When the trailer for Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving came out in September, you knew you’d be in for a terrifying ride. As the preview promised a Turkey Day-themed slasher, critics made this Eli Roth‘s best-reviewed movie. However, the start of Thanksgiving wasn’t from the first promo. The holiday slasher film started from a fake trailer he made for another iconic horror film.
With so many Christmas-themed horror films, it’s hard to believe there hasn’t been one centered around Thanksgiving yet. That is until Eli Roth gave the double-featured movie Grindhouse a fake exploitation trailer revealed during the movie. But, it didn’t stop there sixteen years later. The Cabin Fever director told The Hollywood Reporter what inspired him to turn his fake trailer into a full-length film.
“We thought, ‘All right, we’re done. We made the best parts [in the fake trailer]. Now we don’t even have to make the movie,” said Roth. “But for years, people just kept posting that trailer and badgering me and guilt-tripping me, and it worked. Shaming the director worked in this case.”
This was an idea the horror film director has had since he was 12. He kept picturing ways to blend slasher terror into the turkey-carving holiday. Endless possibilities ranged from cooking someone alive in an oven to decapitation at a parade. The trailer intended to be a joke, but you can thank the fans for hounding the director and pushing Roth into conceiving a story to bring the movie to fruition. After a string of Black Friday sale trampling videos surfaced, the Hostel director knew he could lean into that for his movie about the tragedy of a Black Friday riot leading to a Thanksgiving-inspired killer to terrorize Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Eli Roth Wanted Permission From a Couple of Big-Named Directors First
Because Eli Roth made this trailer for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez‘s movie Grindhouse, he didn’t think it was right to go forward with this movie until he got their blessings.
“I, of course, wanted them to be excited and supportive. And they are and they have been,” said the film director. “So I gave Robert and Quentin very special thanks in the credits, as they deserve it, but they didn’t want to be involved in the film. They said, ‘This is your thing. Go do it.'”
It was a little tricky for Roth to secure the rights from Dimension Films, which once belonged to the Weinstein Co. Luckily, he was able to make it work. It’s a good thing he got blessings from his two friends and from the film production company since he wanted this film to come out during the Thanksgiving holiday. He knew it was important to start shooting during the winter so it would come out on time for the fall holiday. Otherwise, that missed window would have held the horror film back for another year.
Eli Roth’s directed movies have achieved ratings as high as 65% on Rotten Tomatoes and as low as 18%. However, Thanksgiving accomplished an incredible feat. It currently has an 82% from critics and a 79% from audiences. You can check out this parody trailer-turned-feature-length film in theaters now.
