All through October, I’ll be posting reviews of the best of the best films in the horror genre released since October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024. As an added bonus, I’ll be adding a secondary review that may be somewhat related to the main review or slightly missed the countdown by inches. Follow along the countdown every day in October. Feel free to agree, disagree, or better yet, give me your own picks for your favorite horror movies of the year. Happy Halloween!

#30 – THANKSGIVING (2023)
Released on November 17, 2023 and is streaming on Netflix from TriStar Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing!
Directed by Eli Roth.
Written by Jeff Rendell, Eli Roth.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/KbU50SdL8zA
One year after a Black Friday sale went very, very wrong resulting in quite a few lives lost, a group of kids are tormented by a masked killer dressed as the founder of the town of Plymouth, John Carver. But as the bodies pile up, the killer just might be closer than the group thinks.
That’s the bare bones premise of THANKSKILLING, a film teased to us in the middle section of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s GRINDHOUSE double feature released sixteen years ago. Whether filmmaker Eli Roth had difficulty convincing producers to back a full-length feature based on the mock trailer or he just ran out of ideas and figured he might as well go back and elaborate on it is debatable, but none of that matters as THANKSGIVING proves to be a wonderful homage to old school slashers. It’s no frills. There’s absolutely no politics or some kind of deep message the film is trying to convey. It’s just a straight up slasher story with a lot of deviously funny and gratuitously gory kills. And…I’m pretty ok with that.
Yes, THANKSGIVING is basically SCREAM set during the holidays, with a masked killer communicating with a bunch of kids via their cell phones while offing them one at a time because of some kind of past sin remotely tied to them. You could give John Carver a survival knife, a robe, and a Scream mask and this would pretty much be Ghostface running around and doing all of that carving. But Roth knows this and while these elements are familiar, he manages to pepper in some nice homages to more obscure slashers of the past like HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME as the killer gathers the survivors and those he has killed around a dinner table for the climax and another holiday horror MY BLOODY VALENTINE as our final girl, Jessica (played quite well by Nell Verlaque) is being pursued by two men wanting to be her boyfriend and either could just possibly be the killer. Pair that with basically a giallo format, which proved to be the format for many an 80’s slasher movie, and this film is derivative as all get out.
Honestly, though, I didn’t mind it that THANKSGIVING felt familiar. Roth takes advantage of many Thanksgiving day traditions using all kinds of cooking utensils as murder weapons and staging the elaborate kills with Turkey Day themes. While I believe KRAMPUS did it better, the opening sequence where the Black Friday sale erupts in an all-out riot is pretty fun. It sets the stage for everything to unfold later with the killings capably, even though this opening sequence is by far the weakest part of the film. I much prefer the over-the-top carnage that Roth delivers during the Thanksgiving Parade later in the film than the clunky and somewhat overly complicated way Roth had to leap through so many hurdles to make the entire cast show up at this Black Friday event. The low-scoped opener just doesn’t give off the intensity I feel Roth wanted and therefore, makes the rest of the film an uphill battle in terms of being the inciting moment that steers the rest of the film.
Luckily, Roth recovers after the tepid opening, keeping the mystery of who the killer is under wraps for most of the film and giving us plenty of fun kills to endure until that revelation arrives. Setting up these scenes of carnage and highlighting the gore of them all is definitely where Roth’s heart lays. Each kill is pretty unique and well-paced, specifically one scene in the middle of the movie where one victim awakens from being prepared to be cooked like a turkey and tries to escape from the killer’s lair. The iconic trampoline scene from the original trailer is another highlight and while it doesn’t play out as deviously as the trailer does, it gives you something pretty gory and something to look forward to possibly see in a sequel. While some of the scenes are quickly cut through, most are quite gruesome, offering up quite a lot of blood and guts for the gorehounds in the crowd.
And while it has become a SCREAM cliché for me to guess who the killer is in the opening moments; Roth manages to throw in quite a few red herrings to keep you guessing. Is it the old boyfriend with the pretty hair who ghosted Jessica after last year’s massacre? The bland new boyfriend? The owner of the retail store where the massacre occurred? Or the gold-digging wife who gave the store owner the idea of the sale in the first place? Or maybe it’s the biggest name star of the cast, Patrick Demsey? Or the manager who had to work at the store that fateful night? Or the new weird deputy who no one likes, has a shady past, and stares at the camera a bit too long like Roy did in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 5: A NEW BEGINNING? Halfway through and I had some solid guesses, but I like it that some of these characters might be the killer while some others might be killers in future installments. What I’m saying is that Roth has set up a story and a cast of characters who all have dark motives and could be the killer, which means he’s done his job at setting up a strong mystery.
While I feel these cartoon masks that seem to be popping up in recent modern slashers like the baby mask in HAPPY DEATH DAY and the Guy Smiley mask in TOTALLY KILLER aren’t scary in the least, the blank stare of John Carver’s mask worked for me. It has shades of Michael Myers’ emotionless shape mask and exudes just enough creep factor as the killer stands and stares at its intended victims. Again, Roth borrows from SCREAM as the mask is worn by everyone in the town, which makes for some clever sleight of hand later in the film with a crowd of folks wearing the mask.
But don’t expect the slasher genre to be reimagined or expectations to be not-so-ironically flipped as a result of THANKSGIVING. Roth is just telling a standard slasher, and I had a great time with it because it left the bells and whistles out. It’s just gore and violence and a masked killer and victims and a final girl and a cliched villain speech at the end citing complex motivations for the rampage. Much is left unanswered, as Roth seemed to know he would be doing a sequel, which has already been confirmed BTW. Roth is a horror fan true and true. Sometimes this has been a benefit to his films, other times it’s been a curse. With THANKSGIVING, it really seems like Roth was giving it his all honoring the slashers of old without shitting on them as SCREAM sometimes is known to do. For that, I am definitely giving THANKSGIVING a strong recommendation to slasher fans, especially the old school ones.

