, 2007? And so between 2007 and 2023 is what? How’s my math? I know it’s all 13, 16 years! 16 years.
And it kinda got in and out of development here and there. Roth was just basically like, We’re waiting for the script to get good enough. And This is what they put together. Like I said, it was his childhood friend, Jeff Rendell, who wrote this. Yeah, so last year, the timing wasn’t right, plus me being here, it’s kinda hard for me to see a brand new movie, so we weren’t able to do the 2023 Thanksgiving.
on Thanksgiving Day. Instead, we said we’re gonna do it next year. So here we are in 2024, and we have a movie called Thanksgiving that we can do on Thanksgiving. So, doesn’t get any better than that.
Craig: I was talking to Alan yesterday, and I was like, we’re recording our Thanksgiving episode tomorrow, and he said, what’s the movie?
And I looked at him with a big shitty ingrat on my face, said, Thanksgiving.
It’s hilarious. It’s funny to me that I didn’t know the things that you just said, that it was an idea that he’s had for a really long time. I didn’t know. It’s a great idea.
Clip: You know,
Craig: like there, there are hundreds of Christmas horror movies. I think that horror movie fans like us, When the holidays come around we’re like hmm.
I wonder if there are any Arbor Day horror movies
Like we’re actively Looking for them and there aren’t as many Thanksgiving ones. We’ve done some really fun ones. Oh we have But there there aren’t a lot. So I think it’s a brilliant idea. I Honestly, just okay. So I I Had never seen the movie. I just watched it yesterday, but I had actually never seen the trailer either And I just watched that about 10 minutes ago.
I will say, I will say that I enjoyed the trailer more than the movie Oh, yeah, but I don’t think they could have gone as gonzo As the trailer suggested. Yeah. For the whole time.
Todd: No way. The whole time.
Craig: I don’t think they could, I don’t think they could have pulled that off for an hour and a half or an hour and 45 minutes or whatever, cause it was crazy.
But yeah, probably Eli Roth felt a little bit responsible to including some of the details from the trailer. And, and some of the most shocking things from the movie are things from the trailer.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I think I’m glad that I saw the movie first, because I think I may have been a little bit let down if I had seen the trailer first.
I think that I would have been expecting something, like, like, Oh, holy shit, I can’t believe he’s gonna make this movie. Right. This might have felt a little tame. Mm hmm. But I did read something about that. Did you read that too?
Todd: Yeah. He
Craig: said the trailer that he made and that people saw was for a movie that was made in the 70s or something.
I don’t know. Don’t fact check me.
Todd: He said, let’s pretend this Thanksgiving was a movie from 1980 that was so offensive that it was That every print was destroyed, all the scripts were burned, the director disappeared, the crew members changed their names, and one person saved the trailer and uploaded it to the darkest corners of 4chan, and now it’s made it out.
So this is the 2023 reboot. And he said, once they said that, it freed them up to, you know, have a little more flexibility. with the kind of movie they were more interested in. That’s
Craig: actually really clever. Yeah, it is, it is.
Todd: Cause I saw the trailer first. Cause I saw it way years ago when I saw Grindhouse and I thought it was shocking and hilarious but it’s a trailer that is very much supposed to be of this Like, again, early slasher era, low budget, cheap exploitation film that would show in a grindhouse and it’s brutal like those are.
It’s amateurish and it looks like a movie that could have been made back then. Yeah. Now I feel like Eli Roth, you know, I mean, it’s 2024, 2023. He’s 16 years older than he was when he even made that. He’s an older guy. He’s made kids movies now. So I think he’s probably in a different place than he was back then.
When I read that quote, it almost feels like it was like a sense of relief. Like, okay, we don’t have to make that movie. Cause I don’t feel like E. Roy Roth is above making a movie like that. I mean, hell, like, That’s what he’s known for. Cabin Fever and Hostel. They’re, they’re wild, crazy, intense, gory, some may say tasteless rides.
I’m happy I saw the trailer first because I was waiting for those iconic moments. I was really hoping he would, he would include those. And then when I saw those moments coming, I was like, Oh man, is he’s not going to really do that,
Craig: is he? Those things to me were shocking when I saw them, you know what I’m saying?
Like in the movie, as opposed to, I wasn’t. Waiting for them. So when they came, I was shocked.
Todd: That makes sense. And so I wasn’t as shocked, but the trailer was what shocked me. So yeah, I was glad I saw it beforehand because I liked having that anticipation. But I agree with you in your other point, and that is that I came into this expecting a different kind of movie.
I really came into this expecting him to make a movie like that. And at first, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t. Especially when it opens up with the whole Black Friday thing, and all these kids, and they’re all saying the F word every other sentence, and it’s his typical kind of smarmy, goofy humor.
But then, as the movie settled in, and it got past the opening scene, it started to feel very familiar to me. I was like, oh, this is actually a great homage to those earlier slasher movies. I mean, I was getting vibes of like any one of those that takes place in a high school prom night.
Craig: Yeah, and any masked killer.
Todd: Yeah. Down to the, I can’t remember which one it was, I, I wanna say it was, um, Final Exam, but I, I could be wrong, or maybe it was, uh, uh, anyway.
Craig: Valentine’s Day? It reminded me of Valentine’s Day.
Todd: It reminded me a lot, yeah. It remind, yeah, me too. But there’s one in particular that’s, that was a little more Giallo like, right, where the, where the killer would every, every time a person was killed, he’d pull out a, a picture and cross another person off of the photo of the
Craig: kids.
Uh, yeah, I don’t know, pieces, I don’t know. Something like right, I know what you’re talking about. It, it did to me also feel like, hey, this is an old school thing. That’s what he’s doing. And it’s good. Like I enjoyed that part of it. And I also want to say like, I don’t know really a whole lot about Eli Roth as a person.
