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Thanksgiving: Eli Roth's Fake Trailer Becomes a Real Movie

9/18/2023 • 4 min read

(Updated 10/06/2023)Thanksgiving | Cinemark

Eli Roth has finally turned one of his most notorious slasher movie ideas into a real movie. Roth originally created a semi-serious, semi-parody THANKSGIVING trailer for the 2007 movie GRINDHOUSE, which combined two feature-length films (by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez) with some fake trailers by notable filmmakers. Roth has talked on and off about making a real THANKSGIVING movie for years. Now it is almost here, and you can see the trailer!

When Does Eli Roth's Thanksgiving Come Out?

Sony Pictures will release THANKSGIVING in movie theatres on November 17.

Watch the Trailer for Thanksgiving

We've embedded the teaser trailer for THANKSGIVING above, but there is a much more graphic red-band version that you can check out as well. Together, these trailers establish the town of Plymouth, MA as it prepares to celebrate a particularly difficult Thanksgiving holiday — and the violence that ruins it for everyone.

How Closely Does Thanksgiving Adapt the Grindhouse Trailer?

So far, we don’t know, but the longer red-band trailer for the movie makes it seem like it's pretty close! Of course, the original trailer didn't feature many characters; it focused on scenes of violence and gruesome black comedy.

Some of the gags from the GRINDHOUSE trailer — which is far too gruesome for us to embed here, sorry! — appear to have made their way into the full feature. Whether or not we'll see something like the infamous trampoline incident from the trailer

Who Is in Thanksgiving?

Patrick Dempsey (“Grey’s Anatomy”) stars as the sheriff of Plymouth, MA, so he’ll be the one who has to figure out who is killing people, and why. TikTok star Addison Rae co-stars and they’re joined by Milo Manheim, Gina Gershon, Rick Hoffman, Tim Dillon, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Gabriel Davenport, Tomaso Sanelli, Jenna Warren, and Karen Cliche.

This Isn’t the First Grindhouse Trailer to Become a Movie

Robert Rodriguez directed one of the feature-length halves of GRINDHOUSE, the sci-fi splatter schlock PLANET TERROR. But he also made the trailer for MACHETE, which became a real movie three years later, in 2010. That movie even got a sequel, MACHETE KILLS, in 2013.

Now we just have to hope that Edgar Wright might return to his excellent trailer concept, DON'T, for a movie, too.

 

THANKSGIVING opens on November 17.

 

All images courtesy of Sony Pictures .

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