Film director Eli Roth released holiday-slasher “Thanksgiving” on Nov. 17. However, it’s not the film’s debut — it first hit the screen as a teaser 16 years ago on a double feature.
In April 2007, “Grindhouse,” a 3-hour action/horror double feature film by directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino released to theaters. The entire feature was shot in a low-budget ’70s grindhouse-horror style.
Rodriguez directed “Planet Terror,” about a small town in Texas that is infested with bio-active zombies.
The second feature was Tarantino’s “Death Proof” about a crazed stuntman stalking and killing women in his 1970s Chevy Nova. The break between both films previewed three films by well-known horror directors (Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie and Eli Roth). The ‘Thanksgiving’ trailer shows a Puritan going on a holiday killing-spree using cooking utensils, making the slayings festive. However, the previewed films did not give release dates, confusing viewers.
Delta student Johnny Angeles expressed excitement about Roth’s “Thanksgiving” release date.
“I’ve been waiting forever! I was hella excited when I saw the promo,” Angeles said. “I remember in middle school I kept checking online when ‘Thanksgiving’ and ‘Don’t’ was gonna come out. But I read somewhere it was just a project collab.”
On Nov. 17, Eli Roth was interviewed on the ‘ReelBlend’ podcast. Roth was asked about keeping the old-school grindhouse style to the new “Thanksgiving” film.
“No,” Roth said. “Because honestly, I think it works as a three-minute trailer… My feeling with ‘Thanksgiving’ is that it works for that trailer as a joke with no plot and that’s why it’s fun. It was never the intention to make it into a movie.”
Even though millennials were excited about the announcement, some people didn’t care about the movie’s release.
Delta student Jaime De La Cruz didn’t even know the origins of the film.
“I’ve seen ‘Planet Terror’ but I never seen ‘Death Proof.’ I didn’t see the actual double feature and the previews in between. So I didn’t know about ‘Thanksgiving.’ It looks kinda stupid, to be honest,” said De La Cruz.