304: Thanksgiving (2023)

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Speaking of the New England of it all, I really want to acknowledge that the mass holes were mass holing.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

They sure were.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Gather around the table, everyone. Dinner is served. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

A total joke, a waste of time.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Or a slash.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Totally killer, pun intended.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast, and this week I'm joined by the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Pilgrims are unfuckable.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

This week we're back in the theaters to check out a holiday slasher brought to you by Eli Roth. Before we set the table, though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Let's follow up on some stuff. Alright, y'all, the holiday season is almost upon us, and we have something really exciting in store for you. So get ready to treat yourself or your loved ones because on November 24th, we're going to be launching brand new merch in our online store.

unknown 1:17

Ah!

SPEAKER_03 1:18

We have stickers featuring our beautiful faces and logo. We have trendy new tees, a cozy hacker/slash pillow, and so much more, honestly. It's really cute. It's the perfect way to show off your love for our podcast and get into the holiday spirit. So mark your calendars for November 24th and make sure to check the link in our show notes to be one of the first to snag these items. And that's our follow-up.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, in 2007, Grindhouse audiences were treated to something different: a unique cinematic interlude. Sandwich Between Planet Terror and Deathproof was a fake trailer that gave a glimpse into Eli Roth's vision of a holiday horror film. And that trailer planted the seeds for what would eventually grow into our feature presentation today. Now, this week's film is the expansion of that vision and takes us to the streets of Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the festive seasonal air takes a more sinister turn. In the aftermath of a Black Friday riot that spiraled into chaos, the town finds itself haunted by an enigmatic and terrifying presence. Rooted in the very heart of the holiday, this menacing figure brings a new kind of horror, turning the season of gratitude into a time of fear. So grab your pumpkin pie and settle in, folks, because this week we're talking about Thanksgiving. What were you expecting going into this Paris?

SPEAKER_03 2:31

So you texted me like last week and you were like, hey, a lot of scheduling stuff, yada yada, might need you to tag in for this Thanksgiving episode. And I was like, honestly, sure, absolutely love that, but like not thrilled at all about the movie. I was like, oh god, I was absolutely not intending to see this bullshit shitty movie. Didn't care at all. But I was like, you know what? Love the pod, love my girls, love the whole vibe, let's do it. Happy to be on board. And then I was mentioning to a coworker, I was like, oh yeah, I have to go see Thanksgiving later this week. And he was like, oh yeah, that's the one that's based off of the commercial from Grindhouse. And I was like, oh. And then I was vaguely optimistic, not vaguely optimistic because that's still a lie. I was 15% more interested in this film, which would bring me to 16%.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Wow, the math is mathing, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

What about you, Kringle?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Okay, so I had seen the trailer from Grindhouse several times, but I had only seen the trailer for this one one time.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

And I was expecting for it to ooze disgust, quite frankly, and not even in a good way. We have the Eli Roth of it all. I realized that I think what my biggest concern is I haven't seen a lot of his work that I've actually liked. I liked him as an actor in Inglorious Bastards, but you know, I liked The Last Exorcism. He was a producer for that. But Cabin Fever, hostile, it's a no for me dog. There's this element of this that I felt was really going to radiate big predator energy. So I thought it was going to be disgusting based off of that trailer. But I think more so for me, I didn't allow my hopes to get super high because of all of that. But I did at the bottom line expect some polished tongue-in-cheek camp and a few cheesy lines of dialogue.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Really? You expected polish.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

The one time I saw the trailer, it was giving polished in terms of its aesthetics.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Okay. I don't believe I saw a trailer for this film, only the Grindhouse trailer, which was like deliberately bad. But there's actually billboards for this movie all over LA, which I was like, that's what? Very confusing to me. Um, I was expecting like Bunny Day Thankskilling level, like garbage film, like camcorder made by two white dudes that smell bad. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Okay, that is a great description of Thankskilling.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah, that's what I was expecting. Quality was not even in the top 50 things I was thinking I was gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Were you aware of the cast of this film?

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Nope. Okay. As soon as it started, I said, Oh, oh, what? They signed on to do this?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

It's honestly shocking.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Wow. I am so glad that this was such a surprise for you. So going into this and having those expectations, not allowing myself to be excited, I think it set me up pretty nicely because I found myself being entertained the whole way through.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Yeah, honestly, same. After I got over the initial shock of the casting, I was like, oh, this is actually kind of interesting. Oh, I'm a little intrigued. I'm a little invested. I'm having a bit of a giggle. I'm enjoying a kill here and there. So I yeah, I agree, Chris. I think having such a low expectation for this movie is the right way to go because then you have nowhere to go but up.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah, there's also a clip that I saw, and it was Eli Roth talking about how excited he was about this movie. And he was also sharing that he'd always had this dream or this vision of making like a historic, like iconic slasher, like Halloween or Scream. And hearing that, I was like, again, it is tempering my expectations. I'm like, listen, motherfucker, I haven't liked a single other thing that you've done. There's no way I'm gonna like anything as much as like Halloween and Scream from what you're putting down. But here's what I did find. When I'm watching a slasher, and obviously I'm a huge fan of them, I find that there are a few options or paths that my brain can take to towards like assessing out how I feel. And I think the biggest three are either A, I'm completely enthralled, or I'm tense, or I'm devoted to the characters in the way I often am with like Halloween or the original Black Christmas, where like I'm rooting for their survival and I really want them to make it. Option B, I'm amused, but it's fucking bonkers, right? Like, think about like Terrifier, Terrifier 2, etc. Or then C, maybe it's fine, but I'm just intrigued because it's trying to subvert expectations or it's keeping you along for the ride of like a whodunit situation, kind of like scream.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

So most slashers, I love, like hit one of those three big points, but this movie didn't. I was, though, enjoying the ride that it was taking me on. I wasn't hanging at the edge of my seat wondering who was behind it. I wasn't totally invested in the core group of characters, but I was invested in what the killer had going on because it was just so much fun. And I think it's a product of Eli Roth being so damn excited to make an iconic slasher.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

