Weekend Watch - Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving might not have the most surprising reveals and suffers some in its third act, but its fun characters, innovative violence, and tongue-in-cheek humor more than make it a satisfying time in the theaters and a welcome addition to the slasher genre.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Eli Roth’s new holiday slasher, Thanksgiving, which opened in theaters this weekend. The film, which follows the citizens of Plymouth, MA, who are being terrorized at Thanksgiving by a masked killer one year after a disastrous Black Friday sale left multiple people dead, stars Nell Verlaque, Patrick Dempsey (sexiest man alive 2023), Rick Hoffman, Milo Manheim, Addison Rae, Karen Cliche, Ty Olsson, Jenna Warren, Tomaso Sanelli, Gabriel Davenport, and Joe Delfin as its ensemble of potential killers and victims. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: B+; it’s got plenty of that tongue-in-cheek slasher humor and gory action to please any audience even if its story underwhelms in the final act.
Should you Watch This Film? Yes! This is a great time at the theater that never gets too serious or self-important, giving audiences just about everything they might want in a new classic slasher.
Why?
Thanksgiving delivers up a fun, anti-Black Friday slasher ride that feels like Eli Roth at his most crowd-pleasing, never getting excessive with its gore while still maintaining the director’s twisted reputation with a collection of creative holiday-themed kills and injuries. It’s not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination with a third act and mystery that end up fairly underwhelming in their execution due to an aggressively choreographed plot twist that even the most basic viewer can probably see coming from a mile away. There’s plenty of dangling plot details to potentially give us sequels if it does well enough, and I really hope that it does because the film’s themes of corrupt business owners, cross-town rivalries, and Thanksgiving-related shenanigans deserve to be further explored alongside its archetypal cast of characters.
The best parts of the film are its moments of creative kills and attacks that often come out of nowhere. They had the audience in my theater absolutely losing our minds with creative use of industrial-grade ovens, corn cob holders, pilgrim axes, and the heavy doors of a restaurant’s dumpster. They are brutal in the most hilarious ways possible, living very much in the same space as Tarantino’s stylized gore. Each one leans into the film’s holiday motifs and feels like something you haven’t quite seen before in a slasher, at least not in this context. It’s fun to see this type of innovation in a genre that so often relies solely on tropes and familiarity, especially in recent years, to win audiences over.
Story-wise, Thanksgiving jumps in with a promising premise – someone is out for revenge on the people responsible for a violent and deadly Black Friday mob one year later at Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the home of the original Thanksgiving (purportedly). After showcasing the horror of a mob at a Black Friday sale, which also introduces us to the film’s collection of characters, it gets into its present-day setting, a town amping up for a Thanksgiving celebration with cross-town sports rivalries, a parade getting prepped up, and lots of hurt feelings as the town approaches the anniversary of the previous year’s disaster. Every bit of dialogue is loaded with potentially incriminating statements to keep the audience guessing as to who the real killer is and whether there might even be multiple killers operating in tandem. For anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, it’s pretty obvious who the perpetrator(s) is (are?), but there’s enough smoke and mirrors and plenty of fun violence to make up for that lack of mystery.
Each of the characters are fun and decently fleshed-out, with a well-selected cast of lesser-known actors portraying them (2023’s sexiest man alive Patrick Dempsey notwithstanding). Dempsey delivers a performance that works well in building up the setting as Plymouth’s thick-accented sheriff, worried about the impact of the killings on the town’s annual celebration of Thanksgiving. Nell Verlaque does the most as Thanksgiving’s new final girl, occasionally making some questionable decisions but never losing the audience’s support in a passable performance as a burgeoning scream queen. Her band of friends, comprised of Milo Manheim, Addison Rae, Jenna Warren, Tomaso Sanelli, and Gabriel Davenport, fills out the cast well, giving the audience enough individuality to make us curious about who makes it out and who might be the killer.
Thanksgiving might not have the most surprising reveals and suffers some in its third act, but its fun characters, innovative violence, and tongue-in-cheek humor more than make it a satisfying time in the theaters and a welcome addition to the slasher genre. It might not be perfect, but there’s plenty of potential to follow it up with Thanksgiving 2 (or Easter or St. Patrick’s Day or July 4th) if Eli Roth wants to give us more, and I certainly hope that he does. It’s currently showing in theaters, and I definitely recommend checking it out this week as a way to celebrate the holiday.