And maybe that’s smart of him. You know, what, what I, what I do know about him is that he makes entertaining movies and he’s kind of hit or miss, you know, we’ve reviewed at least one of his movies. The Green Inferno that we didn’t like.
Todd: No.
Craig: But I don’t think it was poorly made. I just didn’t like it. I actually think that Eli Roth is a good filmmaker.
I think he’s talented.
Todd: Yeah, I think from the very beginning from Cabin Fever, he very quickly kind of got a signature style. You know, also, Quentin Tarantino supported him very early in his career and produced some of his earlier stuff and You can tell why they became good friends is because they both have seemed to have similar sensibilities, you know They’re both very interested in witty fun dialogue Kind of taking things to extremes but also being kind of tongue in cheek about it They love referencing old movies I bet those two get together and geek out like crazy over old horror and action movies and things like that and so like As Quentin Tarantino has sort of a signature style you can recognize right off the bat, I feel like when I pop in an Eli Roth movie, I’m always gonna get that.
And maybe when he kind of goes off the rails a little bit, is when he slips into less comfortable territory, and that’s when things become a little more missed than hit. You know, I know that his most recent action movie, Borderlands, was hilariously panned.
Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. I’m not an expert. I’m just a viewer.
And the movies that I’ve watched of his, I feel like he’s got an eye. I don’t know. His movies are, they’re well shot. They look, they just look good. Yeah. Even those movies like Cabin Fever. There are moments in that movie that are forever imprinted on my mind that I will never forget. When that girl. goes to shave her legs, and she shaves her skin off.
Yes. I, that will go, hopefully, to heaven with me, because I will never forget it. I’ll never forget it. That image of that girl. From Welcome to the Dollhouse. I can’t think of her name. Heather. Heather something. When she’s hanging in Hostel 2. Oh yes. When she’s hanging upside down and weeping and begging and her throat gets cut and bleeds down over that woman in a tub.
I will never forget that. Dementia will not be forgotten. Take that from me! Hahaha!
Todd: I’m glad these are the things. Whatever. That you will cling to as you Whatever
Craig: it takes! It will As you’re tying, yeah. That.
Todd: We gotta all have something to hold on to. We literally watched Hostile 2 yesterday.
Craig: Are you shitting me? That’s hilarious. I am
Todd: not kidding you. Yeah. It was kinda cool because it reminded me.
I was like, yeah, yeah. This is him and this is what I kind of enjoy about him. He feels young and fresh. His dialogue and the situations, they feel young and fresh. They also feel, like, I mean, the word fresh, I’m picking very specifically because even though these are, you know, how many horror movies are really groundbreaking?
But his always feel different. I think he knows how to write teenagers, he knows how to write Fun witty dialogue.
Craig: I think he knows how to be tongue in cheek about it. Yeah
Todd: Yeah, he
Craig: gets it. Like I get that. This is Cliche I I get that but I don’t know fresh is an interesting word because I did find this. I mean this is a traditional Slasher and that’s one of the things that I like about it.
It’s holiday themed. It’s a masked killer There’s a backstory Ultimately, there’s a motive but there’s just this person going around Killing people. I also love and this is you know, it doesn’t apply to Across the board, but everybody involved, like all the victims are tied to the backstory. Yeah. I like that.
Like it’s, it’s giving me everything. I want from what it’s supposed to be. Now saying that makes it sound like I’m giving this movie a glowing endorsement. The truth of the matter is there were so many characters. I didn’t know what was going on. A lot of the time. A lot of the
Todd: time. Like,
Craig: what? Who are you?
Todd: I felt the same way, but I also was secure in the knowledge that it didn’t matter. Like, I never once imagined that I would need to Like, I was so loose in my note taking. Some of the characters, I never knew their names. I never quite figured out how they were related or who was friends with who. But I knew from the beginning.
That this was going to be the kind of movie that, that wouldn’t even matter. And in a way I felt like he was rather restrained with this one in going in such a traditional direction. I expected, especially after the opening parts to get that sort of post scream era, self aware, meta, meta, slightly meta, but more just like self aware, jokey, Kind of thing and yet it really wasn’t
Craig: I mean no and and I liked that about it Yeah, this movie feels very much like Scream or I know what you did last summer and I say scream right after you say it’s not meta It’s not the these kids aren’t you know talking about horror movies?
Yeah, but it feels like those 90s Slashers. But,
Todd: well, it feels like the 90s slashers because it’s updated, I mean, cause the, maybe the cinematography or something like that. Sure. I mean. Yes. Yeah. I felt like though, it felt a hundred percent like those 70s slashers. And here’s why. There was no like real escalation of things, like in those older movies, like prom night or whatever, right?
In the weeks leading up to prom night, people are getting killed and dropped off left and right. And if you just. Come into the movie at any point. You will never know how many people were killed before that, because the characters never really seem to care. Like, they’re gonna go through with prom.
They’re gonna go about their lives. Oh shit, my best friend just died. We’re gonna cry about it for a minute. And then the next scene is now they’re arguing over some boy, or they’re necking in the woods. You know what I mean? There’s this sort of like just detachment where the plot just flows improbably.
As everyone’s dying and yet the characters seem to like almost from scene to scene forget that this horrible traumatic thing happened And they should all just be locking themselves in their homes until they have found who has killed these, you know, six people Within the course of the last week Especially because so many of them know that they’re on the list because the killer and and and what I’m trying to say is like That’s how those older movies were Scream and the more modern ones are not quite like that.
They try to make it a little more realistic. And I felt like this movie was a throwback to a time where it was really just about body count and about creative kills. And, and that’s what I appreciated about it.