I love that. I could I feel like that definitely translated. I wrote in my notes at one point that like it hits all of the classic slasher beats, like specifically like the teen slasher beats. And I think I saw on your Instagram story when you saw this, it was like an empty theater.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, it was empty. I mean, some people like ended up trickling in like late into the beginning of the movie. Yeah. I think by the time the first like main climactic action goes on, we'd already had like the couple pairings of people, but it was mostly empty.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Interesting. My theater was, I think, sold out or close to it. It was a packed house, which I when I booked my ticket, I was like, why is this so full? I mean, it wasn't a huge theater, but it was like surprising to me that that many people were seeing it.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

It's all the billboards.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Honestly, I it probably is. I think it's also the LA of it all. Like to this day, we still got applause for the Nicole Kidman AMC commercial.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Yeah, if you see a movie near its premiere at that time, you're gonna get some applause for Nicole Kidman in West Hollywood. But the audience was very reactive. There were a lot of huge laughs, there was applause, it was a very lively crowd, and I think the movie sort of invited that and then rewarded it, you know? Like it was kind of a movie where like people were making comments and talking, and it didn't totally annoy me, which is rare. The one gay next to me though, like I made I like giggled at one thing that he said during the trailer, and he noticed that I giggled, and then I feel like he was trying to perform to me specifically for the rest of the film, and I was like, Stop, just be quiet. I hate that. Oh I know, but couldn't blame him. And it added to the experience, I'd say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Regardless, despite all of that, I found myself still surprised by this movie. I was actually surprised how non-sexual it was.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

I'm surprised to hear you say that because I found many characters in this film to be positively sexy. You know, I feel like it was tastefully sexy, where it was just like we're just gonna show you hot people, but we're not necessarily gonna make them do hot things at least one time.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Okay, that's it's fair. I'm not saying that there wasn't anyone attractive in this movie, because there absolutely was. But listen, when you think about the content that these movies can have, when you also think about the trailer for this movie that was in Grindhouse, this could have easily been very disgusting. It could have very easily crossed the line with uh the depiction or violence against women. It could have crossed so many lines. But I really, again, expected this to be over the top and oozing that horndog energy. I will say though, I think this is a safe experience. If you want to go see a movie with a friend who you might be uncomfortable to weather out like an extended sex scene, you're good. Like this is a green light.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

But also don't be friends with them. If you can't watch extended sex scenes with your friends, find new friends.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

What if it's a budding friendship, Paris? What if they're just not there yet?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

That's one this is one way to get there.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

I guess.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

But I feel like Horndog Energy specifically is such a good term because Eli Roth very much has been known for that vibe. And you're right, the trailer from Grindhouse definitely alluded to that sort of a tone. Um, and yeah, so you know what? You've sold me on that. It was it was not that vibe at all. And that is surprising in hindsight. I think for me, the biggest surprise was like how funny it was. I wasn't expecting it to be a comedy. I'm glad it was because like if you're gonna do a Thanksgiving movie, you just have to be like, this is stupid. Where do we go from there? Because when you don't say that at the beginning, like if you don't acknowledge that this is stupid, then I'm sitting there the whole time thinking, This is stupid, why is no one saying it?

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

You know, it was so I was surprised with how how funny this was. Like I had a couple laughs, the audience was cracking up around me. I was like, okay, this is like a good horror comedy, I would say. Like it falls into horror comedy. I didn't want to say good, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

For sure, but the other element of this is that, you know, I mentioned earlier I expected some tongue and teak camp. This was not as cheesy as it could have been. Like it's funny, true, but it's also not so hard in the direction of the movie that is coming up for us next week, Black Friday from 2021 with Bruce Campbell. And that is a movie that is straight up horror comedy, it leans very far into it. Versus this, I feel like it kind of peppered it in. Its comedy was well balanced, but let me tell you, the one thing that I was disappointed with is actually some of the gore.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Really?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Mm-hmm. Listen, wow, it's bold and it goes in a lot of great directions. There is a lot of gore in this that is like, damn, that is great. It's satisfying. Yeah. But then there are other moments that the CGI was just so jarring to me that I was like, oh, it doesn't feel like the rest of the gore. Like it felt like it stood out in a bad way. And that did not feel as well seasoned as the comedy or the rest of the beats of the movie.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

You know, I really do want to unpack that, so let's make sure we circle back in the spoiler section because the few parts that I found to be a little bit more disappointing were actually, from what I could tell, practical effects. And I was kind of like, uh, not quite. So yeah, let's definitely revisit this in more detail once we can be a little bit more explicit.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Mm-hmm. But despite that, gore, do you think this was scary?

SPEAKER_03 13:27

No. There's like there were a couple jump scares that got the audience that I was in. I don't think I really flinched. I didn't really bat an eye. And I don't think that the energy of the killer is particularly scary or sinister, but that might just be me.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, you know what, there's not like this sense of real danger. Like, I think about Jason Voorhees. You think about Michael Myers, they're imposing statuesque figures. This motherfucker, you realize it actually is not that tall once you factor in the pilgrim hat of it all. Dangerous. Dangerous, but not threatening and looming, not omnipresent. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

It's just like a different level of threat. But hey, small and agile, still, still threatening. I think if you're a fellow slasher enthusiast, or if you really dabble into horror, this shit is not gonna get you, it's not gonna rock you, it's not gonna bother you. I think it does have a few jump scares that'll get the uninitiated. Hey, my theater, I mentioned obviously mostly empty, but there was one jump scare in this movie, and I think because of the intensity of the sound in it, that the couple that was all the way at the end of my row dropped their popcorn.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