Weekend Watch - Scream VI
Ultimately, Scream VI is a solid outing for the new “core four” of the franchise, establishing them while providing an entertaining, if mildly flawed, “sequel to the requel”.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Scream VI, the latest film in the wildly successful meta slasher franchise. This film takes the franchise to the Big Apple, following Sam (Melissa Barrera), Tara (Jenna Ortega), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Chad (Mason Gooding) from last year’s soft reboot, Scream, as they go to college in NYC and are again pursued by the Ghostface Killer. The film again sees the return of Courteney Cox as reporter Gale Weathers and Hayden Panettiere as Scream 4 survivor Kirby Reed, now an FBI agent. Josh Segarra, Jack Champion, Liana Liberato, Devyn Nekoda, and Dermot Mulroney join the cast as newcomers to help round out the roster of potential killers. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: B+/A-; it all depends on your willingness to buy into the nature of the Scream franchise and on how much you enjoyed last year’s reboot – there’s good gore and fun twists either way though.
Should you Watch This Film? If there’s nothing you enjoy about slashers, then Scream VI probably isn’t for you; otherwise, it’s a great time at the theater and entirely worth your time.
Why?
Scream VI continues in the footsteps of last year’s reboot, focusing on the new characters while sticking with the meta humor and intense slasher violence that have made the films so popular, and it works even better here as the new characters start to come into their own, even if the absence of Neve Campbell’s Sydney does put a bit of a damper on things. The violence is bigger and more intense than in past installments, amping up the gore to new levels in places, making the requisite fake-out deaths even less believable than usual. The performances in the reveal moments are over-the-top in ways that would make William Shatner proud, but even that feels true to the nature of the franchise – making light of itself and other horror films with a solid blend of parody and homage.
Scream VI’s story feels a bit more contained (even set in the nation’s most populous city) than 5 or 3, focusing most of its action in three locations, allowing the characters to play off of each other and establish themselves as the focus beyond simple connections to the past films. Obviously, much of Melissa Barrera’s Sam’s development focuses on her connection to Billy Loomis, but since it’s all out in the open now, she manages to imbue her character with a deeper sense of self, no longer shrouded in mystery. Jenna Ortega’s Tara continues her streak of rebellious youth characters, but here, she comes into her own as a proverbial “scream queen”, putting herself less in the shoes of the younger sister character and more on the level of a true “final girl” with a performance totally unlike her characters in either Wednesday or X. Even siblings Mindy and Chad manage to establish themselves as something a bit more than one-note, both through romantic ties. Mindy’s knowledge of horror tropes remains endearing, but her genuinely emotional connection to the new character of Anika gives her a bit more depth. Similarly, Chad is no longer just the jock nephew of Randy Meeks, he is now an emotionally invested potential love interest for Tara. Altogether, this feels like a more establishing film than 5 and promises an interesting future for the franchise.
On some level, the Scream films do seem to have become a bit predictable, and Scream VI is no different. It offers a phenomenal opening scene, playing with the tropes of the past films in new and interesting ways before morphing into a fairly telegraphed whodunnit. This predictability might also stem from my marathon of the rest of the films that I held with my wife last week, putting all the twists and connections fresh in our minds, but suffice it to say that we were only mildly surprised at the inevitable third act reveal. Knowing what was up didn’t really do much to detract from our enjoyment because they did a good job of making us question what we thought we knew thanks to fake-out deaths and red herrings, including a great tease for a surprise return.
Ultimately, Scream VI is a solid outing for the new “core four” of the franchise, establishing them while providing an entertaining, if mildly flawed, “sequel to the requel” that lands somewhere on the level of 4 and 5 in terms of greatness, better than 3 but not as good as the first two classic films. It’s a great time at the movies with a blend of jump-scares and gore that is sure to please most slasher fans without trying to do too much.
