When considering the most iconic holiday films, Christmas and Halloween movies naturally come to mind. The former typically includes magic and miracles, with the latter having a similar composition of magic and mischief. The strong aesthetic presence of the two holidays makes it rather easy to encapsulate their essence on film. Thanksgiving, however, is another story.
Sandwiched between two heavily atmospheric events, the holiday provides contrast through its relation to autumn in general. Any semblance of a Thanksgiving season, in the pattern of its counterparts, is overtaken by elements of fall, but leaves and pumpkins fail to function as distinct symbols of the celebration. A turkey, obviously, is the closest thing, but it lacks the magic of Santa Claus and supernatural beings. The transcendental sense of Christmas spirit and the spooky suspension of disbelief present in Christmas and Halloween movies, respectively, are not matched by a Thanksgiving spirit, with thankfulness acting as the most dominant characteristic of events related to the holiday.
Another key difference between Thanksgiving and the other fall holidays is its foundation. While Christmas originated in Christianity and Halloween in Paganism, leading to holidays that transcend location, Thanksgiving is distinctly American. Therefore, turkeys, thankfulness and a marked American feeling were the admittedly lukewarm criteria in my search for a successful Thanksgiving movie. These components offer films the best chance at matching the powerful holiday spirit achieved in Christmas and Halloween cinema.
As I scrolled through lists of lauded Thanksgiving movies, I was disturbed by the failure of most to fit my criteria. The “Peanuts” special, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” was the closest match, but it felt like cheating due to its short length and clear inferiority to the Christmas special. An intriguing film soon caught my eye: “ThanksKilling”, a 2008 slasher movie shot for $3,500. It had a strange sense of potential: it had the turkey, a thankfulness intertwined with its setting and a small budget that left room for a very American rags-to-riches tale. More likely, I was desperate. Regardless, I handed over $3.99 and 70 minutes of my life.
“ThanksKilling” is full of vulgarity that is in strange contrast with the relatively deep origin of its villain, Turkie. The same turkey-adjacent monster, a result of vengeful necromancy intended as a punishment for colonialism and cultural disrespect, uses his opening line to comment on a pilgrim’s breasts. It is a movie that disgusts me both with its content and by how amusing it continues to be regardless. The humor relies entirely on shock value. It is truly an astoundingly terrible film, and it may be the greatest Thanksgiving movie ever made.
For starters, the film delivers on the turkey in the form of Turkie, and it gets bonus points for supernatural elements that are reminiscent of superior Halloween and Christmas films. Additionally, Turkie’s backstory is extremely appropriate for the holiday. The movie takes the grade school story of the pilgrims and Native Americans, adds a self-aware approach regarding the questionable behaviors of pilgrims and negates all of this appropriateness with magic. Turkie confronts the descendants of settlers with an approach that is violent, misogynistic and racist, therefore removing any moral high ground that he may have gained. His behavior also, unfortunately, meets my American category. Despite being a vengeful creature meant to rise every 505 years, he is awakened early when a dog defiles his grave. Turkie is motivated by his own goal; he intends to preserve his dignity. This is his sole justification for a premature start to violence that violates the terms of his creation. His identity supersedes the reason for his existence. Therefore, Turkie holds a key sense of the American individualistic spirit, in addition to the nation-specific holiday and circumstances that prompted the events of the film.
To my great disappointment, the film even includes a sense of thankfulness that goes beyond the amount implied by Thanksgiving. Its characters manage to be grateful for Turkie’s massacre. Turkie murders both the parents of Johnny, a college student, and the father of his love interest, Kristen. Regardless, Johnny decides that he is “kind of glad this all happened.” While he “may have lost [his] parents,” he gains “a girlfriend.” This positive spin amplifies the presence of thankfulness. “ThanksKilling,” therefore, hits all three of my arbitrary categories for the perfect Thanksgiving film. I am thankful that I have watched it so that you need not.