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Three hosts of the 3 Guys and a Flick movie review podcast with movie-themed background.
🎙 Podcast Episode 188

Thanksgiving

Join the Guys as they carve into Eli Roth’s holiday slasher feast — where Black Friday turns into a bloodbath, Plymouth gets stalked by a killer in a John Carver mask, and every Thanksgiving tradition suddenly feels like it should come with crime-scene tape and a side of cranberry sauce.

Release Date November 17, 2023
Runtime 106 minutes
Director Eli Roth
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3 Guys and a Flick — Episode 188

Thanksgiving (2023)

ⓘ Details

Movie TitleThanksgiving
Release DateNovember 17, 2023
TaglineThere will be no leftovers.
Runtime106 minutes / 1 hour 46 minutes
DirectorEli Roth
Screenplay Written ByJeff Rendell
Based OnThe fake Thanksgiving trailer created by Eli Roth for Grindhouse (2007); story by Eli Roth & Jeff Rendell
Is It a Remake?No. It is a feature-length expansion of Eli Roth’s faux Grindhouse trailer, not a remake of an earlier feature film.
BudgetApproximately $15 million
Box OfficeApprox. $31.9 million domestic / approx. $46.6 million worldwide
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👥 Main Cast

Patrick DempseySheriff Eric Newlon
Nell VerlaqueJessica Wright
Addison RaeGaby
Jalen Thomas BrooksBobby
Milo ManheimRyan
Rick HoffmanThomas Wright
Gina GershonAmanda Collins
Ty OlssonMitch Collins
Karen ClicheKathleen
Gabriel DavenportScuba
Tomaso SanelliEvan
Jenna WarrenYulia
Tim DillonManny
Amanda BarkerLizzie
Chris SandifordDoug
Lynne GriffinGrandma
Adam MacDonaldVoice of John Carver
Jordan PooleJacob
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🏆 Awards

⭐ Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards — Sierra Award mention for Best Horror/Sci-Fi Film
⭐ Golden Trailer Awards — Golden Trailer Award mention for Best Voice Over TV Spot
⭐ No Academy Award nominations were verified for the film.
⭐ No Golden Globe nominations were verified for the film.
⭐ No BAFTA nominations were verified for the film.
⭐ Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus praises the movie’s mix of over-the-top gore and grindhouse-style holiday humor.
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📖 Short Plot Summary

In Plymouth, Massachusetts, a chaotic Black Friday riot at the RightMart superstore ends in gruesome tragedy. One year later, the town tries to move on, but a killer wearing a John Carver mask begins targeting people connected to the deadly shopping-night disaster. As Jessica Wright and her friends are pulled into the killer’s twisted Thanksgiving plan, the murders become increasingly theatrical, bloody, and holiday-themed. Now the survivors must figure out who is behind the mask before they become the main course at the most disturbing Thanksgiving dinner in Plymouth history.
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❝ Key Quotes

“There will be no leftovers.” — Tagline
“This town has a Thanksgiving problem.” — Promotional hook
“You’re all invited.” — John Carver-style social media threat
“Happy Thanksgiving.” — Holiday-horror punchline
“The table is set.” — John Carver-style setup
“Black Friday is over.” — Slasher setup energy
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💡 Trivia

Director

  • Thanksgiving was directed by Eli Roth.
  • The screenplay was written by Jeff Rendell, from a story by Eli Roth and Jeff Rendell.
  • The movie expands Roth’s fake Thanksgiving trailer from the 2007 double-feature project Grindhouse.
  • Roth had talked for years about turning the joke trailer into a full slasher feature before the movie finally arrived in 2023.
  • The film leans into Roth’s grindhouse sensibility: nasty kills, dark humor, holiday iconography, and intentionally over-the-top slasher mayhem.

Cast / Casting

  • Patrick Dempsey plays Sheriff Eric Newlon, the lawman investigating the John Carver killings.
  • Nell Verlaque plays Jessica Wright, whose family’s RightMart store sits at the center of the Black Friday tragedy.
  • Addison Rae appears as Gaby, one of Jessica’s friends and one of the film’s most visible young cast members.
  • Rick Hoffman plays Thomas Wright, Jessica’s father and the owner of RightMart.
  • Gina Gershon plays Amanda Collins, whose death during the opening riot helps fuel the killer’s revenge plot.
  • Adam MacDonald provides the voice of John Carver, giving the killer’s online threats an extra layer of menace.

