Interviews
‘Thanksgiving’ – Eli Roth on the Importance of Original Horror and Evolving His ‘Grindhouse’ Trailer [Interview]
Based on his fake trailer from the Grindhouse Double Feature (2007), Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is finally a full-feature movie, and it’s arriving in theaters this Friday, November 17.
In Thanksgiving, “After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday.”
Bloody Disgusting spoke with Roth, who wrote the script with Jeff Rendell, about his gory slasher and how it’s evolved since its faux trailer origins.
Roth tells us about how the original concept that began it all started with his childhood and a noticeable void in the slasher space.
“The original concept of Thanksgiving came from Jeff Rendell, my best friend, and I growing up in Massachusetts watching every holiday slasher film,” Roth explains. “In Massachusetts, Thanksgiving is the biggest deal. There’s the parade. There are school plays. There are two Pilgrim recreation villages you go to where they’re like, ‘What’s a television? And we churn the butter.’ You know? It’s a part of growing up. So, for us, every year was like, where is the Thanksgiving horror film? It felt like on November 1, horror was over. It was done. For the rest of the year, it was holiday movies, Christmas movies, and family movies. I’m Jewish, so Christmas movies meant nothing to me. It meant I had to wait for two months, until January or February, for horror to start back up again.”
Director Eli Roth on the set of TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC THANKSGIVING. Photo by Pief Weyman.
Gone is the grainy film grit and ’70s vibe from the initial Grindhouse trailer, replaced instead with a modern polish and contemporary style. When asked what surprised the filmmaker most about Thanksgiving’s evolution from faux trailer to feature film, well, it turns out it was society.
“What evolved were the Black Friday tramplings,” he explains. “That wasn’t a thing back in 2006 when we shot it. It was the viral videos. These viral videos of midnight Black Friday where everyone is so thankful and say, ‘We’re so happy. We don’t need anything, just our health.’ And then it’s like waffle irons and they kill each other for a big screen TV or a PlayStation or a waffle iron. Once we had that, we thought, ‘This is the great inciting incident.’ Because all those movies, whether it’s Prom Night or anything, always start with a tragedy. Then, it’s a certain amount of time later, and all the people connected to the tragedy are being killed.
“But it also not only gives a tragedy, it gave me a theme. It’s the commercialization of Christmas that has bled over into this holiday about being thankful, while at the same time, there’s a real consciousness that Thanksgiving is about colonialism. There’s a real backlash to the holiday, and people are going, ‘Why are we calling this Thanksgiving and being thankful when we massacred all the Native Americans and took their land?’ You have the perversion of the holiday from Christmas, but also this sort of awareness, which is something that we address in the movie.”
Roth continues, “It feels like Thanksgiving was this pure Charlie Brown Thanksgiving when I was a kid, and now it’s got this kind of Black Friday tramplings and this tinge of colonialism, too, that it’s not the same. For me, that’s where it’s rich, fertile territory to make a great slasher film. Let’s use that as the ground for which we can grow this movie.“
Nell Verlaque stars in TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC THANKSGIVING. Courtesy of Tristar Pictures.
Thanks to its commitment to gore and a mean streak, Roth’s slasher taps into the cynical spirit of early aughts horror that seems to go against the grain of cathartic, fun escapism horror that’s emerged recently. Roth weighs in on his slasher’s place in modern horror.
“A lot of gore is on television, and that’s okay. I think there’s a lot of gory horror on TV, so people aren’t putting it into movies,” he notes. “But I do miss those good old-fashioned meat and potato slasher movies where there are brutal kills and people are getting killed violently. I mean, people love it. Look. We’ve seen the Scream sequels and the Halloween reboots, and it’s always about who is the killer and what happens. In Scream, you’re guessing to see who the killer is. In Halloween, it’s just Michael Myers again. So those movies are done very well, but it’s really time for new blood. I really missed a new slasher language, a new town, new characters, and new mythology. We can’t just keep rebooting everything forever. It’s much better when you can give people an original.