And that's it.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Wow. I think as far as originality goes, I found myself a little torn. I think there's a lot of things in this film that I've never seen, and whenever I give my originality score, if there's original kills, if there's original ideas, points from Paris. So definitely some of those points in this film, but also I felt like it was unsurprising hearing what you heard Eli Roth say in that interview because it felt very formulaic to a slasher, to the point where you had texted me beforehand because you watched yours before I got into mine, and you're like, hey, can you make some notes like on the kills so we can make sure we have like an accurate kill count? And it was to the point where I didn't need to wait for anybody to die. I I got I picked up on the cues, being like a seasoned horror enthusiast, and immediately wrote down who was about to die, put my phone down, and then enjoyed it happening. And I was only wrong once. So maybe that's more of a comment on its predictability than its originality, but I feel like they're a little bit intertwined.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

They are, and I'm really curious to see if you were completely wrong or if you had to just kind of go back, put a little asterisk, and then change the time of death.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

More like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

So you probably know which one it is.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Oh, absolutely, I do, because it's the same spot for me. So here's the thing, right? There are a couple different angles I think you can take in terms of the originality. This movie is absolutely a slasher, it doesn't offer a whole ton of new stuff to the subgenre. It's okay that it's a fucking pilgrim using Thanksgiving tools to fucking kill people, right? It's fine, it's it's okay. But here's what I consider I think of my brother recently reacting to seeing Terrifier for the very first time, and there's something that Art the Clown does in that movie that made him say, Oh shit, that's different. And my brother's not gonna have to say that about anything in this movie.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

It's rare that you can say that.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't have to be said for it to be good.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

True.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Listen, I like pizza, you like pizza. If this were pizza, it'd be a well-constructed pepperoni pizza with no frills. You can't be mad at it.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Yeah, I don't need you to reinvent the wheel for pizza to be good. I don't need a concept, I don't need it to be deconstructed. You can do just the thing you do, and it's a hit, it's a hit.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Absolutely. Where I do give this movie points though, in terms of its originality, is similar to how I give points for like reboots and remakes or continuing, you know, requels in how it treats its source material. This going and fleshing out a concept from a fake trailer, keeping some key iconic moments from that trailer, but also expanding the story and taking it in a new direction. It was really interesting to me reading something else that Eli Roth said, which was something to the effect of, hey, let's just pretend that this is a modern day remake, and the fake trailer is a movie that exists, but it was done so badly, it was done so terribly, it was in such bad taste that it can never be done, and this is just a remake of that movie. And that allowed them to have a better like playground and a little sandbox to work in. And I really respect that. I think this, considering what that original trailer was, it does a lot of things differently while also keeping the spirit of what I think made that trailer so cool. So I think it gets points there.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

I love that. That actually feels like a very smart choice for them to have made, and I think that does reflect in the finished product. Because I you're right, I pretty early on, I was like, oh, this is not like a 70s timeline whatsoever. This is modern day. Um how is that a problem? We'll see. Uh so yeah, alright. I'll I'll I I'll give it a couple points for that as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah. I also give it points for its ending, though. Again, not something that's gonna blow your fucking mind away, not something that's gonna smack you in the face with how fresh it is. But there was a moment where I was like, holy shit, this is ridiculous, and I love it.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Really?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

When we say ending, do we mean the end end? Do we mean the third act?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I don't mean the end end. I mean the pre-end. It's not the full third act, because the full third act was a little like a little bob and weave here and there.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

But I'm thinking about what happens right before the final scene of the movie.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Interesting. For me, the ending was as mid as they come, to the point where I like started to get my purse, got my shoe, got my jacket back on, collected all my items, uh, because I was like, I I know exactly where this is going. It went exactly there, and then I left. So the ending to me, not bad, not surprising, not great.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Okay, well, that's fair. I'm curious to see how a not great ending ultimately impacts your rating. But before we get there, Paris, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Okay, so I very rarely get to deliver a gore score on Hackerslash, and I feel like I'm a very fair judge of gore. Uh, as somebody who enjoys movies like Hostel and Saw, I can acknowledge like when Gore is insane and way too much. And I feel like this movie gets like a medium-high gore score. There are some very rotted things that happen to the victims in this film. Creative, horrible, nasty little things that you get really good views of. So if you are a fan of gore, check this out. Um, if you are very squeamish, or if like Chris always comes up with, if you have a hypothetical friend who you're slowly introducing to horror, maybe you don't use this one right away because some of these kills are nasty and gnarly. Do you think that's fair?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

100% I think it's fair.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Medium high.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, absolutely it's fair because while in the grand scheme of things, it is it pales in comparison to some of the terrifier level shit we get. This is on the higher end of what I think the average person could take and not be super squeamish.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Yeah, I think it's given quality but also quantity.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Mm-hmm. And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_03 20:58

The animal report, save for a few turkeys, as is tradition, uh, is actually intact. And I love that. It's uh heartwarming.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This definitely could have gone a different way, and I'm so glad that Eli Rolf saw a line in the sand and dared not to cross it.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. Thanksgiving from 2023. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_03 21:23

I went into this movie being like garbage movie, but you know what? It's part of being on the pod. And I missed being on the pod. And I was like, you know, being on the pod means seeing movies that I would never see on my own. Oh, nor would I want to. And I I said to you, Chris, recently, I said, I want to be on a couple more episodes because I'm I'm able to be a little bit more available than I have been in the past. Uh, and I miss y'all so much. And I also remember Ryan recently saying something to the effect of you need to watch the bad movies as well so that we have things to hack, otherwise, the show is just slash. Uh, and I think I'm really missing. Known for my hacks in some ways. Now, with all that being said, this movie is a slash. And I'm really glad that you made me watch it because I never would have watched it. Even if you explained it to me afterwards, I probably still would have been like, oh, I'm glad you liked it, not gonna watch it. But I had a really fun time. It is a classic teen slasher, which is like my favorite type of slasher, like high school students getting killed for whatever reason, XYZ. It has a lot of energy in the same vein of I know what you did last summer, which I love. And it really did feel like somebody who understands the slasher genre and really enjoys it and has the resources to do it effectively. It just felt solid, you know? It felt like a really solid movie that somehow shockingly is about Thanksgiving. And I was really, gag, it's a holiday horror movie that's good? What? What timeline are we in? Anyway, it this also has one of my favorite kills in recent memory, which is so horrible, and I'll never be able to unthink about it. But it's like to me, it's giving like Final Destination log kill where it'll ruin something for you forever. And that's a slash.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Here's the thing for me though. You say this, and I can think of like three kills that it could be.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Fair.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

