Cool Horror Videos: Grindhouse trailer for Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Not enough people went to see the Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino double feature GRINDHOUSE when it was released back in 2007, but I saw it on the big screen twice and loved every minute of it. Rodriguez's PLANET TERROR was fun, Tarantino's DEATH PROOF was awesome (yeah, I know there are many who would disagree with that), and sandwiched in between them were some genius faux trailers.

My favorite of those faux trailers was Eli Roth's '80s slasher homage THANKSGIVING. Twelve years later, I'm still anxiously waiting for Roth to turn THANKSGIVING into a feature film. But while we continue to wait to see if a feature expansion of it is ever going to happen, it is a must to watch the trailer every year when the Thanksgiving holiday comes around.

Presented as if it were a scratched up and beat to hell copy of a trailer that had been lost since the early '80s, THANKSGIVING features Michael Biehn, Jay Hernandez, Jordan Ladd, and music lifted from CREEPSHOW. Someone in a pilgrim costume is knocking off people in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Roth has said that the story behind it all is this: 

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."

Roth has mentioned throughout the years that he is working on a THANKSGIVING feature, a script for it does exist. The question is, if it is ever made, could it even come close to living up to how amazing this faux trailer is?