Now that Thanksgiving has been good and ruined, how about some horror just in time for Christmas. Jenn Wexler’s THE SACRIFICE GAME missed the countdown just by a skosh, but at least I can give it some props here.
THE SACRIFICE GAME (2023)
Released on December 8, 2023, and is streaming on Shudder!
Directed by Jenn Wexler.
Written by Sean Redlitz, Jenn Wexler.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/FgUtPsloNxs
It’s 1971 and Samantha (Madison Baines) finds out she has to stay at her boarding school for the Christmas break instead of going home. But it’s okay. The class outcast Clara (Georgia Acken) and their young teacher Rose (Chloë Levine) are there to help her celebrate the holidays anyway. Meanwhile, a cult lead by the maniacal Jude (Mena Massoud) have been murdering seemingly random people every night leading up to Christmas Eve. When the cult shows up at the doorway of the boarding school, they force their way in and sit themselves down for a dinner with Samantha, Clara, and Rose, but what secrets does this boarding school have lurking in its basement and what does it have to do with the cult’s rampage?
Jenn Wexler delivered the fun and frantic THE RANGER a few years back and returns with another thrill a minute rollercoaster of a horror yarn set on Christmas. While the Christmassy aspects don’t really take center stage to the story, it does provide a nice way to get our protagonists alone and that’s all the impetus needed for some merry mayhem. Wexler keeps the story popping by jumping back and forth between teenage angst at the school to the cult’s various attacks. And once the cult shows up, things continue to get nice and dire as these guys mean business and play for keeps, as evidenced by some pretty significant deaths along the way.
Much of what makes this film work is the cast. On the side of the angels, sort of, is Madison Baines’ Samantha and Georgia Acken’s Clara who have good chemistry together despite the fact that both are reluctant to form a bond. Their young age doesn’t seem to be a factor in delivering the drama needed for their pivotal roles in the story. While I love Chloe Levine as an actress, especially in the tragically underseen THE TRANSFIGURATION and the previously mentioned THE RANGER, I feel she might have been miscast as the young teacher. Sure, she may be the right age for the role, but Levine has a youthfulness that makes her feel right at home with the two very much younger girls she is supposed to be watching. Levine just didn’t fit as the oldest of this group of protagonists for me.
In the opposite corner are the cult members. I really liked the messed-up dynamic of the group as every one of the them seems to be in love with Olivia Scott Welch’s Maisie and for good reason. She is quite the temptress, despite her young age. Laurent Pitre’s Doug has the right kind of smarm and reminds me a bit of a young Ed Norton here. And while Mena Massoud’s Jude is center stage most of the time and does deliver a diabolically bent performance, his gleeful “I’m so bad and I love it” attitude wears a bit thin. Seeing these despicable people take on the seemingly innocent girls of the school is a dire dynamic indeed.
There are twists and turns galore in THE SACRIFICE GAME. There might be a tiny lull in the middle as the final plot point is driven all the way home a little too much, but for the most part, all of these turns work. I’ll leave it at that, as I feel the surprises are what make this movie work so well. While the subversion of expectations have become absolutely expected these days, Wexler is able to make it all make sense and entertaining. Add in a wonderful 70’s flair as well as some great 70’s music, and you’ve got a solid holiday horror film that is definitely worth a watch.

The Best in Horror Countdown 2023-2024
#31 – HERE FOR BLOOD (DESTROY ALL NEIGHBORS)
#30 – THANKSGIVING (THE SACRIFICE GAME)