“I think the audience is hungry for an original, and I want to deliver. It’s not just that, ‘It’s original, go see it.’ I want to give people the best night of their lives at the movies. I still have people come up to me and say, ‘Hostel was the best night I’ve ever had at the movies. Cabin Fever was the most fun I’ve ever had at a movie. I saw Green Inferno opening Weekend. I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve never been with a crowd like that.’ It’s like going to see a concert.”
Karen Cliche in TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC THANKSGIVING. Courtesy of Tristar Pictures.
With that in mind, Roth sought to deliver a slasher with the audience experience at the forefront of his mind, and he’s spent quite a bit of time developing that.
“These movies don’t come along very often. I’ve been working on this movie since that trailer; it’s been 16 years. It’s been a long time planning this movie. So, when you go see it in the theater with a crowd, I guarantee you’ll never have another experience like that,” Roth promises. “Horror movies are best the very first time you see them. It will never scare you like the first time. It’s like when you have perfume or cologne; you open that bottle the first time, it’s so potent, but every time you open it, it loses its potency just a little bit until eventually it’s just water. I wanted to create that communal experience where everyone would have a great horror movie to go to in November and not have to wait until January.“
Stay tuned for more from our chat.
Interviews
The Work ‘Grind’ Is Hell, So Brea Grant & Ed Dougherty Made a Horror Anthology About It [CFF 2026 Interview]
Genre fans rejoice! Chattanooga Film Festival is back for its 13th year in 2026 with a killer lineup and once again offering audiences both in-person and virtual options. After having its World Premiere at SXSW this spring, the horror comedy anthology Grind is playing CFF 2026 opening weekend.
From a screenplay by Brea Grant (Torn Hearts, 12 Hour Shift) and Ed Dougherty (MLM) and segments directed by Grant, Dougherty, and Chelsea Stardust (Satanic Panic), Grind features four interwoven stories that parody the gig economy, hustle culture, and the evils of late-stage capitalism.
The anthology follows weary everyday people juggling side hustles just to survive, while going up against greedy oligarchs, and cleverly uses dark humor and bloody practical effects to portray a world much like our current economic nightmare.
Bloody Disgusting had the pleasure of chatting with Brea Grant and Ed Dougherty about the socioeconomic commentary in Grind, casting Barbara Crampton as a villain, and DIY filmmaking.
Bloody Disgusting: Every segment in this anthology feels relatable because people are actually struggling to survive in the gig economy right now. How did the two of you come up with the idea of creating Grind?
Brea Grant: Like you said, we were trying to come up with a cool idea that seemed relevant right now. The thing that everyone we know is talking about is the economy, the lack of work, and the nightmare hellscape that is late-stage capitalism. It felt like the right time to write something that really featured that as the main horror. As the main thing that people were scared of, this world sort of came to us over the course of a couple of years.
Ed Dougherty: We wanted to make a hit film, and we said, “Let’s make a horror anthology, that’s the most marketable thing there is.” [laughs]
BG: [laughs] Definitely not!
BD: I love anthologies!
ED: We do, too. We feel like it’s kind of an undervalued form of horror film, but it’s a hard sell.
BG: People told us not to make it. They said, “Don’t make an anthology. It’s too hard to sell.” But we did it anyway.
BD: I guess I’m just one of those weirdos who likes anthologies and watches them all.
ED: We believe that there are a lot of weirdos like you out there. It seems like every good horror anthology has a long life, but it’s just getting over the initial hump that’s difficult.
BD: Chelsea Stardust directed some of the segments with the two of you and serves as a producer. How did she first get involved with this project?
BG: The project has a long history. We shot the first segment, which is about multi-level marketing, a couple of years ago. We had decided we wanted to make a full anthology, but it took us about a year after shooting that initial segment to shoot the rest of the movie. When we did that, we knew we needed to bring on a producer aside from Ed and me, since we were directing the bulk of the movie, so that was how she came on board. I’ve been friends with her for a long time, and the one thing I know about her as a friend is that she is very organized, so it felt like a good fit. I just called her one day and said, “Would you want to produce these three segments that we have left to shoot of Grind?” and she came on board.
BD: There are some fun cameos in Grind, but we have to talk about Barbara Crampton. She’s so good as a villainess. Why did you want her for this role, and what was it like working with her on this film?
