Although director Eli Roth’s 2023 slasherThanksgivingwas disappointingly toothless, this could secretly be a good thing for its sequel,Thanksgiving 2.Thanksgivingis a 2023 slasher movie based on the fake trailer of the same name from 2007’sGrindhouse. Directed byHostel’s Eli Roth,Thanksgivingtells the story of a group of teens who are targeted by a masked killer a year after they play a shameful role in a Black Friday shopping stampede that leaves numerous innocent people dead.Thanksgiving’s ending explainshow these deaths connect to the movie’s masked killer, but only after numerous murders.
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Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is the latest in a long line of scary movies set on the holiday, from goofy horror comedies to chilling home invasion films.
Surprisingly, these murders aren’t as numerous as viewers might expect given Roth’s reputation as a horror filmmaker. There are manyclues to the killer’s identity inThanksgiving, including one very obvious hint in the slasher’s opening minutes. However,Thanksgiving’s cast of charactersprovides plenty of red herrings, and the fact that the slasher barely kills off any of the movie’s main characters makes it much harder to discern who the killer is. Despite taking inspiration from the brutal slasher revival of the ‘90s,Thanksgivingleaves five of its seven main characters alive.
Thanksgiving 2 Can Kill Off Thanksgiving’s Survivors
Jessica, Bobby, Gaby, Scuba, and Ryan All Survived Thanksgiving
Keeping almost all ofThanksgiving’s main characters alive could pay off inThanksgiving 2, as the slasher sequel can be as ruthless as the original movie promised.Thanksgiving 2’s release datehas not yet been announced, but the original movie made over $45 million on a budget of only $15 million and earned Roth the best reviews in his career so far. This is particularly striking sinceThanksgivingis surprisingly bloodless, saving its nastiest deaths for minor side characters and making sure that barely any of the main cast die at all.
By the timeThanksgiving 2rolls around, Gaby, Scuba, Bobby, Jessica, and Ryan will have lived through a massacre, so it will be hard to predict who will live.
Although Yulia and Evan suffer pretty nasty deaths, the remaining five members of the movie’s main cast all survive the story. The final girl, Jessica, and both of her love interests make it out alive, as do Gaby and Scuba. WhileThanksgiving’s disappointing slasher body countwas a letdown in the original movie, this could make the deaths of these supporting stars much more impactful in the sequel. By the timeThanksgiving 2rolls around, Gaby, Scuba, Bobby, Jessica, and Ryan will all have lived through one massacre, so it will be hard to predict who will live and die.
Thanksgiving 2’s Opening Scene Can Bring Back An Eli Roth Tradition
Hostel 2 Began By Killing Off Hostel’s Lone Survivor
Although Roth’s earlier movie,Hostel, was significantly nastier thanThanksgiving, its 2007 sequelHostel 2did have one thing in common with the 2023 slasher.Hostel 2’s opening scene killed offHostel’s lone survivor, ensuring that viewers knew no one was safe in this grim sequel.Thanksgiving 2can now see Roth revisit this sequel tradition as the slasher kills off one or more of the original movie’s stars in its opening sequence. AsScreamproved in 1996, there are few things more disarming than killing off a major star at the start of a slasher movie.
Friday the 13th Part IIfamously began with the death ofFriday the 13th’s final girl, whileScream 3opened withScream 2’s survivor Cotton Weary being brutally killed off in the sequel’s best sequence.Thanksgiving’s many references to classic horror moviesprove that the slasher is steeped in genre history, andHostel 2’s blackly comic opening scene already referencedFriday the 13th Part II’s first death. As such,Thanksgiving 2needs to do this slasher tradition justice.
Thanksgiving 2 Should Be Darker and Harsher
Thanksgiving’s 90s Slasher Pastiche Left A Lot Of Characters Alive
WhileThanksgivingwas met with critical and commercial success, this doesn’t change the fact thatThanksgiving 2needs to be darker than its predecessor.Thanksgivingfeatured surprisingly few major character deaths, sapping the slasher of significant stakes on a re-watch. Roth even acknowledged this when the director admitted that the movie was less of a grindhouse homage and more akin to a ‘90s teen slasher. While it is fun to revisit both distinct eras of horror,Thanksgiving’s lack of truly shocking moments would be effectively ameliorated ifThanksgiving 2was a harsher movie with more major deaths.
The death of Kathleen, who is cooked alive like a Thanksgiving turkey, hinted at the franchise’s potential for boundary-pushing shocks.
The fact thatThanksgiving’s killer reveal was predictablemade it harder to ignore the movie’s lack of substantial scares, whereasThanksgiving 2can go further with its gore and shocks. The movie could feature more sequences like Thanksgiving’s parade, a genuinely shocking, gleefully mean-spirited display of violence that highlights the potential of the campy slasher’s premise. The death of Kathleen, who is cooked alive like a Thanksgiving turkey, also hinted at the franchise’s potential for boundary-pushing shocks. Now,Thanksgiving 2simply needs to provide the unrelenting horror thatThanksgivingwas unexpectedly reticent about depicting.
Thanksgiving 2is slated for a 2025 release according to director Eli Roth.
