6 Fowl Thanksgiving Horror Movies Ranked
Gobble Gobble!
There aren’t many Thanksgiving horror movies or, for that matter, Thanksgiving movies in general. This holiday is eternally damned to be overshadowed by the Christmas season. Before the 21st century, the pickings were incredibly slim for anyone who wanted to feast on some Thanksgiving horror.
The greatest Thanksgiving film ever made is, of course, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. But that John Candy and Steve Martin romp is not a horror film, and thus is ineligible for my list.
Here are six Thanksgiving horror movies ranked from the most fowl to the whipped cream of the crop. Let’s start this feast!
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6. Home Sweet Home (`1981)
A horde of slasher films invaded theaters in the early 1980s following the success of the original Halloween and Friday the 13th. This era is now known as the Golden Age of Slashers. Nearly every holiday received at least one slasher flick dedicated to it during this time. Yes, even Thanksgiving. Sort of.
Take it from someone who’s seen damn near every golden age slasher film released in North America – Home Sweet Home is the absolute bottom of the barrel. It’s one of the most obscure movies I’ve ever covered on here, and deservedly so.
This inept, suspenseless flick is about an escaped mental patient who terrorizes a group of friends who are gathered together for Thanksgiving dinner.
Turkey Day is incidental to the plot. This movie could have been set on any holiday. The production values, writing, and acting are atrocious.
That said, there’s a couple of interesting trivia tidbits to share. Jake Steinfeld who plays the killer, happens to Hailee Steinfeld’s uncle. There’s also a little girl named Angel who’s played by Vinessa Shaw, who later portrayed Allison in Hocus Pocus.
5. Thankskilling (2009)
Thankskilling is about a talking demonic turkey named Turkie (yes, really) who goes on a holiday killing spree while spouting cheesy one liners and wisecracks. He attacks a group of drunk college students and several other extremely stupid people.
On any other list, the horrendous Thankskilling would rank at the bottom. This movie was made by a group of inexperienced college students with virtually no money or resources. The acting and writing are as wretched at Home Sweet Home.
However, Thankskilling ranks higher for three reason: 1. A talking turkey is more interesting than a generic escaped mental patient 2. This is a true Thanksgiving horror movie (the holiday is an important part of the story) 3. This movie is self aware and knows that it’s stupid.
To be fair, considering how young the filmmakers were, and how low the budget is, I think they did the best they could. If you like the Leprechaun movies, you might enjoy this. Thankskilling is worse, though, because the antagonist is a cheap puppet, not the eminent Warwick Davis.
Where to watch:
4. Blood Rage (1987)
I know our feast is off to a rough start. The turkey was dry and the biscuits were burned. Don’t worry, it’s about to get better. Like Home Sweet Home, Blood Rage is an obscure ’80s slasher. Unlike the former, Blood Rage is surprisingly good.
Twin boys Todd and Terry are sitting in the back of their mom’s car at a drive-in movie theater. The mom starts making out with her boyfriend in the front seat. Understandably uncomfortable, the boys flee and wander around the lot. Terry inexplicably murders a teenager with a hatchet and frames Todd for the kill. Todd is remanded to a mental institution.
Years later, on Thanksgiving, the now grown Todd escapes and heads back home to take revenge against his brother and their crazy mother. Terry returns to his homicidal activities when he learns that his brother is returning, and the blood starts flowing like cranberry sauce. This is another movie where the Thanksgiving holiday is incidental the story, but it’s still worth watching.
Blood Rage is one of the most offbeat horror films of its era. It’s much more creative than the typical slasher. Mark Soper delivers nice performances as the twins, who have polar opposite personalities: Terry’s the charming psycho and Todd’s the harmless awkward weirdo.
The most memorable character is Maddy, the boys’ bonkers crazy mom played by Louise Lasser. She gives one of the most outrageously unhinged performances I’ve seen. This movie’s story takes lots of suspension of disbelief, but it’s fun.