Craig: I suppose, I supp You don’t agree, yeah? I just, no, it’s not that I don’t agree. It’s just that I see so many similarities with those 90s ones.
Because I feel like the, the big mystery is who is it? Right. Is it, there is a backstory that that’s why it reminds me so much of like, I know what you did last summer, like everything’s tied together. And I felt like I kind of knew that from the beginning because It’s projected, you know, like the, the killer is taunting them with phone calls and videos and screen, like it’s projected to me that there’s a clear motive.
This isn’t just Jason killing kids cause they, you know, like,
Todd: yeah,
Craig: there’s a reason.
Todd: That’s why it kind of, it feels a little more like those, the slashers, like the burning and the, you know, that era, that like the 1981 era, where there was, there was a clear motive. Like it would always be some guy who got wronged, who came back, you know, the guy in the mine, who was left down there and who had to like eat somebody or whatever and was traumatized by it.
And that
Craig: was one of Roth’s clear inspirations for this movie. He said that, he said that he wanted to do exactly what. I’m saying, idiotically, he wanted to do a slasher like that. He was inspired by Friday the 13th. He was inspired by My Bloody Valentine. Like the final scene of the movie is virtually identical to the final scene of My Bloody Valentine.
Am I right?
Todd: Yeah, you’re right. It virtually is. It just takes place in a different location.
Craig: We should set up what the movie’s about, which is difficult to do.
Todd: There’s so much stuff.
Craig: It starts out The first thing that I wrote down is, I love the TriStar Pegasus. Yeah, I haven’t seen that in a while. Back in the late 80s and 90s, when I saw the TriStar Pegasus, I’m like, This is going to be a good movie.
You’ve said that before.
I love
Todd: it. So you’re going to carry that with you into dementia as well, aren’t you? I hope
Craig: so. And they’re in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This is Thanksgiving and Patrick Dempsey. God, I also, I have no idea what his name is. He’s the sheriff, but it’s Patrick Dempsey. McDreamy goes to Gina Gershon’s.
Thanksgiving. I have no idea what’s happening, but I’m frantically writing notes like, Patrick Tipsy? Gina Gershon?
Clip: What
Craig: is happening? Oh god, it was very exciting. And they’re at dinner, and then it’s Black Friday at this store. And some teenagers who are eventually going to be the people that we are going to follow for a while.
Somehow get in there early because Jess, the main girl, her dad owns the store. Is that right?
Todd: Yep. Yep.
Craig: So they get in there early and they’re kind of dicks about it and like taunt the people outside. And the people outside turn into a rage fueled mob and break into the store and people are slaughtered.
I’m surprised that this didn’t happen more often in real life because that shit used to be crazy. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. The pandemic was terrible, but if anything good came out of it, it killed Black Friday. I am so happy about that. Thank God for that.
Todd: Yeah, you know, it was funny because, uh, obviously shades of that movie Black Friday that we saw.
Yes. Shades of Krampus. Krampus! The beginning of Krampus, when they taught, when This is where I thought, okay, well, the movie’s going for this goofy social commentary. No, it really wasn’t. This is just an event, and there’s a lot of silliness happening. It’s the
Craig: inciting incident. Mm hmm. It’s Jason Voorhees drowning.
It’s the kid in the burning getting blown up in the, you know, outhouse or whatever. I don’t even remember, but people die. Remember friends later that it’s important that Gina Gershon gets trampled to death horribly in this scene. And it’s disgusting. And it’s, it’s very gory. Like everything about this movie is a hundred percent competent.
I want to praise it on that level. I want to praise it overall, but like it’s gory. The end. Dark and shocking. Yeah, I think in some respects, but when these things happened, like when Gina Gershon, I think her throat or her head or something gets stomped and then she’s just laying there very bloody. It’s very graphic and I was shocked, but I was glad to be shocked.
I was like, Oh yeah, I didn’t know. I, Oh, like here we are in the first five minutes.
Todd: A shopping cart whacks her right in the head and she kind of gets jammed between two of them. It’s horrible. She gets killed and there was a guy there who was manning the door who they break through the door. It’s kind of funny where he watches the glass slowly break.
It’s almost like that scene from Jurassic Park, the sequel, right? Where the glass slowly starts breaking. Yeah, so it’s got this these funny moments, but then these horrible things happen and it’s all about a waffle irons They keep referring to this incident because every everybody gets affected by this incident Obviously this girl and her family are affected her father has to go on a big tour of goodwill After this and it’s got a lot of damage to repair to the store’s reputation For even being open and allowing that to happen one of the security guards just took off Turntail and ran in the very beginning, but then there are these kids, even though they didn’t really, they kind of seem to have almost incited the mob, or at least they have some guilt from that, or they’re being blamed for that because they got in early, and how did that happen, and why did that happen, and, and so there was just kind of all these reasons for all these different people to either be angry about what happened, or for other people to be angry at them.
So, you’ve got a lot of possibilities as to who the killer could be right away when people who were involved in this incident suddenly start getting picked off.
Craig: As they do. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the impetus. It, it almost, God, I’m so dumb, I guess. It took me a second to realize that the people who were getting killed were all people who were directly involved in this.
Luckily for dummies like me, The movie eventually tells us that like, like when people start looking into it, they start to figure out, Oh yeah, all these people are connected. Me, big dummy, trying to take a bunch of notes, trying to write down all these people’s names. And there’s like 500 characters in this movie and some of them look just alike.
There were two guys. Who looked exactly the same and I couldn’t figure that one of them was Bobby, but there was another guy, Evan or something. I don’t know that they were identical to me, even though I’m sure if you put them side by side, they probably are easily distinguishable. I couldn’t figure it out.