And I love the versatility there.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

That's a good sign.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

This movie has range. Mm-hmm. Oh, I love that. Listen, far be it from me to find a moment to disagree with you. I really had a good time with this movie. This movie did not subvert expectations for me, but it did, as you mentioned, solidly walk the line of a well-rounded, well-executed slasher. I made an assumption very early on on who the killer would be, but I think it does give some good, plausible alternatives that might have a few people guessing. I think if you are really into the slasher sub-genre, you're gonna pick up on some shit really quick, and you're gonna be like, uh, okay, maybe. But I think this is a good enough time, and I think it it hides its cards well enough to keep you going along the way. It does have some cringe moments, but there are moments where it wants you to cringe with it as opposed to strictly at it, which is a very fine line to walk. And it has pretty convincing performances from its cast, and while it has characters I hate, I sure do love to hate them. And that's a rarity for me. Usually if it's if I find a character completely obnoxious and it kind of ruins it and takes it out, takes me out of the movie. But I also want to take a moment to acknowledge that Patrick Dempsey was named People's 2023 Sexiest Man Alive.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

Yeah, what the hell?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

I don't I don't I never give a shit about things like this. I really don't.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I don't even think he's particularly that sexy. However, I do want to acknowledge that a man of his ilk and his level of fame and acclaim is starring in a holiday slasher movie.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

What a fucking time for horror, honestly. This is a big deal. This is a big moment. Realistically, what a time for the horror genre. That's fantastic. And listen, I I took a gamble pre-ordering my Thanksgiving shirt as I'm wearing right now, and my The Carver pin from Fright Rags.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

I took a gamble and I was like, I don't like Eli Roth, but everything I've seen tells me that I might actually like this movie as low as my expectations are. And I'm glad I took a gamble and have these things on day one because this movie's a slash.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Mm-hmm. And you've got the merch to back it up.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Mm-hmm. And with that, Thanksgiving Crunch 2023 is a universal slash. Now you can find this movie playing in theaters. Go check the link in our show notes if you're watching it post its theatrical run so you can see where you can find it right now. But go check it out, then join us in the second half so we can break down these iconic kills together. See you in a bit.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

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SPEAKER_00 27:01

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for Thanksgiving, which has actually earned a universal slash. Now we have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Alright, we have, I think we landed on 12 and a half because fetuses are famously half people.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Oh okay, well not quite not fully formed. Okay, but here's the thing for me. It was the fact that I, when I wrote this, wrote an asterisk and a is it plus 0.5 for the fetus? And you, unrelated in a different time zone, three hours behind watching this movie, also did a 0.5 for the fetus.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

0.5 for the fetus. When a pregnant woman kills, that's one and a half. That's just canon. That's math. Everyone agrees. Okay, so we had 12 and a half kills. So many great kills in this, Chris. A lot of original ones, a lot of really big reactions to almost every kill in my theater. The theater was gagged. We start off strong with three kills in a horrible Black Friday nightmare. Three pretty original kills, all things considered. Not just your typical trampling.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Yeah. Just one trampling, one collateral damage of glass shattering, which is so sad for that man.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Also still grabbing his waffle iron almost in denial of what is happening to his fucking neck. But oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

And then the bitch that comes by and takes it from him as he dies. It's so bad.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

It's so bad.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

So nasty. It's so rude.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Oh my gosh. But Amanda.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

So when I we have to say this. When I saw Gina Gershawn, obviously the girls, Gays and Days, we love the movie Showgirls, and she is famously so incredible in that. And as soon as I saw her in this movie, I was like, I was so gagged. And I was like, we're not gonna have her for long. I just know it. She did not sign on to this project to be a here from the beginning to the end. But to see her get scalped by a shopping cart, that really, really upset me.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Partially scalped. It was awful.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

It's also just like how sad for her. She is there to. I mean, again, we don't know everything about her toward love affair yet, but she's there to support her husband on Thanksgiving to bring him food. He's concerned for her safety. He tells her to wait there, and she is just caught up and swept up in the madness.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

A victim of circumstance.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Absolutely. You know what? She has agency over her body. She had plans, she had ambitions of being with someone that she loved more than the guy that she was married to. And it seemed like she had intentions of breaking things off. She didn't deserve that.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

True. I agree. It was sad.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

But fun to watch.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

So earlier in my ranking, I mentioned that there was a kill in this movie that ruined something for me forever. And that is the trampoline kill. So we have a gorgeous cheerleader. As picturesque of a cheerleader as you can imagine in your mind's eye, dear listeners. Actually, at this point, you should have seen the movie. And if you haven't, thanks for listening anyway. We have a cheerleader. Really setting up bizarre, bizarre setup for this sequence. There's like a spotlight over the trampoline. It's indoors. She's basically doing like a little trampoline strip tease for her boyfriend, who she doesn't realize has already been murdered. And as she's bouncing up and down, the killer underneath comes up with knives, just like one knife, stabbing her in the foot. Then she falls and falls onto the knife again. But now every time I bounce on a trampoline, I'm gonna wonder: are there knives under there? Are there knives under the trampoline? And if I bounce too deep, I'll stab my foot.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

When I saw that scene, and A, let's just take a moment to thank them for bringing this from the trailer and fixing the direction.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

This one was in the trailer?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

It was in the trailer.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

I need to rewatch it.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

However, the problem is in the trailer, she does a split, the knife goes into her vagina.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Oh, actually, I was afraid that was gonna happen in this. And that is something that was gratefully left behind.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Absolutely. Thank you so much for losing the horn dog energy and not penetrating her with a fucking knife. Oh. That is disgusting. However, when I saw that, I immediately thought, thank God Paris is gonna be on here because now we have the tendon slasher.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Literally, it gave tendon slasher, and then for her to just because she kept bouncing. You don't just stop bouncing on a trampoline, you can't just stop bouncing.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

