Thanksgiving

Watched the U.S.A.'s 2023 Thanksgiving (1:45:17). Plymouth, Massachusetts. A riot occurs Thursday night during a Black Thursday sale at Right Mart. It is caused by the owner's daughter, Jessica, and her friends, who sneak in through the back door before opening time, causing dissent in a crowd that must wait ten minutes more before the front doors open. During the riot, a security guard is trampled to death, the manager's wife is hit and killed by a shopping cart, and a star baseball player's hand gets crushed, resulting in serious damage.

One year later, Jessica and her friends begin receiving ominous threats on their cell phones--and, one by one, the citizens behind the riot are murdered by a sinister figure in pilgrim costume and wearing a John Carver mask.

The overall pattern of this movie is reminiscent of those of the 2008 Prom Night and the 2023 Killer Book Club, and, of course, the horror spoof Scream series, in which the audience must guess which one of the characters is the killer. It is, however, very graphic and very violent, both visually and verbally; like most teen movies produced in predominantly Christian countries, jumpstarted by the 1976 Carrie, the dialogue is riddled with four-letter words, and so are the lyrics of songs in the sound track. Imagine a feature-length video by Nickxar of Dublin, in which the bush man and the trash man pounce on unwitting passersby who spontaneously exclaim, "Jesus fucking Christ!", "Holy shit!", and the like.

The movie is not without its cinematic merits. It has credible special effects (translation: death scenes) and two impressive crowd scenes (the Black Thursday sale riot and the Thanksgiving Day parade) with flawless continuity. Thankfully, it also has an intelligent ending.