One of my favorite film-going experiences of the past decade has to be the extra-long, and massively misunderstood, Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino collabo, Grindhouse, a throwback to drive-in style double features with each filmmaker supplying their take on that kind of horror, Rodriguez with an action-zombie flick a-la John Carpenter (Planet Terror) and Tarantino with a car chase slasher movie (Death Proof). Sure, the whole experience was a little over three hours long, but it was worth it to me to get to see four really hilarious fake trailers: Machete by Rodriguez, Werewolf Women of the SS by Rob Zombie, Don’t by Edgar Wright, and Thanksgiving by Eli Roth.
Trailer SUPER NSFW
Machete, as we know, was made into a film that was just okay (I think at the time I dubbed it Ma-shitty) and a sequel, Machete Kills, that was way more fun, but the other three have, as yet, never been made into movies. Why not? Well, Rob Zombie has sort of said he doesn’t want to make horror movies anymore, so that might take care of his, and Edgar Wright should totally do a movie like Don’t, but the whole joke of that trailer was that it was called Don’t and made no sense.
That leaves us with Roth’s, which I think could still totally be made. With stuff like Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil and Cabin in the Woods, out there, which are horror movies that are also spoofs of horror movies, there’s no reason not to do a throwback slasher film, made in the style of those post-Halloween, uber-gory and nudity-filled ’80s movies. And of any of the trailers, Thanksgiving seems to have a storyline that makes sense – a madman who hates Thanksgiving and lives in Plymouth, MA, the most Thanksgivingy place in America, dresses up like a pilgrim and carves people up. It’s gross, it’s in bad taste, but that’s exactly why it should get made!
No one’s a bigger proponent of old-school horror than Eli Roth and his most recent film, The Green Inferno, is a nice and brutal nod to the cannibal craze in the early-80s, but I’ll always think a fully fleshed-out (pun intended) Thanksgiving could fit nicely in the holiday horror pantheon right in between Halloween and Black Christmas (or Silent Night, Deadly Night…whichever you prefer).