Weekend Watch - August 2022 Recap
In a month full of television premieres, the film releases continued the trend set by June and July – mostly underwhelming with a few films that made a bit of a splash and have the potential to stick around.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch, where each week we talk about a new piece of film or television media and give it a review and recommendation. We’ve come to the end of August, so it’s time to recap this past month’s movie releases. In a month full of television premieres, the film releases continued the trend set by June and July – mostly underwhelming with a few films that made a bit of a splash and have the potential to stick around among the Greatest Films of All Time. Again, there’s no sure things coming out of the month of August, but there were some films that were possible things and long shots to make that list. Let’s get into it.
Long Shots:
Resurrection: This Rebecca Hall-led film about a woman whose past comes back to haunt her has done well among critics and certain audiences. Unfortunately, its thriller/horror nature will probably keep it out of most awards conversations, which it will need to overcome its overall low audience scores. From what I’ve heard, this one is worth seeing, but it’s not necessarily one of the Greatest Films ever made.
Bodies Bodies Bodies: A24’s ensemble slasher for Gen-Z has seemingly become an immediate cult classic, dividing younger viewers and older viewers with its cast of young stars (and Lee Pace) and darkly comedic take on the slasher genre. Critics are high enough on this film to keep it in the conversation, but A24 is more likely to focus on building awards momentum for its other films (Everything Everywhere All at Once and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On), so don’t expect to see this one vaulting out of its cult status any time soon.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero: Films from anime series can be hit and miss. Recent history suggests that the new Dragon Ball film will continue to make money and build its ratings. For this film to stand out from the ranks of other similar films (like Demon Slayer’s film in 2020), it will need a little bit more traction than it probably will get. That being said, there is no doubt that this has been a solid fan-pleaser among the Dragon Ball faithful.
Breaking: The hostage, crime-thriller starring John Boyega has seemingly overperformed among audiences and critics, even drawing some love from the Academy’s Twitter account after its release. The film, based on a true story, also constitutes one of Michael Kenneth Williams’s last credits following his death last year. While Boyega’s performance looks strong, it’s hard to see this breaking out past all the other awards-bait films still to come this year.
The Good Boss: A Spanish dramedy about a boss seeking to get a good review for his company, this film had a limited release in the U.S. this month and seems to be doing decently well for itself. Javier Bardem is certainly the biggest draw for this film, and it looks to be a better film than his upcoming English-language release, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. With all the highly rated foreign films already this year, even from Spain, it’s hard to see this making a bigger splash though.
Possible Things:
Thirteen Lives: This film looks to be Amazon’s big awards film, but it also seems to have already disappeared into “the discourse”. It contains some big-name actors, is directed by Ron Howard, and tells a story that is currently popular. Its ratings say that it’ll hang around when nominations come out, but it’ll need a few to really stick around and get a review on the list.
Prey: Hulu’s surprise hit Predator prequel has been arguably the biggest film ever to go the streaming only route. Many fans are already disappointed that (so far) they won’t get to see this one in theaters. Boasting a unique take on the monster-flick, a strong female lead, and some stellar reviews so far, it’s not outside the realm of possibility to see this one sticking around among the Greats.
Emily the Criminal: Aubrey Plaza’s crime thriller about a woman whose credit card schemes take her deeper than she intended has opened to limited viewership but positive reviews. If the below-the-radar Sundance hit can make a few more waves, it’s possible that Roadside might try a long-shot awards push to elevate this film to greatness. Don’t sleep on Aubrey Plaza’s versatility.
Inu-oh: This self-proclaimed animated rock opera based on a novel by Hideo Furukawa has thus far had positive reviews from both fans and critics. Its GKIDS release studio is known for its distribution of many other great Japanese animated films in both recent and distant history. Telling a story about outcasts finding their way through music seems to speak to a potential for this one to make its way onto the stage at the Oscars this year – we’ll see.
Girl Picture: Alli Haapaslo’s romance film about young women looking to have a good time during the long darkness of Finland’s winter has taken critics and fans by storm. Its limited American release has brought it a solid Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritc score. This looks to be another Scandinavian film that flies under the radar but makes its way onto the list thanks to its ability to tell a unique story that western audiences can’t help but review positively.