It was so hard for me to keep track of who was who. And because there were so many people, it took me a while to figure out that Jess. I have early in my notes, Jess is the main girl, like probably the final girl. But then there are so many people that come in and out. I just kind of found it hard to follow.
Ultimately it doesn’t really matter. There’s just this guy and he’s dressed as a pilgrim and he’s wearing a John Carver mask.
Todd: So funny.
Craig: Now, apparently John Carver is an actual historical figure whom I know nothing about. Do you know anything about this?
Todd: I should have looked up John Carver. I’m frantically looking him up right now.
Craig: No. Who cares? Nobody cares. He’s a pilgrim. He was the governor.
Todd: He was a Mayflower passenger. And a New World colonist. He was the first governor of Plymouth County. He was in office from 1620 to 1621. So, yeah, that’s fascinating.
Craig: Anyway, he’s a pilgrim and he’s killing people in pretty creative ways. The first person I think that he can, and when I say a pilgrim, he’s dressed like a pilgrim, but he’s also wearing one of those plastic Halloween masks that don’t even really exist anymore.
No. Those really thin plastic mold masks that would, like, cut your face because they were razor sharp. And it just secured, secured around your face with just a little piece of elastic. Did you say fifties? I wore those masks, Todd. Did you not?
Todd: I said, I said from about the 50s through the 80s is when I think that was happening because those were always the masks that were sold with the Outfit that was nothing more than like a printed like a poncho.
Yeah So hot and sweaty, but man, I guess it just got the job done when you were, when you were in a pinch. Oh man, yeah, whatever. So he’s,
Craig: yeah, so he’s in one of those messes, and he kills a bunch of people. The, the first one he kills this lady who works in a restaurant, I think? Yeah, she
Todd: was the lady who, she got the most screen time, it seems like, during the shouting crowd scenes, because she was, uh, she was so angry, and, you know, Pulling waffle irons out of people’s hands and stuff like that.
Craig: Oh, right, right. Yep. Yep. I remember that he Dunks her in water and it seems like that shot that we’ve seen a million times where somebody dunks somebody in Hot oil or hot water, but it’s not even that. It’s just regular water. And then he pulls her out and he opens the freezer door and he sticks her face to it and it freezes to the door like that would happen to the tool.
Todd: It’s so dumb.
Craig: I don’t know, but I thought that was a really clever. I actually thought that that. That may have been my favorite kill and there are other good kills that you may have to recount because this is where things get fuzzy for me, the whole middle of the movie. I was just really kind of.
Confused. I didn’t know what was happening.
Todd: Yeah, well, well, the way she finally gets it, ’cause she manages to peel her face away and half of the skin comes with it. But she runs outside and dives into a , dives into a dumpster, just as the killer is driving a truck into the dumpster and somehow. That man just to bisect her so that her legs fall off and it’s really gross but really creative and then the killer sticks the legs over the star in the right, it’s called the right mart or whatever like that and there’s like a star in the logo and whatever way up high and uh, so he’s kind of marked the store
Craig: and he sends, he sends, I guess, pictures To Jess and the other teenagers of a table set for dinner and I know that at least that, the top half of her torso is there.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I don’t remember at what point, like, this person is obviously setting this table with the victims, and then taunting the other victims.
Todd: That was sort of the throwback, you know, element. Updated to modern times. This, the, the killer has an Instagram account, basically. That he’s obscured through several cell phones and some kind of technology.
So they can’t track him down, but he is able to post taunting photos. And he’s got the Thanksgiving table set. And then later on, they notice that there are place names set at each spot. And then we, every now and then, not often enough, I thought, because like I said, in those earlier movies, after another person dies, you’ll get this nice closeup from the killer’s point of view as he crosses another person off of his list or scratches someone’s face out of the photo or whatnot.
But yeah, every now and then we get to see him setting up a torso next to the table or putting someone’s head on a plate next to their own name plate and things like that.
Craig: Yeah. And it’s, it’s classic slasher. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a little bit giallo. I would say, you know, A lot of focus on these black gloves.
You know, it’s all a mystery of Who is it? It, it, it has to be somebody who’s involved, right? Yeah, so it has to be. And there’s some red herrings. There are a million red herrings. Everybody’s a red herring. I feel like we’re basically following Jess. So, you know, it can’t be her, but there are boys all around her.
There’s her new boyfriend who nobody really likes, but her, but they kind of tolerate him. There’s her old boyfriend who was involved in filmed the whole thing, but he was. baseball player and he got injured and like after this happened, he just disappeared and they don’t know where he is. And again, all red herrings, basically.
Right. But meanwhile, you’ve got this masked, gloved person. And just before, I turned it off as I was answering your call. But I was watching an interview with Eli Roth. And he said that he really wanted it to remain a mystery who the killer was. So he had All of the actors and then also various like stunt people or whatever in that costume.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: In different scenes. So anybody who you thought that it might have been, might have been in that costume at some point. That, that’s, that’s Easy, you know, but it’s kind
Todd: of cheating, but okay,
Craig: I like it.
Todd: Well, it also had me thinking at one point that maybe there were two.
Craig: I wondered or more. I wondered that too.
Like it could be too. It could be more. I had no idea what was going on because and this is smart too. They lots of movies have done it since scream, but Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. Were masked killers, but it’s not like there were a bunch of them running around and you didn’t know which one was the Right, you know ever since scream with the ghost face mask everybody and There are people lots of people running around in these masks.
Yeah, so You don’t know
Todd: who one of those the killer
Craig: is. And at one point, one of the most shocking parts to me was a part that’s in the trailer, but they changed it. There’s a part where for some, you know, the kids already know there’s a killer. They’re looking out for them, but for some reason they’re in the parade.
