First trailer for Eli Roth's Thanksgiving is a holiday gorefest

The first trailer for Eli Roth's Thanksgiving is here – and the humans are the ones being roasted with vegetables.

When a mock trailer for a fake horror movie named Thanksgiving was featured in the 2007 Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino movie Grindhouse, Roth didn't anticipate that the clip would remain viral on the internet for well over a decade – with fans constantly asking the filmmaker to make the real thing.

The 'real thing,' directed by Roth from a screenplay by Jeff Rendell (Cabin Fever, Clown), follows a serial killer named John Carver who arrives in Plymouth, Massachusetts after a fatal Black Friday riot. In the brief clip, which can be viewed above, Carver comes to town to enact revenge, and starts picking off the townspeople one by one. The violence is rather festive, with one teenager being murdered with those spikey corn-on-the-cob holders and another being basted, roasted with some vegetables, and burned alive. We might have to skip out on Thanksgiving food this year because, uh, yuck. 

There's also a cool freezer scene that appears to pay homage to the icon frozen bloody stump scene in Jason X – and Roth loves his homages (especially with The Green Inferno being a modern-day Cannibal Holocaust).

The cast includes Addison Rae, Patrick Dempsey, Milo Manheim, Gabriel Davenport, Tomaso Sanelli, Jenna Warren, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Rick Hoffman, Gina Gershon, Tim Dillon, and Neil Verlaque.

Thanksgiving is set to hit theaters on November 17, 2023. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2023 and beyond.

Lauren Milici
Senior Writer, Tv & Film

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for 12DOVE currently based in the Midwest. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.