Thanksgiving (2023)—A Gruesome Cautionary Tale on Hyper Consumerism
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend, folks! The holiday best known for being thankful for what you have and reflecting on what’s important in life. Naturally, this is followed and juxtaposed by the craze of Black Friday shopping. Funnily enough, Thanksgiving is often overshadowed by its more popular cousin, Christmas. What do I mean? Well, if you walked into any retail store, you’d hear that annoying Mariah Carey song “All I Want For Christmas is You” blasting all over the speakers. Trust me, I know. And what better way to addresses the craze and fatal consequences of consumerism than Eli Roth’s aptly named horror film Thanksgiving!
The Wright family celebrates Thanksgiving dinner as Thomas Wright (played by Rick Hoffman), the owner of RightMart, gets the bright idea to combine Black Friday shopping with Thanksgiving. All hell breaks loose as a mob of agitated customers break down the doors and start fighting over the pizza ovens as Thomas’s high school-aged daughter, Jessica (played by Nell Verlaque) and her friends are caught in the scuffle. In the ensuing chaos, several workers are overrun while one is even trampled to death by the mob. The chaos goes down in history as the most violent Black Friday sale ever. Despite this, Thomas refrains from cancelling their sale the following year. As Thanksgiving nears, a mysterious serial killer known for wearing a John Carver mask begins picking off instigators of the Black Friday madness. One by one, Jessica’s friends are killed as both she and Sheriff Eric Newlon (played by Patrick Dempsey) frantically try to uncover the killer’s true identity.
I didn’t know what to expect from this movie when I walked into the theater. Hell, I didn’t even consider going to watch this movie if it hadn’t been one of my friends convincing me to. As someone who worked retail (and hated it), seeing the opening Black Friday chaos awakened a visceral fight or flight response. While I understand it’s just a movie, I love how the film brutally portrays the highly stressful environment present in retail (especially around the holiday season). No, people don’t die (at least I hope not), but the frenzy to meet unrealistic expectations and being chastised for not doing so is far too realistic. I always say the best part of working retail is the customers. That being said, do you want to know the worst part of working retail? The customers. And when everyone’s swarming around you because you’re wearing a uniform and getting mad at you when you can’t answer their specific questions? Pure nightmare fuel.
Which brings me to the poor upper management of RightMart (which is a blatant parody of Walmart). Thomas Wright has to be by far one of film’s most overt examples of corporate greed. Instead of holding a traditional Black Friday sale the day of or spreading it out throughout the month of November, he instead decides it’s a good idea to have it on the night of Thanksgiving. As his understaffed employees are overwhelmed and even murdered, he sits back and enjoys his feast at the comfort of his lavish home. Now you might think he’d learn his lesson and maybe hold off on next years sale, right? RIGHT? Not in a chance. He decides that he will hold ANOTHER Black Friday sale with additional security measures present. This man has no compassion for his employees nor does he truly care about those affected. He just wants to make even more money despite the fact that he lives in a mansion, has a trophy wife and drives a fancy car. Have you no shame at all Thomas? Is reaping in millions of dollars more important than human lives? There are several colorful words I’d like to use to describe him, but all I’ll say is that it’s people like him who’re making the world a shittier place.
As such, I actually found John Carver to be the most sympathetic slasher in recent horror history. I won’t reveal his identity here (you’ll have to find that out yourself). All I’ll say is his life was ruined by the chaos that ensued in RightMart that fateful day. When you realize he’s killing those who were the primarily responsible for the violence, his actions do make sense to a degree. His victims include a rude waitress, an asshole jock and a cowardly security guard. Ok, the guard wasn’t really at fault since he was the only security guard the store could hire. Which just brings me back to my thoughts on Thomas. If you want your memory refreshed, please re-read the paragraph above. Now what about Jessica’s friends? Are they really innocent in all of this? Nope. They actually instigated the violence by sneaking into RightMart and egged the mob on from behind the glass windows. One of them even records the entire fray and posts the video to YouTube while making fun of the shoppers both dead and alive. And yet, we are supposed to feel bad when these little shi–I mean–fine, distinguished people bite the dust.
Full of harrowing themes on the consequences of greed, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is unlike any modern horror movie I’ve seen. Despite their R-ratings, horror films today feel too clean and sanitized to be properly classified as horror. I’d say this movie was more akin to cheesy slashers of the late 197os or early to mid 1980s and is what I would consider an almost perfect slasher flick. Almost. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but the movie did a disservice by making Carver lose in the end. Had he won, the film’s message on the dangers of hyper consumerism would’ve been thoroughly nailed in. Rather, it almost feels like an afterthought by the film’s conclusion. Should you give this movie a watch this holiday season, let this be a warning on how NOT to act during Black Friday shopping. You never know the consequences your actions may cause.