And they’re all dressed as pilgrims too, and they’re looking out, but there are tons of people dressed as the pilgrim, and that’s the people that they’re looking at. There also has, happens to be a nightmarish clown. Yeah, what was that? Walking around in the parade. And I was like, what? I don’t think this guy understood the essential.
This is like, like cool costume, bro. But this is like a Thanksgiving day parade. I don’t think you get it. And then that clown. Takes an axe and chops somebody’s head off. Yeah. The, the turkey, like, like a guy dressed as a turkey. Yeah. And that moment is in the original trailer, but it’s the guy in the pilgrim mask.
But that, that shocked me so much. I was like, what is happening? Yeah.
Todd: Well, that, that happens later. Other people die. The store security guy who would run off. Comes home and I think after the woman is found dead, he decides he needs to get out of Dodge with his cat. He has this cute little cat and he’s putting his things together and of course something’s missing and so he’s looking for it.
Senses someone’s in the house and he’s right. This guy comes out from, I think, under the table and stabs him with one of those electric carvers, which was, uh
Craig: Oh, that was, that, that scene was really funny because like he heard somebody in the house and so like he was walking around and he said something like,
But then he gets chopped up with an electric carver and it’s very gruesome. The, the scene is also funny because for part of it, he’s talking. to his cat. Yes. And he asks the cat, he’s like, where is it buddy? And the cat like does a take to the side. And it turns out that that’s not even really where the person is.
But my favorite bit of trivia that I read about this was that Eli Roth said that the cat actor was so good. Like that cat would just do anything that it was told to do. It was apparently the cat that was in The Pet Sematary remake. And I remember reading about that movie and reading that the trainer talked about how amazing that cat was.
But I also, and I like cats and I know you like cats too.
Todd: I love cats.
Craig: What was it? I lost what I was going to say.
Todd: He, he, he nicknamed the cat Leonardo DiCaprio.
Craig: Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s hilarious. What I was going to say was he also wanted to answer the question, what happens to the pet? And honestly, that is a question that I have asked myself when I watch these movies.
You guys are so weird.
Todd: I have never once asked that question.
Craig: What’s going to happen? Todd, you had cats. If somebody had come and slaughtered you, I mean, your cats would have eaten you, but then what happens after that?
Todd: Right.
Craig: Probably go
Todd: take a nap for a while is what they do. Oh
Craig: God. That would be, that would be my first concern.
My first concern. I don’t have kids. I get it. You have an actual human kid. No,
Todd: I hear you. So, so the killer as he’s walking out pauses, turns around, looks back at the cat before he puts some food in his bowl so the cat could eat as he’s walking out the door. I thought that was hilarious. Thank you.
Craig: Thank you for making that point.
Todd: Yeah, it was cute. Oh god.
Craig: Yeah, I, I, I thought that was funny. There are a lot of things in the movie I think are funny, and I think that are Intended to be funny. Yeah. Yeah, it’s just at some point. I was done. Okay, all right, let’s get to it. Let’s get to it. Who’s the killer?
Todd: Honestly,
Craig: things get muddy for me here because there are still so many of them.
There are people that we haven’t even talked about. And
Todd: they’re all interacting with each other in all kinds of ways. Like Ryan and Bobby. So Bobby’s come back into town and that seems mysterious. And Ryan and Bobby have kind of a jealousy thing because Ryan is now dating Jessica. I don’t know.
Somebody’s father tries to pull her out and I Then they’re getting more of these, these photos, and they’re involving the sheriff again, and the sheriff’s got an assistant. Well, assistant. He’s another deputy or whatever, you know. There’s Stube, we haven’t even talked about him, he’s like the token black guy.
There’s Scott, who is Ryan’s Scooba, yeah. Yeah, roommate who kind of comes in and then kind of leaves for a while and then pops back in every now and then. At one point I thought it was him, because I was like, he’s gonna be somebody we haven’t seen much, you know? And that guy might have a reason, and then they go back and they review the tape.
There’s this whole deal where They want to get back to that night and figure out if anybody knows anything from that, that night a year ago that they’re not saying. And I’m also sitting here thinking, why is this really that important? Like, how are you going to get a clue? Everybody knows what, already knows what happened at that event.
You know, what new clue are you going to get? After the event, nobody went to that event knowing all that shit was gonna go down. So it’s not like anybody was preparing anything, you know? But they review tapes, Jess Jess kind of just suddenly says, Well, you know what? I’ve known all this time that my father had backups of those of that.
And I just never brought it up to anybody or brought it up to the police, but I’m gonna go in and and look at them. And she gets some stills and it it turns out that Somebody knew somebody and somebody I mean it’s like I was all I was also sitting here going like I think all this is pretty flimsy
Craig: Yeah, ultimately nothing.
It doesn’t matter
Todd: busy work for the move It’s just stuff for them to do in between killings Honestly,
Craig: right the the person the person who is doing this the person who has a vendetta We’re not learning anything new. No, we’re not. The reason that this person is angry is because they got in there early and flaunted it and caused the riot.
Yeah. We know that from the first scene. There’s no question. We don’t learn anything new. No. But it is a lot of investigation. There are moments from this movie that I thought were just hilarious. It is. Out of context, I have no idea when this happens. I feel like it happens on TV. Like they’re interviewing some kid, this kid named Chad, and he says, and that’s why I won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving this year or any year.
And then he pulls up the corner of the bottom corner of his shirt to wipe a tear from his eyes, just to show like his rock hard abs.
Todd: While the two girls sit next to him are like, Oh Chad, it’s okay.
Craig: I think I get Eli Roth’s sense of humor. Yeah. I think he has kind of a dark, twisted sense of humor that I get. He does.
