Eli Roth returns to slasher territory with Thanksgiving, a 2023 horror film that turns a chaotic Black Friday stampede into the spark for a year of holiday-themed violence.
What is Thanksgiving about?
The story opens with a Black Friday sale that spirals into a deadly stampede, leaving the small town shaken and looking for someone to blame. A year later, as the town prepares for another holiday season, a masked figure dressed as a Pilgrim begins targeting people connected to that night, staging each attack around Thanksgiving imagery. A group of local teenagers finds itself at the center of the investigation, racing to identify the person behind the mask before the holiday season ends. Roth leans into practical effects and holiday iconography rather than atmosphere alone, keeping the pace closer to a slasher than a slow-burn thriller.
About the cast
Patrick Dempsey plays the town's sheriff, with Nell Verlaque leading the younger cast as a local teenager pulled into the killings. Addison Rae, Jalen Thomas Brooks and Milo Manheim appear among her circle of friends, while Rick Hoffman and Gina Gershon round out the adult cast, with Tomaso Sanelli also featured.
Context & significance
Thanksgiving grew out of a fake trailer Eli Roth made years earlier, and the finished feature keeps that project's love of holiday-specific slasher imagery, from pilgrim costumes to harvest décor to oversized cutlery, as its visual signature. At 106 minutes, the film moves through its small-town setting quickly, favoring set-piece kills over an extended mystery. Its mix of dark comedy and gore places it in the tradition of American horror films built around a single national holiday rather than a generic setting.
Watching Thanksgiving on Ktime
Thanksgiving streams on K-Time with a free account login, and the film's page can be read without signing in. Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles are both available, giving Farsi-speaking horror fans an easy way to follow the story's dialogue and setup.