You have no control in the situation.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

She was helpless.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

You belong to the trampoline.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

You do, and gravity. It's literally and honestly, the killer could probably get away with that one. That necess not necessarily was him. He was just under there with a knife and she bounced. Not that I'm blaming I'm blaming a woman.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Not you victim blaming and letting her know, hey, go ahead and say something. It won't hold up against against him in court.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

I have plausible deniability. Paris. Paris. I didn't kill you. Gravity did.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

I expected more from you.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

But truly, I will never because like, especially like, I don't know, if you're ever at a trampoline and you can't you can't see what's under there. There could be a tendon slasher.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

I haven't been on a trampoline since I was like six.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

Neither have I, but you better believe next time either of us are on one, this thought will come to our heads the same way when you drive behind a log truck, you have the final destination thought.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Or you drive in front of the Mayflower. Because fuck, that sucked for that guy.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Oh yeah. Really did.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

He got final destinationed in the head by the Mayflower.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

And except Final Destination, that was pretty pretty thin piece to impale him by. Uh this one was thick. It was like a traffic cone thick. Impaled by the Mayflower of all things.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

But this man being final destinationed by that, absolutely terrible. And then the blood squirting all over what I presume, who I presume are his daughters. Yeah, that's right. Right next to him in the seat. Absolutely, absolutely awful. But I want to take it back to what is my favorite kill.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

And this is number one in my top five favorite kills in this movie.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Wait, where did trampoline rank?

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Not even in the top five. Damn. It's so good. Listen, the trampoline, great. I had to remove it because of the semantics because it's not how she died.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

Oh, fair. Actually, yeah, true.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

You know what I mean? That was a good moment of violence.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Okay, but let's talk about Crathleen because the carver was was he glazing her or buttering her?

SPEAKER_03 33:49

He was basting her.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Basting her. He seasoned her with salt and pepper. He put on fucking garnish. Oh. It's iconic.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

I hated it.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Oh my gosh. I loved it. I hated looking at her feet, but I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Yeah, it was the feet for me.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, it was disgusting.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

You know I hate feet.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

I also hate feet. It's a Capricorn thing. But here's the other thing. She goes on to have such a scene of tiptoeing around this house. Yeah. Uh, really playing a lot as cat and mouse. And I think she was so good at evasion because she herself was a villain.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

Yeah, absolutely. She was a and obviously I related to Kathleen in a lot of this movie. I was like, I get it. You want your husband to make more money? Absolutely. He should open the store on Thanksgiving. Totally makes sense. And then even when she like saw the girl in the fridge and was like, I'm coming right back. We all knew she wasn't coming back. We all knew. She said, I'm just gonna leave you here, bitch, and I'm out. Yeah. But do we think that the cat and mouse sequence was campy? Because it felt comical.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

How absurdly close in proximity they were throughout the whole scene. And like the framing of it all, I thought it was very funny. I thought it was done in a very like smart but stupid way.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

It's giving Scooby-Doo is what it's giving.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yes, it gave a Scooby-Doo, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

It's so good. But then for her to get the good old pitchfork to the back and then get dragged back in, put in the oven to roast. Oh my gosh. It is such a fucking moment. To see her screaming in so much agony, he opens up the oven, pokes her, and then that little just pops right at the end after she's dead. So good.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

The meat thermometer, cherry on top.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Absolutely. It actually leads into what is my favorite scene, but we'll get there when we get there. I cannot wait to the continuance of that because Kathleen didn't just serve in that oven. She served when she was on the table too.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Let's see. Any other any other notable kills we should touch on? The corn cob things in the ear. Horrible.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yulia, absolutely awful. She has one contact in, she can barely see. She can't hear anything. And then to know that she was just flung onto that saw, if she had honestly not been shocked so much, or if her boyfriend had gone up faster to catch her, she would have just didn't been dis you know maimed or dismembered, but not completely dead.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

Yeah, he really took his time stepping in there.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Yeah, but you know what? I will say credit to them because the trauma in their eyes, outstanding.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

It was believable. It was definitely believable. I think we also have to talk about the waitress, the for our first kill post initial incident.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Okay, famously number four on my top five favorite kills. Absolutely, Lizzie.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

Wait, just go through the top five.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Okay, Kathleen, number one. Number two, Evan. You're gonna break the internet.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Oh my god, so good. To go viral, you really need to hit people over the head. So stupid.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

But then he says, Congratulations, Evan. You're a star. Oh my gosh. I just love it so much. Also because I fucking hated Evan, and I was like, this motherfucker's gotta go. And I know that it's all his fault, and therefore they're not gonna kill him first. And I hope he has a satisfying death. Because sometimes these bitches don't be getting satisfying deaths. True. No, it was great. I fucking loved it. He was number two. If Kathleen didn't make a reappearance on the table, he would have been number one. Number three, Manny, the security guard. Only because I loved the shocking moment of the turkey carver in the gut. But really, what put this kill over the top was the composition of his cat in the foreground being pet by the carver and fed, because that cat didn't give a fuck, and his blood spurting out of his decapitated body. Fucking chef's kiss. So good.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

That was beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Then we have Lizzie, which we'll discuss now, and then honestly, it was a decapitated turkey during the parade.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

That one was solid too. The moment I saw the clown, I was like, Yeah, that's her. That's her mama.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

100%.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

We clocked it, but the people in the theater did not at all.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Yeah, I'm like, there's no reason a fucking Halloween clown is in this goddamn Thanksgiving parade, sir.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

No.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

Hmm, one of these things is not like the other.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Thanksgiving Joker. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

It's the killer clown from outer space. Which is brilliant. Which is brilliant. When you think your victims are on to you, switch up your little costume. Switch it up. They won't expect it. Especially if you've committed to one look the whole time. Okay, Lizzie, the waitress. So many horrible things happen to that nasty, hilarious woman. The freezer burn. Like so, first drowning her face in the sink and then slamming her face against the freezer door of the meat locker.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Oh! Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