Todd: And
Craig: there’s so many,
Todd: there’s so many moments like that in this movie, but they’re also like, they just come and they go and they’re, it’s just so unlike his other ones where it seems like there’s a joke like that.
All the time, you know, going on. Whereas in this one, they still happen, but it’s a much more restrained to the point where it doesn’t make the movie feel like a comedy, like, like his other movies kind of do, I mean, even hostile to a certain extent, there are moments where it just kind of just becomes comedy.
And this movie never really felt that way, which is. Again, why I thought it was such a great homage to those older movies while still giving him a little bit of his own particular style and updating it a little bit.
Craig: Some of the big things, like things from the trailer, like, I don’t remember how it happens, like the killer just gets people when he needs people.
Yeah. At some point I feel like he gets a bunch of them. At the school. And they’re all tied up around, and maybe at some point they’re all tied up around the table or whatever. That’s at the end,
Todd: yeah. Toward the end
Craig: the stepmom he gets the stepmom at some point. Oh god. She wakes up on a table like surrounded by
Todd: potatoes and carrots and shit
Craig: And then and then she she wakes up and she realizes that he’s there so she still pretends to be asleep while he Bastes her, like he like, brushes her with butter, and we know that she’s awake and conscious while he’s painting butter on her face.
Todd: Sprinkling rock salt on it.
Craig: Oh yeah. Oh, he seasons her. He sticks like, yeah, like rosemary between her toes.
It’s, it’s great. Like, it’s great. I feel like this is even like a throwback to like, Chainsaw Massacre, you know, like this, this guy, he’s sick, he’s twisted. And then there’s a whole scene where she wakes up and she runs away and it’s very tense and she’s running around and she finds other bodies and whatnot, blah, but like, it’s great.
It’s, it’s fairly typical. It feels like something right out of, I know what you did last summer, that kind of chase, but eventually he gets her and he puts her in the oven. Where does this oven exist? Oh, I know, right? It’s like the, I guess it must be the biggest pizza oven in the world because she, her whole body fits in there.
And he turns it on and she starts to freak out cause like the burners start to glow. But then he opens the oven door and reaches in and stabs her with something and then closes the door again. And it’s one of those turkey thermometers.
Todd: Oh, so funny. So funny.
Craig: And then she cooks and then when she’s cooked it pops. Oh
Todd: my God. Oh.
Craig: That’s funny, that’s funny. If you’re gonna make a Thanksgiving horror movie and call it Thanksgiving, you gotta do it. And then later, and then later he serves the mom trussed up like a turkey.
Todd: Legs in the air. Fold it over.
Apparently, apparently there was a scene on the blu ray that didn’t make it where Instead of wearing her skirt there or whatever her lower half of her body was naked and stuffing was stuffed between her legs Oh my god, that’s disgusting But more in keeping actually with the trailer the fake trailer that this was based on even more disgusting stuff happens in that Do you remember that?
Clip: Yeeeah. That’s the very last
Craig: image. Yes. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but now that you said it, okay, yeah, gross, gross.
Todd: He doesn’t go that far. Yeah. But yeah, you’re right. It’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was getting totally those vibes as everyone is tied up around this table screaming as this woman is put down there and he casually walks around it and from behind his mask And with like a voice changer, is telling them all, basically taunting them and telling them why he’s doing what he’s doing.
Clip: Now, we’re all going to go around the table and say what we’re thankful for. You’re on live, so choose your words wisely.
Todd: And then he completely tenderizes one of the boys head with a meat tenderizer.
Craig: Holy shit! That was brutal. That was It was brutal and not unexpected because as soon as it started to happen, I knew it was going to happen, but it was so brutal.
Like he had taken the time to tie them all up around the table.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Only for as soon as they all woke up to Smash one guy’s head down on the table and just beat the shit, like with a mallet, just destroy his head. It was violent. It was brutal. The movie is, the movie is violent and brutal and bloody. And I, you know, that’s not, gore is not my thing, but when it’s well done, it’s well done.
And I think that it’s really well done here. And somehow I can’t explain it. But there is sometimes when gore is done in a spirit of fun that I can get behind it.
Todd: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Craig: That’s what this seems like. It seems like it’s in a spirit of fun. It doesn’t seem like I’m just trying to traumatize you.
Todd: That’s, that’s how those old movies kind of were too, you know? And back then the effects weren’t even that great, so it was even more fun. Where are we going with this? I guess, you know, he’s got them all around the table. The, they start to peel away and run off, uh, there’s some chasing going on, all this is muddied in my head too, like, I really didn’t know who was going where and what was happening, because then at some point, they’re far away from this house, and Jessica, Jess suddenly stumbles upon one of the sheriff’s cars with the, uh, trunk open and his deputy is laying next to it.
And I was like, what happened here? And why did she just stumble on this? And so then, like an idiot, she wanders into the nearest building and has another encounter that she barely gets away from with this guy. I don’t remember how I have no
Craig: idea. I have no idea what is happening.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: There is that car, there’s that car wreck with the police.
I thought that was Patrick Dempsey who was on the road. Yeah, I did too at first.
Todd: No, it was the other guy. Okay, so, okay,
Craig: all right, okay. Because I was so confused because then he shows up later and he doesn’t have road rash. Or does he? I don’t know. Is
Todd: this? It’s in this building when they’re doing the chase that her friend is also there and I don’t know why her friend was there No, no, no, no
Craig: her one of her friends is there She follows she she takes the gun off the cop that she finds in the road And then she goes in this house and she sees the guy the masked guy She follows him And he takes off the mask and it’s one of her friends, Bobby, I don’t know, one of the curly haired ones that looks just like one of the other ones.
