Thanksgiving: How a Crazy Fake Trailer Became a Real Horror Movie

What is it about? A year after Black Friday turned into chaos, a mysterious killer takes inspiration from the traditional Thanksgiving holiday and terrorizes the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the birthplace of the famous holiday. As one population after another is wiped out, these seemingly random murders reveal a larger and more sinister plan. Will the townspeople discover the killer and survive the party… or will they be guests at Thanksgiving dinner?

A movie born from a fake trailer

Before there was a movie, Thanksgiving: Week of Horrors was a fake trailer directed by Eli Roth as part of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Greenhouse double bill consisting of Planet Terror and Death Boulevard. This project was a tribute to Greenhouse operating systems, these cinemas that showed crazy double programs, mixing violence and eroticism, along with trailers. True to the concept, the two feature films were accompanied by fake trailers produced by fans of the genre. In addition to Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright also signed fake trailers.

When he was asked, Eli Roth immediately knew what he wanted to do. In his youth and adolescence, he and his friend Jeff Rendell were movie buffs who watched every horror VHS imaginable. And one particular subgenre interested them, as Roth recalls: “We came in the early ’80s, it was the golden age of holiday slashers. black christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day Murders, A weekend of terror , New Year’s evil…when we saw it Sweet night, bloody night, we cheered as the killer Santa yelled “Punish!” (punishment). For us, it was cinema at its peak.”

A period that was not used in horror cinema

Newton, Massachusetts resident Eli Roth realized that Hollywood had never made a horror movie during Thanksgiving. “It is impossible to underestimate the importance of Thanksgiving in Massachusetts. Every school group travels to Plimoth Patuxet for this holiday.”

With a fake Thanksgiving trailer, the director saw an opportunity to create a horror movie that Hollywood had forgotten to make. He co-wrote it with his friend Jeff Rendell and was able to use actors, sets and makeup from Hostel – Chapter II, which he was finishing filming at the time, to create a fake trailer.

Fans who demand more

After the fake Thanksgiving trailer came out, Eli Roth thought he’d stop there. This was without counting the enthusiasm of the public, who never stopped talking to him and asking for a real Thanksgiving movie. But the problem remained: it had no script, the trailer was just a series of murders. “We knew we had to make Thanksgiving a real horror movie that would exist whether you saw the trailer or not.”, confides Roth. It was clear that there was no way the iconic sequences from the trailer would work in the actual film, so a change of approach was needed.

“We speculated that Thanksgiving 1980 was the movie the Greenhouse trailer was based on and that it was so shocking that all copies were destroyed and the only thing that survived was the trailer.”The director explains. “The new movie we were making would be a reboot of that movie, starting from scratch, but taking elements that we knew would work in the story we were telling today.”

Over the years of writing and rewriting, Roth says it’s been the fan sites that have kept the project alive: “I have to thank them for that: they helped us out when we were tired or unable.”

Harder, better, bloodier, stronger

Eli Roth has put the pressure on himself to make sure his film lives up to expectations and surpasses the fake original trailer. He initially discussed the project with Adrien Morot, a prosthetics specialist who won an Oscar for his work on The Whale. One of the reasons Roth approached Morot was their shared love of practical special effects, on set rather than digitally. “His craftsmanship is second to none. Adrienne and his wife Kathy made the most realistic and beautiful heads and body parts I’ve ever seen. They were so beautiful! But of course, no matter how beautiful a fake head is, you have to destroy it. This meat roaster”The director jokes.

He adds: “Every time you do a horror movie, you get a chance to enter the pantheon of horror greats. The opportunity is there if you take it. That’s why we try to make every death a true classic of the genre. I have a very, very, very high tolerance for gore in cinema, so If a scene makes me angry, I know it will work for a wider audience.”

TikTok star

Gabby, Jessica’s best friend, is played by Addison Ray, who has become a transatlantic star thanks to TikTok, where he has 88 million followers. He has more than 120 million subscribers in his networks. He also appeared in Il est trop bien on Netflix, a reboot of the teen film Elle est trop bien, and the song began in 2023 with the release of an EP featuring a duet with singer Charli XCX.