And then her face ID not working on her phone.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Her face ID nor her touch. Like she could not because of her bloody hands. Nothing worked. Nothing worked. It was just awful for her. But I loved the wetness on the face to the freezer door because it was reminiscent of a Christmas story with little Ralphie getting his tongue stuck to the pole.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

And then fully for her to try and escape by crawling into a dumpster, which is the saddest thing a person can do.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

I'm oh sad for her. Okay. Okay, here's where the CGI was for me.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Because we get the practical of what I think are like a lot of guts that stick out, right? Like there's a lot of noodles that are noodling. But it was particularly the severing of it, even if it was for just a moment or a flash, it looked like it did not belong on the screen. And I absolutely hated that.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Okay. That's fair. I think in the moment, me and the people around me, we were all just so shocked that I that I missed it.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's something that I really actually do want to spend more money to go back and see this movie again in theaters so I can just take it in. I wish it was playing in Dolby somewhere so I could see it on a better screen.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Maybe maybe this is just my viewing experience in digital at AMC, but I thought uh I thought that was a moment where it stood out and I was like, ooh, I don't like what this is giving. For as good as all those kills are though, I know I give a little bit against the CGI. One thing that I had no issues with throughout the entirety of the movie was the look of the killer, the design of the killer. He's a little short king, he has his top hat, he's a little pilgrim, he's cute. But it was simple. And I think it was the perfect balance of giving the John Carver of it all without going so hard down the pilgrim route that you'd look fucking dumb. For example, we see Ryan in his pilgrim garb later, and he looks absolutely terrible. If they had put an actual pilgrim in this movie, like even think about the movie we saw a couple Thanksgivings ago, Pilgrim. If they dressed him up like that, would have been laughable, would have been terrible.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

This, no, it's just a mask, the hat, and then a nice all black or dark kind of garb to mask it. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Yeah. I think the killer was inoffensive to the point where I'm like, I could see this being like a like a Michael, like a Jason. Like, I feel like it fits, it feels appropriate without being like particularly bad in any specific way. I didn't love it. It gave me a little bit of like Burger King energy with the mask.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:22

You know what I mean? And also, like, I hate the aesthetic of pilgrims so much.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

They're famously unfuckable. I don't know if you know that.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

Unfuckable, but his pilgrim look was the closest to fuckable. I can say that. As far as favorite visual element goes, I think a lot of the gore, beautiful to behold, some really wonderful practical effects in this film, which I actually really appreciated because it felt it felt tastefully done and it felt like it was selectively done. And most of it I was happy with. And this is sort of just gonna go back to my favorite kill, the visual that was set up for the trampoline kill with the lighting. We had just such a beautiful shot with that spotlight in the gymnasium and the shadows all around her. And then after her boyfriend gets his head killed or his head twisted backwards, the way he's like sitting there watching her, but his head's facing the wrong way. I just thought visually that was like a really striking composition. But I think overall, this movie did a really good job of paying attention to like really small details as far as visuals go, even actually, if we're getting Bing-Sy with some of the sounds. Specifically, pretty early on, there's a scene where there's the song playing in the background, and the final lyric of that scene is like bury the hatchet, and we cut right to a scene of a hatchet being thrown and like landing at like a target. And I was like, Okay, very thoughtful, very specific, very deliberate. I loved like that kind of cued me into the movie being like self-aware and being like, hey, we thought about this enough to handle it right. And I felt like a little more optimistic after that part, and then also just like another small detail. So the scene after Jessica's like chased in the school by the killer, and you have like Bobby giving her his coat, and then she goes to hug Ryan, and the and like Ryan like pushes the coat off of her as he consoles her because they're obviously fighting over her. Like, that was a tiny visual thing that happened, and it got such a huge laugh in the theater. And like I laughed out loud as well. I was like, that's so stupid, so petty, and so again, thoughtful. This movie's visually thoughtful.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

This movie really is visually thoughtful, but where I think it shined the most was in my favorite scene where the visuals come together with the dialogue, comes together with just the earnest reactions from the cast, and that is the scene dinner is served. We have everybody at the table and the Killer, this is the first time we hear him talk. He has distorted voice modulation, and it was at this point I already I'd already known who the killer was from the first moment of the movie. Movie opens up, we get that POV shot approaching the house, a la Michael Myers, a la Billy from Black Christmas. I'm like, alright, it's the fucking sheriff. They give you too many obvious red herrings, I think, to ever really pull you away from that. But I do think if you're not a fucking like weirdo nerd like me and love that fucking opening POV shot, then maybe it would be surprising. But this is the first time that we hear him talk, and I think seeing that technology, if I hadn't gotten that, I would have immediately suspected him because of Scream Six.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

And just thinking about the cop dad of it all, you know what I mean? And really where I think this moment shined for me was him, the carver, serving up all these fucking unhinged one-liners. Now, is that any way to thank Kathleen? She's been cooking all day. It was fucking dad jokes. But it was good dad jokes. It was really good.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

And they were back to back.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Let's start off the dinner with a cheer from our cheerleader. Pours a cup of her blood, like it's the fucking blood of Christ, puts it on the table. You might want to let that breathe. He was honestly, he he dropped a lot of bodies, but he was also fucking killing the game with that dialogue.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

He was. That was very cheeky, very smart but stupid, really balanced nicely. And I I normally hate like a dad joke or a pun, and each one I was like, uh, uh, alright. I couldn't be mad at it.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yeah, especially think about all these slashers we get, and they don't say shit. Ghostface we hear during phone calls, you know what I mean? And and seeing Ghostface talk in some of these scenes, it's only in the more recent ones that it feels good to see Ghostface talk. But the Michael Myers of it all, for the My Bloody Valentine, for the Jason Voorhees, etc. Everybody except Freddy Krueger, really, you expect strong silence.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

And you get silence all the fucking way through until this guy finally fucking says something and then he's just hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

Yeah, honestly. He finally opens his mouth and he's prepared. He brings out his notepad. He's like, Alright, hold on, what else did I have written down? He's practicing a tight five.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