I don’t know. But she’s like, Oh shit, it’s Bobby. But then Patrick Dempsey shows up and she’s like, Patrick Dempsey, it’s Bobby. And he’s like, okay, go outside. I’ll take care of it. And she goes outside and closes the door. And immediately I was like, no, F you, Patrick Dempsey. This is shady as hell. But he goes inside and she just hears three gunshots.
Todd: And
Craig: he comes back out and he’s like, Oh yeah, it was Bobby. I think I shot him, but he ran away.
Todd: And now you know, okay, now we know what’s going down.
Craig: I felt like it was a little clumsy, and I also felt like the reveal, she’s just a big dum dum up until now, but then she’s sitting, like everything’s, I don’t know, Patrick Dempsey comes in and like, everything’s fine, I don’t know, everything’s fine, I need to go away for a second so you can have a revelation, I’ll be right back.
Right. She’s just sitting there, and she looks at her pants, she’s picking burrs. And then she just flashes back to a million things and I guess it’s when he comes back in and she sees that he also has burrs on his pants and shoes. Yeah. She flashes back to a million things. And the thing that’s, uh, She flashes back to are him saying like I’ve needed you all along I never could have done it without you and I guess we’re to believe that that’s true because he finally does come back and She’s a big dum dum and can’t just play it cool and totally Blows her cover and he’s like, oh, I guess, you know, now I have to kill you.
Todd: Yeah I don’t know what he needed her for i’m not really sure what she did that helped him in any way he could have just I guess
Craig: like she was just his liaison and like Letting him know where people were gonna be
Todd: That was clumsy. I don’t know. I called it by the way. I called it halfway through the movie I was like, it’s got to be him.
Craig: I didn’t. And the, the motive is that he was f ing Gina Gershon and he was in love with her, even though she was married to the Rite Aid store owner or something. I don’t know, but she was pregnant and, and she got killed in that. Black Friday disaster, and that’s why he’s after everybody. All right, fine.
Todd: I mean, that was the first scene in the movie, really, was him coming up to the door and and and her opening it, and I was like, Oh, they had a look, you know, they had a moment.
And so when I was going back, especially when they pointed out, Oh, well, maybe somebody’s mad that that guy You know got trampled by the door. I thought well who else got killed there? Well, it was that that woman and I thought oh, yeah It’s I mean, it’s not her husband because he’s barely been around so it must have been be this guy was in love with her Maybe that’s what it was.
I did not I
Craig: was just like I was like Patrick Dempsey Gina Grisha
I was Yeah, I was just shocked that they were both in it. They were even in it. My question to you, my question to you is, why is it that when he realizes that she has figured it out, why does he turn into Robert De Niro? What do you mean? Todd, didn’t his accent change? Entirely Change, I mean, I’m surely not making this up like I feel like he talked he talked in a certain way throughout the whole movie and then as soon as As soon as she figured out he’s like You talking to me?
You talking to me?
Todd: He had a bit of that accent through the whole movie though, maybe it was just a little more intensified at that point I thought it was interesting because the whole accent was not something I normally hear out of his mouth But I was reading through the trivia and apparently that’s his actual way, his original Eastern, you know, New England accent that he had to suppress when he got started in acting and part of why he was excited to Do the movie was that he could just kind of let it go So maybe yeah, maybe he got very into that scene and decided to really let it go
Craig: I don’t know.
Shout out to Patrick Dempsey. I really like Patrick Dempsey. I’ve liked him for a long long long time
Todd: Ever since Can’t Buy Me Love, is that what you’re gonna say? Uh huh.
Craig: Can’t Buy Me Love, that movie where he was like a gigolo pizza boy, likes that movie.
Todd: He looks the same. Good guy. That guy doesn’t age.
Craig: Yeah,
Todd: it’s kind of amazing handsome
Craig: handsome guy. Good for you. Patrick Dempsey and good for you for maintaining a career And you know, he’s he’s popping up in horror stuff. You know, he was one in one of those scream movies Recently. Anyway, great. Whatever. He’s the killer. So then he chases her around and other stuff happens and they’re filling up a giant inflatable turkey That he doesn’t notice and some of them are running away.
I don’t even remember who’s with her at this point. Like, I feel like Scuba and Gabby, and I don’t even know who these people are, but some of the people, some of the people who are left are with her and are helping her get away and they’re running away. And she loads a musket, which she had shown us that she could do earlier in the movie.
Bye. She looks at, and McDreamy is chasing her. But he, you know, he’s standing in front of this giant turkey that’s inflating behind him. He says,
Clip: sorry, Jessica. This year there will be no leftovers.
Craig: Oh man. Oh, gosh, and then it looks, it looks like she’s going to shoot him, but she’s not. And she even indicates that to him, like, ha ha, dummy, I’m not going to shoot you. I’m going to shoot this giant inflatable turkey behind you that we’ve been filling with like, I don’t know, propane? Some kind of
Todd: flammable gas.
Craig: And she shoots it, it explodes, and it explodes him. Something that was funny to me about the ending of the movie is he Was he obsessed with her? Because he keeps saying her name and so weird.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: When the explosion happened, I had earbuds in. I don’t know how you were watching it, but I swear to God, I heard him scream,
Clip: Jessica!
Craig: He did. What?
Todd: Why is he so obsessed with her? There’s kind of a weird ending, like a tag on to this, that reminded me of The Guest a little bit. I mean, so much like The Guest, they’re sitting by the ambulance, and all the first responders are coming out, and they’re clearing the area, and one of them comes up and says, You know, we searched the whole place, there’s no way anybody could have survived in there, but everything was burnt to ash.
