Posted in: Horror, Movies | Tagged: Addison Rae, eli roth, Patrick Dempsey, thanksgiving

Get Excited, Horror Fans: Eli Roth Has Started Filming Thanksgiving

Oh baby, Sony went on Twitter today and let us know that Eli Roth has begun production on slasher pic Thanksgiving!

Published Fri, 17 Mar 2023 15:33:09 -0500

Thanksgiving is finally in front of cameras, and I could not be more excited. Roth is finally directing the film, sixteen years after the fake trailer played like gangbusters as a part of Grindhouse. The script is by Jeff Rendel, and it stars Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Jalen Thomas Brooks ("Walker") and Nell Verlaque ("Big Shot"), Milo Manheim (Disney's Zombies franchise), Gina Gershon, Tim Dillon, and Rick Hoffman. Here's hoping for some cameos from the original trailer's cast as well. Sony Pictures posted a Tweet today celebrating the start of production on the film, stating that "There will be no leftovers," which is a great tagline but nowhere near as cool as the original trailer's "White meat. Dark meat. All will be carved".

Get Excited, Horror Fans: Eli Roth Has Started Filming Thanksgiving — Credit Sony

Bring Me Daily Thanksgiving Updates Please

Sometimes in this job, we have to write about things we are not interested in. That is not the case here. I personally have written a few times about how Eli Roth needed to make this damn movie, and I cannot believe that day is here. Here are some quotes from an article I wrote in 2018 about the possible film:

"Eleven years later, we horror fans still wait for this film to actually be made. Roth, of course, has been asked constantly over the years about Thanksgiving, going as far as saying last in 2016 that they have been taking a wack at it during a Reddit AMA":

Have a draft not totally happy with. I want to put some more work into it so the film lives up to the trailer. We have the story and mythology cracked so now it's about getting the kills right.

"Grindhouse did bomb pretty hard at the box office, killing plans for the trailers to all get spin-off films and such, but the box office is not as much a worry anymore. Sure, seeing this with a theater full of horror fans would be the way to see it, but it doesn't have to be that way. Now that we have streaming avenues like Netflix and Shudder, a major studio is not the only one who would have to step up and get Thanksgiving done. Keep the budget low, keep the spirit alive, and it would be a complete home run. I mean, this synopsis he told to Rolling Stone in 2007 says it all":

My friend Jeff… we had the whole movie worked out," Roth told the magazine. "A kid who's in love with a turkey and then his father killed it and then he killed his family and went away to a mental institution and came back and took revenge on the town.

Hopefully we get a release date soon.

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