The horror genre remains a fascinating mix of familiarity and envelope-pushing shocks. For every new chapter of the Scream franchise (and the problems that come with it), audiences are treated to wholly original surprises such as Talk to Me, Dream Scenario, Influencer… easily some of the best horror movies we managed to see in 2023. Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving walked the tightrope between the two halves, introducing a new slasher inspired by a Massachusetts pilgrim, but also figuring out how to franchise. After the film’s success, Sony Pictures quickly announced Thanksgiving 2, and now co-star Milo Manheim is opening up about what he wants to see in the sequel.
Based on how gruesome Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving was, I’m relatively shocked anyone survived to appear in a sequel. The wicked John Carver laid waste to the town of Plymouth, though Jessica (Nell Verlaque) and her current boyfriend, Ryan (Manheim), made it to the end, and therefore are expected to be back on screen for Thanksgiving 2. When interviewing the duo on behalf of Thanksgiving arriving on Blu-ray and digital, we brought up the sequel, and asked Manheim what he’s hoping to see in Eli Roth’s follow up. He told me:
I defer to Eli. Because Eli knows better than all of us. Of course, I have my things I want for myself. For each individual character. Look, I would be happy if (I died on screen). I would finally be able to go through that for the first time. But, you know, I just don’t want to get excited about something that’s not going to happen. I just want to be surprised with, I’m sure, some equally absurd, crazy things in Thanksgiving 2.
By that, he means he might get trampled in a Black Friday stampede, or cooked like a human turkey and carved up to be served like dinner… which are real things that happened in Thanksgiving. Eli Roth’s movie was wildly original, given the fact that it was based off this fake trailer that was included in the Grindhouse experiment conducted by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.
And even though Eli Roth expressed some concern about casting a TikTok star like Addison Rae in his horror movie, the script and execution of the 1980s horror slasher homage worked extremely well, earned a lot of money, and earned the right to a sequel.
You can grab Thanksgiving on Blu-ray and digital now. It’s great preparation for Thanksgiving 2, which is currently in the writing stage and hopes to get positive reviews like the one that we gave to Roth’s initial film. While we wait, scan the feature of upcoming 2024 movies to see what can keep you busy while you wait for Roth’s sequel to develop and release.