But then, implied in that is that they never could find his body, right? They just assume it was all burned up. And then she thinks, she kind of in her head, thinks she sees a guy walking out. No, she does see a guy! Well, she sees a guy, but she kind of in her head imagines it might be him. And maybe it is supposed to be him, because they’re going to do a sequel.
Maybe
Craig: it isn’t, but I mentioned that at the beginning when we started talking. I said the end is almost exactly the same as My Bloody Valentine.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I think that happens at the end of My Bloody Valentine, too. He just runs, skipping down the, down the mine. No, we see somebody come like everything’s over everything’s okay, but we see somebody coming out of the mine Who is in a mask, you know, like you don’t know who’s behind that.
Todd: Oh, you’re talking about the second one About the remake. I’m talking about the first one. Remember where he literally is skipping away down the mine going, Happy Valentine’s Day! Woo wee! But they can’t get to him because half of the mines caved in. I don’t remember
Craig: that. I don’t know. Like, overall, I Watch it.
Hello, friends, horror lovers. You’re looking for something to watch on Thanksgiving with your significant other, or your adolescent teenager kid, or your friends who love horror movies. And you’re in the Thanksgiving spirit. Yep. Watch it. Watch it. Is it amazing? No. It’s not amazing, but it’s really not bad.
It’s not bad. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel the need to watch it again. This isn’t gonna be, for me, something that like, oh shit, like yeah. I’m gonna watch this every Thanksgiving from now on. But I do think that Roth accomplished what he was going for. I think he was going for an old school slasher.
Yeah. I think, like us, he’s like, Let’s let’s make this a holiday movie. Why not and it is I mean it is thanksgiving
Todd: Yeah
Craig: through and through and I love that about it And that’s why I definitely say yeah, check it out. Check it out. I don’t want to set the bar too high I I don’t want you to go in and To it thinking that it’s gonna be amazing because I personally don’t think it’s amazing, but I did enjoy it.
Todd: I mean, I literally enjoyed it as much as I enjoy watching those older slasher movies, and that says something. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, you just throw it on the pile.
Craig: That’s fair.
Todd: You know, I’m not gonna go watch, re watch any of those either. But I have fond memories from them, and I really enjoyed watching them.
Maybe I’ll go back and watch like, The Burning or, Final exam or something one more time pieces or something like that, but generally no You know, but I loved them. I loved them in the moment They delivered exactly what I was looking for and part of what I enjoyed about it was its formula It’s sort of predictability and it’s in predictability and the fact that It, there was like a mystery to it, you know, you’re, you’re guessing.
Sure. And that’s more fun. Like, you know, those slasher films are in a bit of a different category than, like you said earlier, like the Friday the 13th and the, the Freddy ones. You know, there’s no mystery involved in those movies. And that, that’s fun. Style of slasher movie where it’s just some supernatural killer.
We know who he is. Oh, it’s Michael Myers, right? Mm hmm These always had the the big whodunit aspect to it and all the red herrings and I really enjoyed that part of it You know, so yeah, no and plus with the really shocking really gory brutal kills Gosh that scene with the girl on the frickin table saw Jesus.
Oh my god Oh
Craig: Right after she had been stabbed in the ears with corncob holders
Todd: He had a lot of fun trying to come up with these unique kills and fun That’s another thing that those horror movies did, you know, that’s why you watch the sleepaway camp movies What weird way are people gonna be murdered in and so yeah, I enjoyed it.
I thought it was fun And like you said, Perfectly fine. Nothing super outstanding about it, but very solid. And I’m glad I watched it. I had a good time.
Craig: Me too. Me too. I, I just wanted to say this, you know, this is our Thanksgiving episode. And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to thank a lot of people. I want to thank everybody who listens.
all the time regardless of where you find us. I want to thank the patrons who support us in a different way and who we get to have some really cool interactions with. And Todd, I want to thank you for doing all the work. And just for all of you, and Todd, you especially, thank you for being somebody that I can just talk to and be with and, and trust.
And this, this to me, all of this, the, the podcast, the Patreon stuff, it’s a wonderful escape to A happy place. So, thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you, all of you.
Todd: I echo with that, Craig. And I want to thank you, too, for being a friend. Da da da da, travel down the road and back again. I also, but seriously, though, no, really, this is something I look forward to.
Every week is sitting down and chatting with you and, you know, we know where we stand and we, we’re good buddies in that way and you’re somebody I can always chat with and confide in and, and also just goof on, on great horror movies. We have a really good time with that. Thank God. And this, yeah, right? We need these escapes sometimes.
And, uh, I also want to thank, obviously, just like you, our listeners out there who have been with us through thick and thin, and who have stuck with us all these years, and who take the time to reach out and chat with us. We love our interactions with you. Thank you so much for making us a part of your entertainment, your day.
There’s a lot of stuff you can do with your time, and the fact that you’re interested in hearing us gab back and forth is very humbling, and Just, thank you for that. Thank you for giving us a reason to keep doing it. Also, I really want to thank the people who have, um, joined us on our podcast this year.
You know, we’ve had a few more guests on than we normally had before, and those have turned out to be really wonderful experiences. But I want to thank you guys as well for taking the time to come on and share your love of horror with us in the audience as well. There will be more of that to come. Well, thank you guys again.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who would be just as interested. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there. Happy Thanksgiving. We are two guys in a chainsaw@chainsawhorror.com, patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Find us in those places. Just let us know what you’re thankful for this year.
And, uh, we have Christmas right around the corner. So if you have ideas for Christmas movies, we are going to get started right away. So, uh, send us those. Uh, we still haven’t decided exactly what we’re going to do. We have a few ideas, but it’s not set in stone yet. So please reach out to us and might as well throw in New Year’s as well.
Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.
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