Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving Movie is Finally Happening

When Grindhouse was released in 2007, the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature was packed with fake trailers for exploitation movies that didn’t actually exist. One of them would become a reality, the Danny Trejo-starring Machete, and though fan hopes for the others has carried on for the past sixteen years they’ve only existed as the fake trailers, until now. Filmmaker Eli Roth, who contributed the fake trailer for holiday slasher Thanksgiving, is set to finally see his two and a half minutes of footage expanded into a full feature film. Production on the movie is set to begin very soon.

Deadline brings word of the film finally happening, revealing that Roth is stepping aside from reshoots on his upcoming Borderlands movie so that he can get started on the Grindhouse spinoff. Jeff Rendell, who scripted the original fake trailer and played its killer pilgrim slasher, has penned the script for the movie which will begin production in March. Spyglass, the production company behind the recent revivals of Hellraiser and Scream, will bring the film to life with Roth and Roger Birnbaum set to produce.

Each of the fake trailers in the original Grindhouse were going for a specific style of exploitation movie as their main theme. Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS married the Nazi-themed horror with women in prison movies while Edgar Wright’s Don’t was a riff on UK movies being sold to US audiences without giving away that it wasn’t an American movie. Roth’s Thanksgiving was all a riff on holiday themed slashers that arrived after the sucess of Halloween, movies like Silent NIght, Deadly Night, April Fool’s Day, and My Bloody Valentine.

In the fake trailer a disgruntled pilgrim character marches about town murdering parade participants and, naturally, frisky teenagers. Roth, and several of his Hostel stars, actually appeared in the fake trailer, adding another layer as 30-somethings playing high schoolers. The pilgrim character holds an entire family hostage in the end too, roasting a body like a thanksgiving turkey. The final cherry on top of the fake Thanksgiving trailer of course was the quickly revealed “This February” release date.