That's improv.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

That's improv. Yeah, that sequence was all very solid. It did kind of that actually for a second threw me off of the trail because I also pretty early on picked up that it was Patrick Dempsey, partially because he's the most famous person in the film, and why else would he do it? And then two, I think I was generally confused as to who Gina Gershawn was fucking, because I thought I picked up on a vibe between them at the dinner scene, and then later the other guy was like, My wife died, and I was like, Oh, that was your wife? So that just might be my intuition or my confusion.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Well, I mean, you're not totally wrong. I would be curious to go back and re-watch it because the second he said his family and he talked to started talking about Amanda, for a brief moment I was like, Oh, was he her brother? Is that why they were so close? Immediately, I don't even think about them fucking, I don't even think about them having my innocent mind.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

They were both the two most famous people in the movie for the most part, I think.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

My innocent mind is like, oh, she was there, she was so sweet, taking her husband uh Thanksgiving food. Obviously, that's her brother. The fuck do I know?

SPEAKER_03 47:35

But when I heard him say, because it was at one point during his little like Thanksgiving dinner monologue, he said something to the effect of like blaming them for being so greedy as to like not only get in first but brag about it. And I was like, oh, his motive is that he's mad that they got in before him. And for a split second, I was like, maybe it was one of the people that was trying to get in on Black Friday, like that like didn't get their waffle iron, and like that's the gag at the end. But then as soon as we got the fake Patrick Dempsey kill, like the moment we saw a kill that we didn't see on screen, I said, no, no, he's the killer.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Yeah, I didn't think that was positioned as a kill though. I thought it was pretty obvious that like he was still breathing. I thought it was just like a little knocked unconscious.

SPEAKER_03 48:15

But for what and why, you know?

SPEAKER_00 48:17

That's fair.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

For the theatrics. Now, as far as favorite scenes go, I had a couple. I really enjoyed the parade sequence. I thought that was like a fun, high-energy. There's always like an interesting dynamic with a parade because you're kind of trapped, right? You're like sort of on stage in a way, and you're also like trapped on either side by large crowds. So it's a very specific thing that happens during a parade.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Of course, Helen Shivers.

SPEAKER_03 48:44

Yeah, exactly. Helen Shivers, Drop Dead Gorgeous. Like, there's a lot of really solid movies that I love that have like a notable parade sequence, and this was definitely up there. But I think my number one favorite scene is when we have Jessica running from the killer and she hides in like the hair studio. Because the moment he walked in there and we knew she had run in there, I was like, this bitch is gonna pretend to be a wig head. She is gonna, and then they showed it, and I laughed, and the audience laughed, and every time they cut back to her little head, just like surrounded by all those little wig heads, it just really tickled me. And I was like, that is a fun way to use this visual. It was a it was a tense scene, it was like part of the cat and mouse of it all. And I thought that that was one of the more original things I'd seen as well, because usually you have like the killer hiding as a mannequin, and this was like the the victim literally just like, don't move, pretend to be a 1980s looking wig head, and it was so stupid and so funny to me.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

It's so great. It does the closest I think I get to her being reminded of that is Hellfest, when we have a couple girls hiding towards the end of the movie in a room, but they're having to adorn the same like black cloth and white mask as a bunch of other mannequins in the room. So for her to just like really she pulled a Scooby-Doo, she pulled a cartoon.

SPEAKER_03 50:03

This movie She pulled a Scooby-Doo.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

She really did. She really, really did, which is what this movie is so fucking wild for. Legitimately just standing there hoping to blend in.

unknown 50:16

Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_03 50:18

It's hijinks, it's tomfoolery, shenanigans. It's shenanigans, yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

It's wild, is what it is. Which I think adds to the charm of the characters in this movie. Jessica was an interesting final girl.

SPEAKER_03 50:33

Was she?

SPEAKER_00 50:34

Well, the here she's interesting for this reason. In some moments I was rooting for her, and in other moments I was like, you're kind of bland, you're kind of like a saltine cracker. I could take you or leave you. If you die, I'm not gonna really care, even though I don't think this movie's actually gonna try to kill you off. But I think what won me over was just the absolute fucking persistence in some of the comedy in this movie. It was a lot of the hiding in the wigs, hiding among the wigs. For as much as I hated Evan, it was him continuing to just do dumb bullshit that leaned further into who his character was. These characters, again, I either love or I love to hate, but they were charming nonetheless. And I feel like in a movie where your two most famous people are Patrick Dempsey and Gina Gershon, I feel like they carried their weight.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

Yeah, I can I can say that, except for Jessica, that I agree. This could be one of two things. It was either that Jessica didn't quite have the same perspective or take on the tone of the film, and she was being a little more earnest, which oftentimes in campy films is to the benefit of the film, or she knew and she was delivering flat Jennifer Love Hewitt, I know what you did last summer, empty-headed, nothing girl. Which I don't know which of those options I prefer, but the end result I think is ultimately the same. Like somebody who's kind of dull, boring, and maybe not even in the same movie as everyone else around them. But the other characters, fun. The tertiary characters gave me just enough to know who they were and how I should feel about them. I thought Patrick Dempsey's character was actually very funny because I'm from Massachusetts, so like he was doing a very specific type of man in Massachusetts who's like a simple, like gentle, but also like not that bright kind of a guy.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Is that a himbo?

SPEAKER_03 52:35

A little bit of himbo, but not hot. They're usually not hot. And I don't, I'm personally not a fan of his physically necessarily. No T. Obviously, hottest man in the world, whatever. But I hate blue eyes. And I found his character, I was like, this is a really funny character choice he's making, and it made it all the more satisfying when he was actually the killer because then he got to actually flip the switch, and it it almost gave um scary movie when Doofy is the killer. Sorry, Chris. Spoiler alert for scary movie, which I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Thanks for remembering I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_03 53:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 53:05

Not a movie where you really need to give a shit about who the killer is.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

It's okay. Hereditary was spoiled, and I still managed to like it.