BG: She’s in her villain era, which is so fun. [laughs] Obviously, we’re huge Barbara Crampton fans, and when we were making MLM, it was a smaller part of the movie that we knew we needed to call on people who could do a good job but were also friendly to us [laughs]. I’m friends with Barbara Crampton, and we’ve done three movies together before this. So, it felt like someone within our reach, but could also really draw a horror crowd. She has a huge fanbase, and she’s also super supportive of all the projects that she’s been in, so that was also really exciting. She’s a great actress, and she’s super funny. I think a lot of these horror actresses, especially those who came up in the eighties and nineties, weren’t given an opportunity to be funny. I think she was ready to jump on an opportunity that was different than what she was used to; it’s not running around and screaming. She is a cult leader, and she is quite funny in it. She just takes the comedy so well and seriously, and she does such an amazing job with it. She has a scene across from Rob Huebel, who is obviously a comedy master, and I feel like the two of them together were hilarious. It’s been fun to watch Barbara go from these iconic roles to a different kind of role at this point in her career. We’re super happy to be a part of that.
ED: And she loves the movie and has been so supportive. Every time she posts about it, I’m like, “I can’t believe this. This is amazing.”
BD: This is an accurate parody of the current socioeconomic situation in this country, as well as our obsession with online culture. It repeatedly asks the question, “What are you willing to do to make money,” in a world with wealth inequality and evil oligarchs. It’s fun, and it’s a horror movie, but it’s thought-provoking. What do you hope audiences take away from Grind, besides having a good time?
ED: I read every review and every Letterboxd review; Brea does not. So, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen some reviews that say, “Good movie but doesn’t propose a solution.” I think we do propose a solution, which is that the power of unions and organizing is the only way that we will be able to fight back against oligarchs. I do think that is the message of the film. Organizing is the only way to defeat these villains. I do think we have a lot to say in the film. I’d want someone to say, “Man, I’ve never seen a horror anthology that had a political message before.” [laughs]
BG: I think the other thing is that what is currently happening is that we live in a world in which people kind of feel alone in this. They’re like, “Well, I’m doing bad, “or “I’m having trouble paying my rent.” We wanted to hang a lantern on the fact that this is happening to everyone, that wealth disparity is at an all-time high. We’re pointing out to people that you aren’t in this alone; you’re not the only person doing side hustles. Every filmmaker friend I have is working a side job of some sort at this point, and that is just in Los Angeles. Outside of this city, I think things are more dire. I think it was about infusing some politics into something that could make people realize that they aren’t alone and that there are ways of fighting back and fighting the system that has been set up against them.
ED: I think the tone of the movie, which is darkly comedic, also really matches the tone of life right now. Everything seems almost at a parody level as far as the disconnect between oligarchs and trying to make a living and reality. The absurdist nature of the film kind of captures the real tone of life.
BD: There are some cool creature effects and makeup effects in this movie. Can you talk a little bit about the practical effects and makeup?
ED: I think especially because of the message of the film, which is pushing back against the current hellscape we’re in, we wanted to use as many practical effects as possible. We used matte paintings, miniatures, and practical creature effects. I’m always afraid of the matte painting because we used the old school matte painter, but they do look a little AI. I heard someone make a noise behind me during one of the shots, and I was like, “I hope that noise wasn’t them using AI because that’s a matte painting.” [laughs] There’s also the fact that it’s pretty DIY. It’s a film that we financed ourselves and shot in our houses as much as possible. We wanted the whole thing to feel handmade and very tactile.
BG: We’re old school horror fans, so we love seeing practical effects. The practical stuff is really fun for us. It’s the stuff that we think is actually cool. [laughs] So, practical stuff made the most sense for us. We both grew up in the punk scene in the nineties, and I think it just kind of comes naturally to us to try to do things ourselves. And we both work on projects for big companies, with smaller companies, but always for other people, so trying to do something ourselves to see what that felt like was also part of the experiment of Grind.
ED: This was our chance to do everything we wanted our way.
Grind screens at the Chattanooga Film Festival on June 20.
You must be logged in to post a comment.