A ThanksKilling Celebration
Justin Moritz
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Every November, Americans push and shove their way through airports, rushing towards their gates in the hopes of getting to their Thanksgiving plans quicker, if only to have them over sooner rather than later. Families across the country will sit down to tear into dry turkey, sipping too much wine as they choke down insults for the sake of holiday cheer. Then as they undo pant buttons to slump on the couch, your average family might flip on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or football or perhaps a Christmas movie now that Thanksgiving is officially out of the way. Even if you don’t look past the holiday’s façade of forced gratefulness and see the holiday is built on American atrocities, Thanksgiving isn’t exactly the most fun holiday on the calendar.
Perhaps, the reason why Thanksgiving often comes across as a chore is cause our traditions are deeply flawed. Primarily, Americans have yet to realize that ThanksKilling (2008) is the perfect Thanksgiving film.
ThanksKilling is often known as a film that is “so bad, that it’s good”, but I am here to argue that ThanksKilling knows exactly what it’s doing. The film follows the murderous spirit of the first Thanksgiving turkey, awakened from his slumber when his grave is disturbed. You’re probably saying, “What the fuck?”, but as absurd as its premise, this film is one that never fails to lean into its ridiculousness. Made for just $3500, Jordan Downey’s non-traditional slasher has both perturbed and tantalized audiences for over 15 years.
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ThanksKilling exists in the pantheon of films such as The Godfather that I believe truly understand what they are deep down to their core. From its promise of “Boobs in the first second” to its foul-mouth fowl, ThanksKilling delivers. The film’s plot follows a group of college students who decide to take a little detour to celebrate Thanksgiving break, drink booze, and have sex, only to bring on the wrath of the meanest turkey to ever cross their paths.
As a horror comedy, ThanksKilling succeeds in the sense that all the film’s actors seem to be waiting for laughter upon delivering their dialogue, regardless if it’s intended as a joke or not. While this results in a far from naturalistic ensemble, we can’t forget that the star of the film is a killer turkey. Considering its small budget, the killer turkey at the center of the film is frankly a triumph of practical effects and puppetry, bolstered by Jordan Downey’s ridiculous voice acting and insistence that Turkie has some sort of accent.
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As Turkie goes about his killer rampage, he does so with a complete lack of seriousness. One of the film’s silliest deaths sees the turkey have intercourse with a woman, her seemingly enjoying it, and then dying at the turkey’s hand. When there is a wisecrack or joke to be made, Turkie makes it. If Turkie can stuff a head into an oven, he’s going to do it. It’s just typical Turkie behavior to do the most when little would do. If viewed as a piece of satire on the ridiculousness of trends and history of slashers, ThanksKilling succeeds because its characters lack any common sense, get picked apart in the silliest possible fashions, and still manage to say not today, killer turkey as they fight for their lives.
While ThanksKilling doesn’t exactly have the iconic kills that would land it among other iconic slashers, I believe it plays to its advantages, approaching this subgenre from a meta angle where the film’s lack of resources almost bolster it. Turkie, as a slasher villain, is hardly smart, going as far to evade detection as wearing a character’s face over his own face. It’s obvious that this is an idiotic plan at best; luckily, Turkie’s victims are your archetypal horror dumbasses, nodding their heads and hardly noticing that a six-foot-tall man is now less than two feet tall and also a turkey. If anything, ThanksKilling’s commentary on the slasher genre seems to be: if it’s entertaining, who cares how ridiculous it is?
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Year after year, I find myself drawn back to this film. Sure, it might require a six-pack or a couple edibles to prepare myself for ThanksKilling, but I find myself laughing my ass off every time I watch the film. I think nowadays we try to justify the existence of films, but if ThanksKilling came out today, you might shake your head, say no way, and continue browsing your options. But I think films like ThanksKilling are what we’re missing in modern horror with major studios going to bat for so-called “elevated” horror films, yet failing to recognize that sometimes, you want something silly on your screen.
While ThanksKilling is in a batshit ridiculous film. It has garnered plenty of fans, and it was these very fans that funneled over $100,000 into the film’s sequel: ThanksKilling 3, marketed as the first film to ever skip its own sequel as the film incorporates time travel. Additionally, ThanksKilling fanatics will be happy to hear that Turkie is well on his way to EGOT status, starring in his own original musical ThanksKilling: The Musical, which you can watch on YouTube now.
Despite its low budget and odd concept, ThanksKilling is a treasure amongst other holiday horror films. It’s a film you can turn on in your dorm room and easily turn into a drinking game with your friends (take a shot every time they reuse dialogue and jokes from other scenes). It’s a film you could throw on at Thanksgiving dinner and suddenly find yourself on Grandma’s DO NOT INVITE list. This film is just plain, bloody fun, so when you’re sitting on the couch wondering what to watch after Thanksgiving dinner, maybe it’s time for ThanksKilling.
Categorized:Editorials