Where to watch:
Watch Blood Rage on Fandango at Home
3. Pilgrim (2019)
After three obscure dishes in a row, it’s time to sink our teeth into our first serving of mainstream horror. Pilgrim is a feature length film that’s part of Hulu’s Into the Dark holiday horror anthology series.
A family invites pilgrim reenactors to their home for a traditional Thanksgiving celebration. These folks take their roles very seriously! They never break character. The family has fun with the actors at first, except for the daughter Cody (Reign Edward), who hates Thanksgiving.
Soon the festivities take a dark turn. These pilgrims are determined to to teach the family a harsh lesson about the importance of gratitude and thankfulness. If the family resists, they’ll get grounded up like mashed potatoes.
There aren’t conclusive answers about who and what these “pilgrims” actually are, but they probably have more in common with their historical counterparts than the sanitized revisionist pilgrims in the contemporary imagination. The real pilgrims were violent zealots, and so are these guys.
Pilgrim balances uneasily between horror and dark comedy. It’s never scary, and only occasionally funny, but its villains are intriguing.
Where to watch:
2. Thanksgiving (2023)
I’ve already written a full review of this movie, but I’ll summarize it here.
Thanksgiving, which was directed by horror buff and veteran genre filmmaker Eli Roth, is appropriately set in Plymouth, Massachusetts. A deranged mob of shoppers stampede into a retail store on Thanksgiving. The early Black Friday consumers overwhelm security and cause multiple deaths.
The story jumps forward to nearly a year later. It’s almost Thanksgiving. The owner of the store, Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman) has decided to keep his business open on Thanksgiving, despite the carnage that occurred the previous year.
Somebody isn’t happy with his decision. A psycho wearing a pilgrim costume is slaughtering the people involved with the deadly incident. He will stop at nothing to prevent a repeat of the previous year.
Thanksgiving’s final girl is Jessica (Nell Verlaque), Thomas’s teenage daughter. She’s a cute and appealing heroine. Jessica and her friends are stalked by the killer, who livestreams some of his exploits.
This movie deserves credit for its creative deaths. My favorite is when the killer puts a victim in an oven and cooks her like a Thanksgiving turkey. This scene truly disturbed me. Imagine being slowly baked to death. Brutal!
I wasn’t a fan of Eli Roth’s early films, but I enjoyed this one. Thanksgiving is a fun retro-style slasher that takes a stab at satirizing the consumerism of the holiday season. It’s filled with entertaining references to classic slasher movies.
Where to watch:
1. Addams Family Values (1993)
We top off our feast by inviting one of horror’s most famous families to join the festivities. Surprised? Addams Family Values isn’t the first movie that comes to mind when people think of Thanksgiving horror movies, but I submit to you that it features the greatest Thanksgiving sequence of any genre film.
Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci) is stuck at summer camp. Not surprisingly, she doesn’t fit in with the other kids. The campers are putting on a play about the first Thanksgiving. Wednesday has had enough.
She and half of her classmates are dressed in stereotypical “Indian” costumes, while the rest are dressed as pilgrims. After going off script and decrying what happened to Native Americans in the centuries following the heavily mythologized first Thanksgiving, she leads a rebellion against the pilgrims.
As usual, Wednesday is the smartest person in the room (or in this case, the camp). She scares the hell out of her enemies while threatening to scalp them. Great stuff!
Where to watch:
What’s for Dessert?
Will Thanksgiving be a more popular setting for horror movies in the future? My guess is yes. In terms of upcoming projects a sequel to Thanksgiving is planned. It was supposed to come out this year, but now it’s unclear when it will be released. Eli Roth and Nell Verlaque are both expected to return.
Thanksgiving’s dark origins and controversies make it fertile ground for genre filmmakers. Three of the six Thanksgiving horror movies in this list were released within the past two decades and two came out within the past six years. That’s a decent omen for Turkey Day horror’s future.