Soundtrack / Score

  • The score was composed by Brandon Roberts.
  • The music supports the movie’s mix of modern mystery-slasher tension and holiday-horror absurdity.
  • The film uses Thanksgiving imagery — parades, dinner tables, carving tools, shopping chaos, and pilgrim iconography — as part of the horror language.
  • The score and sound design help sell the tonal balance between suspense, gore, and grindhouse-style comedy.
  • Like the best holiday slashers, the movie turns familiar seasonal sounds and rituals into warning signs that something awful is about to happen.

Location

  • The story is set in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the birthplace most closely associated with the Thanksgiving holiday in American pop culture.
  • The film was primarily shot in Ontario, Canada, with locations including Port Perry, Toronto, and Waterdown District High School.
  • Port Perry, Ontario doubled for downtown Plymouth in the film.
  • Some sources note additional Ontario-area filming in Hamilton and Hanmer.
  • The Canadian locations give the fictional Plymouth a classic small-town slasher look: cozy storefronts, community events, and just enough darkness for a masked killer to ruin dinner.

Behind-The-Scenes

  • The film was produced by Eli Roth, Roger Birnbaum, and Jeff Rendell.
  • Milan Chadima served as cinematographer.
  • Michele Conroy and Michel Aller edited the film.
  • The movie was released by TriStar Pictures through Sony Pictures Releasing.
  • Box Office Mojo lists the film’s domestic opening at $10,306,272 and worldwide gross at $46,553,280.
  • The movie’s success helped confirm there was still room for theatrical holiday slashers beyond Halloween and Christmas.

Nostalgia

  • Thanksgiving finally delivered on a fake trailer that horror fans had been joking about since Grindhouse in 2007.
  • The movie joins the long tradition of holiday-themed slashers, alongside films like Halloween, Black Christmas, My Bloody Valentine, and Silent Night, Deadly Night.
  • John Carver gives the genre a new masked seasonal killer built around one of the few major American holidays that had not already been fully claimed by a mainstream slasher icon.
  • The Black Friday opening taps into a very modern horror: people turning into monsters before the actual monster even arrives.
  • For horror fans, the movie is basically a full Thanksgiving plate: gravy, screaming, bad decisions, carved meat, and at least one reason to avoid retail forever.

Easter Eggs

  • The killer’s John Carver mask references early Plymouth colonial history and ties the murder spree directly to Thanksgiving iconography.
  • The movie’s premise directly grows out of Roth’s Grindhouse fake trailer, which promised a holiday slasher built around Thanksgiving carnage.
  • The RightMart Black Friday riot updates classic slasher backstory logic for the social-media and viral-video age.
  • The film uses holiday food, dinner-table imagery, pilgrim costumes, parade visuals, and carving tools as recurring horror motifs.
  • The tagline “There will be no leftovers” turns a normal Thanksgiving phrase into a full slasher threat.

Misc.

  • Thanksgiving is rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language, and some sexual material.
  • Box Office Mojo classifies the film as horror, mystery, and thriller.
  • Rotten Tomatoes lists the genre mix as holiday, horror, mystery & thriller, and comedy.
  • Rotten Tomatoes’ synopsis describes a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizing Plymouth after a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy.
  • Your 3 Guys and a Flick ratings page lists the episode as Episode 188, with Don rating it 3.00, Ken rating it 2.50, and Jon rating it 2.75. The calculated overall average is 2.75.
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🔗 Sources Cited

3 Guys and a Flick — Podcast 188: Thanksgiving Amazon Music — Podcast 188: Thanksgiving 3 Guys and a Flick — Ratings IMDb — Thanksgiving IMDb — Full Cast & Crew IMDb — Awards IMDb — Quotes IMDb — Taglines IMDb — Soundtrack IMDb — Filming Locations Box Office Mojo — Thanksgiving The Numbers — Thanksgiving Rotten Tomatoes — Thanksgiving Metacritic — Thanksgiving Plymouth Independent — Filming Location Context LatLong — Thanksgiving Filming Locations Screen Rant — Filming Locations Wikipedia — Thanksgiving
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