SPEAKER_03 53:12

Exactly, yeah. And I don't think you were gonna like scary movie anyway. But you have to get through one, and I think two is better, but to get to three, which is really where it peaks.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Third Times of Trauma.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

Exactly, yeah. And that's also when they stopped being horn doggish and started just being like satirical, can't be funny. But yeah, Patrick Dempsey's character I thought was solid. Kathleen's character, obviously, I loved. I feel like that actress played that with a lot of fun nuance. Jessica's character was flat, the the friends I thought were solid. Bobby, let's talk about Bobby. At first, I was like, wow, Bobby's hot. And I was like interested in his character. Then he disappeared and comes back, grows like a tiny little bit of a mustache, immediately becomes so much less hot to me and so much less interesting. I was like, I don't care what you were up to. I was kind of glad that you were gone because everything you're bringing back with you, I don't need. Keep it. Not that her new man was any better, Ryan, but I was like, Bobby, you weak sauce, get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

Yeah, I think what bothers me about the Bobby and Ryan of it all is her commentary about Ryan was simply that he hasn't ghosted me yet, so you know, points for him.

SPEAKER_02 54:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

And it was it was reminiscent of the same kind of vibe I got at the end of Shawn of the Dead when we felt like our main heroine was just settling. And that's what I feel like Jessica was doing in this movie. I feel like she had a relationship that she was happy in, that she was content in. That guy just fucking disappears. He acknowledges that he did it for his own immature bullshit, whatever. We get that. But then she just continues to be with Ryan, and I'm just like, ugh. He was waiting in the wings to just like be there with you. He was being predatory and just circling you like a fucking vulture. And I don't think that I'm a fan of that. No, however, the thing with Bobby, I almost would have preferred if he just didn't come back at all, and he was just kind of left as this, like, oh, maybe it's Bobby.

SPEAKER_03 55:10

Red herring.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

You know what I mean? I didn't really care for the I'm still your friend, you can trust me. But you haven't been in this fucking town for a year. You're not friends anymore. Yeah. You're somebody she used to know.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

Yes. Exactly that. But at the same time, I do feel like Jessica would settle for a guy because he was there. And also she's like never gonna move out of that town, you know what I mean? She's like that kind of a girl.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

That's Plymouth, Massachusetts for you. Speaking of the New England of it all, I really want to acknowledge that the mass holes were mass-holing.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

They sure were.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

I thought the performances were really fucking compelling.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

Yeah, especially the waitress. The waitress, I didn't realize she was gonna come back, but if just the opening sequence with her like at the front of the horde of zombies for the Black Friday of it all, if that was just her performance, I was like, give her a little honor honorable mention because she was really selling that character.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

She really was. And even the guy from Hanover who gets his neck twisted in front of the cheerleader, the accent work was just fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

Some of the accents were very solid, some of them not so much. And that's Massachusetts. Famously one of the harder accents to do. I don't I can't even do it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

Well, regardless of when the accents hit or not, I think the worst part of this movie for me is still has to be just the CGI on some of the gore, on some of the blood. But realistically, honestly, if that's the worst part of this movie, then it has some great fucking things going for it.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

That's fair. Similarly, as we are two sides of the same coin, my worst part's gonna come down to some of those practical effects. Specifically, I believe Kathleen's thigh meat that was cut off looked so fake, so stupid. And I was like, no. And it reminded me of another moment at the very beginning of the movie that was shocking, and it's when Gina brings out her turkey for the family, like in an earnest moment. It's a raw turkey. It is the ugliest, worst-looking turkey I've ever seen in my life. To the point where I had to consider was that a choice? Maybe, but also it it was like wrinkly, it was like its skin was too big for it. So many problems with that turkey, and that was a practical turkey. And then I think there's another moment where there's like a face and there's a practical effect on there where I could like kind of see the latex peeling, and I was like, I'll give it to you. I ain't mad because that was a fun scene. But yeah, some of the practicals really didn't quite do it for me. And again, so many solid practicals as well, so not that bad of a worst part.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

Yeah, this is honestly something that I am looking forward to seeing a featurette on. I want to get into the nitty-gritty behind the scenes because honestly, if some of their blood bullshit ends up somehow not having been CGI, which I don't see how it's possible because it looks so digital. If if that's the case, I'm gonna be honestly fucking shocked. Still didn't look great, still looked a little ra a little raw, but there are so many cool things in the movie. Like I'm thinking about the flesh peeling from the freezer.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

I ended up mmm sound as if it's delicious, but it's disgusting. I cannot wait to watch a documentary, a featurette, a little behind the scenes moment. And honestly, I can't wait to watch this movie again. I'm definitely gonna try to catch it again in theaters. Maybe I might fuck around and watch it again next week, like week of Thanksgiving. We'll see. But what about you?

SPEAKER_03 58:27

Yeah, I'll definitely watch this again. This was a really fun movie. I had a great time. I feel like this is the kind of movie Dwight would enjoy, so I might watch it with him again. But overall, just like a really solid slasher. And if this is like the kind of movie that shows up on streaming services around this time of year, I'll pop it on. It's a good time. Very pleasantly surprised by this movie. And listeners, well, I guess if you've gotten this far, it's too late. Go into it with a low bar. Go into it not expecting that it's a movie that's a universal slash based on Chris and Paris. Just go into it and be like, oh, you know, well just put this on, and you'll be like, you know what? That was fun.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Well, there you have it, folks. Thanksgiving, freshly released in theaters, has run a universal slash. Now we've certainly had a robust discussion here, but it doesn't end here by any means. We want to know what you think of the movie. Was it giving slash for you? Were you too surprised by how unfuckable the pilgrims are? Let us know. You can join in on the conversation by hanging out with us for free over in our Discord. Click the link in our show notes to sign up.

SPEAKER_03 59:27

And if you've enjoyed listening to this episode, consider becoming one of our patrons. Visit patreon.com slash hackerslash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, be careful who you trust.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

Gobble gobble, bitch.