If you’ve survived Halloween….then John Carver awaits….

After Hobo with a Shotgun and MATCHETE had their time in the full limelight, we finally after 16 years get the fake trailer film we really wanted, yes Eli Roth’s slasher THANKSGIVING, a film born from the 2007 Tarantino and Rodriquez team-up GRINDHOUSE-gets its long awaited big screen treatment and for slasher fans, it makes you feel like you are reliving the boom of 80’s horror all over again.

With Scream getting the genre back into swinging its bloodied knife at the box-office once more, it was only a matter of time before a new bogeyman was born for the next generation and while there is the standard “guess the killer” plot, this is far removed from a GHOSTFACE caper, with Roth wasting no time in displaying his usual gory moments, but unlike his HOSTEL franchise, the film comes with enough wisecracks and dollops of humour to make you feel that a new franchise is being born in front of our eyes.

Anyone expecting a phone ringing and the standard 90’s blueprint of an opening will be stunned as instead we are greeted with a sly satirical set-piece of what greed actually looks like on one of the most horrible days in RETAIL – yes the dreaded BLACK FRIDAY, where people lose their minds and in this case, lives, to grab the nearest bargain.

Three bodies down and blood spilled without the need of a bogeyman, the film skips forward a year and we get the next crazed psycho after Michael Myers – John Carver, with his buckle hat and wearing the mask of the Plymouth colony governor, the killer targeting those who survived that shopping nightmare, for reasons that for many, will guess long before the not so “OH ITS YOU!”…. unsurprising reveal.

Like the title suggests, this is an old style slasher that doesn’t try to reinvent the genre and its not too heavy on the meta humour, most likely realising that the umpteen visits to Woodsboro has literally done it to death, but it more than makes up for it with some creative kills and set-pieces – one of the characters hiding between heads of mannequins as Carver stalks is one particular highlight.

It doesn’t quite reach the cult status it requires and is too glossy to be a proper Grindhouse horror, but it does more than enough to warrant a second helping when the inevitable sequel arrives as its a slash flick, made purposely for slash fans…..and for a generation where these kind of films were released every week through out their teenage lives – its hard to complain about any of its undercooked moments….

3.5 HATCHETS OUT OF 5