Sunday Scaries: I Still Have an Appetite for ‘Thanksgiving’ From Eli Roth

The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! Today, we’re going to get ready for Thanksgiving by musing about a fake trailer from almost a decade and a half ago…

Remember Grindhouse? I sure do. The double feature from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino was an absolute blast, with the added bonus of a number of fake trailers being contained within. Edgar Wright had one called Don’t, for example, while another one, Machete, has already been adapted into a film. Well, today, I want to pitch that one of the other trailers, Eli Roth‘s Thanksgiving, deserves the feature treatment.

Thanksgiving purports to be a trailer for a slasher flick, one taking place on Turkey Day in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Very little else of it is plot-centric, as it’s mostly just slasher tropes with a slight holiday bent. However, since the day has never been used for a horror film before, it’s long captured my imagination. A scary movie with an original bent to it is always a bonus. Plus, holiday centric horror has led to one of the great franchises of the genre in Halloween.

Why would I want to see this? Well, it just seems like fun. Roth is a filmmaker I find to be very talented and more than a bit underrated. So, if he put his mind to this, I’m sure he would knock it out of the park. He would have to extend the plot, of course, but some of the creepy visuals from the trailer really do suggest a gonzo experience. Take a look at the trailer and see for yourself (here) what has me so interested in the feature film treatment.

Roth has periodically hinted that it may or may not ever happen, but if Thanksgiving were to get made, I would be delighted. Especially as we gear up for Turkey Day on Thursday, keep this one in the back of your mind. If nothing else, maybe pop on Grindhouse? The flick itself, as well as the trailers, still very much entertain…

Stay tuned for another Sunday Scaries installment next weekend!