Pre-Thanksgiving Roundup Review: “ThanksKilling”
Here at Critical End! we’re proud of our knowledge of holiday themed horror movies. Why, if it weren’t for us, you wouldn’t know the true, god-awful horror of such “classics” like Valentine, Leprechaun, and Silent Night Deadly Night Parts 1 through 5. What’s our secret? Simply put: We know that you would rather spend the holidays with your family and not watching some shitty horror movie featuring Clint Howard or a killer leprechaun. That being said, it’s with a humble heart that I ask you to ditch your family this Thanksgiving Thursday and go out of your way to watch a little holiday themed horror film proudly called ThanksKilling.
“But, Logan,” I can can hear you whining. “I love my family and the time spent with them!” Yeah, well your family sucks. This movie doesn’t. Okay, it kinda does. But that’s the point. Stick with me, folks.
ThanksKilling opens on a cue card telling us that we’re about to see the very first Thanksgiving. It then quickly cuts to boobs. Pilgrim boobs, that is, and not just any pilgrim boobs. Running pilgrim boobs. And what happens when there’s no place else for pilgrim boobs to run? A talking turkey kills her with an axe. Smash cut to opening credits playing over what can best be described as a remix of the Halloween theme with added “gobbles” mixed in, and I suddenly realized that something magical was unfolding on my TV screen: A horror holiday film the likes of which I hadn’t seen since Jack Frost.
There’s what you might call a plot. Some college students are heading home for Thanksgiving break and their car breaks down. They party and flirt, and once they get all of the wiener and tit jokes out of the way, things get going. You guessed it: A killer turkey starts stalking and killing them one by one. An attempt, of sorts, is made to explain the origins of the killer turkey, but I won’t bore you with the details. Let’s just say it involves and ancient pilgrim curse and flash animation.
The probelm is, all of this is kinda awesome. I would go as far as to say that there are some genuinely funny moments. Sure, the actors aren’t the best, but they understand how to play it all very “wink wink”, without completly tipping the hat. There’s even a Trey Parker-ish musical number. And the turkey…well, all you really need to know is that he kills people, wears disguises, and talks.
Until Eli Roth gets around to actually making Thanksgiving, this is the most fun you’re going to have at Thanksgiving, next to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, of course. So ditch the boring family this year and check it out. Oh, and ThanksKilling is currently a Watch Instantly on Netflix, which makes it a perfect way to spend those last few hours of Thanksgiving night before you nod off. Your smelly uncle won’t mind.
Rating:
7 out of 10.