Avis des critiques

[Thanksgiving] just allows Roth to appease his inner horror aficionado, staging ghoulishly elaborate murder sequences that pay homage to the excesses of classic Italian gialli and ’80s American slashers... As an important genre auteur’s return to his origins and a paean to the slasher subgenre’s legacy, Thanksgiving works just fine.

“Thanksgiving” hits at a moment when genuine fright and jump scares are too rare on screen. Many fans are so desperate for the stimulation that a movie in which a person is tenderized to death might actually be number one at the box office. And you know what? So be it.

Thanksgiving gets caught between competing impulses: It wants to satirize society, and also wants to be a classic campy slasher, and also wants to be sort of operatically, dramatically arty about it all. The result... winds up seeming like a bunch of different films.

Thanksgiving is cheesy and gory and full of character stereotypes, but it’s also beautifully shot, creative and has just enough heart to keep you engaged. Unlike previous Roth outings, this is unlikely to become a “cult classic” but it could well become an annual Thanksgiving “must-watch”.

[Thanksgiving is] silly, sinew-spattered fun, elevated by winking performances by Dempsey, Suits actor Rick Hoffman and Showgirls’s Gina Gerson... This isn’t a jokey slasher where the butchery is played for laughs. The gross-out scenes are hardcore.

Part “Thankskilling,” part “Scream,” this modern horror-comedy is a brilliant retrofitting of the moments you already know and love from the “Grindhouse” version (cheerleader trampoline stab!), serving up the original idea cranked to high heat over an hour-and-46-minute running time.

“Thanksgiving” is an enthusiastic slasher romp in which Roth is clearly having a ball making his childhood dreams come true. But the problem here is the underbaked script, co-written with Rendell... The characters are thinly written, lacking motivation, and the central mystery is hopelessly muddled.

[Roth] has held fast to the demented playfulness of classic exploitation in a stick-to-your-ribs feast of ascended schlock. Never mind all the talk of poultry, he’s dishing up red goddamned meat: prime-certified laughs and mutilations, no fillers or additives.