by Casey Kelderman

Before Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving hacked and slashed its way onto the big screen in 2023, student film from Ohio reigned supreme as the gravy Thanksgiving-themed slashers.

Thanksgiving is the untapped holiday of horror. For some reason, the holiday filled with a rich history of carving up slabs of meat is nearly void of horror films that utilize the macabre setting. Sure, John Grissmer’s Blood Rage (1987) featured the holiday during the cranberry sauce cover killings of the film, but even it didn’t receive much fanfare until recent years. With very few options in the Thanksgiving slasher genre, two filmmakers in the late aughts attending the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA came up with a phrase so groundbreaking. So game-changing. So universal. A phrase that would change the world as we know of it…”Gobble, gobble, motherfucker!”

Meeting on the campus of the Catholic Loyola Marymount University, located just north of the Los Angeles International Airport, film students Jordan Downey and Kevin Stewart began working on student films together in the mid-2000s. Downey, a director from the great state of Ohio, and Stewart, a transplant from France and Portugal, met on the LA campus and soon began working on a script together that would become both of their feature film debuts, ThanksKilling. The duo came up with the now infamous tagline before any sort of actual plot for the film was devised. The two then conjured up the simplistic plot of a group of college students who head home for the Thanksgiving holiday and are killed off one by one by an ancient killer turkey. Inspired by the slasher renaissance of the 1980s, the two took all of the savings they had between them, in this case under $4,000, and shot their very first feature film in Downey’s home state of Ohio.

In the summer of 2006, between their Junior and Senior years at Loyola Marymount, this ragtag group of student filmmakers took to the campus of Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and the surrounding area for principal production on ThanksKilling. Downey served as the film’s director, while Stewart manned the camera as cinematographer. Having only 11 days, a nearly non-existent budget, and a small cast and crew, the team set forth in their creation of the soon-to-be cult classic.

ThanksKilling’s opening shot is a tone-setter, to say the least. The film opens with a pair of breasts belonging to a pilgrim woman on the first Thanksgiving. Credited as Naked Pilgrim, adult film star Wanda Lust was cast in the role from an ad on Craigslist. Lust is quoted as saying, “Of all the things I’ve appeared in film for, this is the only one I regret.” The Naked Pilgrim is chased down by a killer turkey, aptly named Turkie, who utters the line “Nice tits, b*tch!” while killing the well-endowed woman.  

In the not-so-distant future of 2008, a group of college students heads home for Thanksgiving break. Our cast includes Kristen (Lindsey Anderson), the final girl, Johnny (Lance Predmore), the jock, Ali (Natasha Cordova), the promiscuous one, Billy (Aaron Ringhiser-Carlson), the hillbilly, and Darren (Ryan E. Francis), the nerd. After the group’s car breaks down on the side of the road, they decide the next logical step is to set up camp on the side of the road. During their fireside evening, Darren begins telling the tale of a turkey necromanced to life by a Native American to kill every caucasian who roams his land. Speaking of necromancing back to life. An old hermit (General Bastard) and his dog appear, with the dog pulling a Jason from A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master and peeing on our foul-mouthed villain to bring him back to life and in turn kill the dog. John Wick would like a chat with this turkey.

Turkie begins his murderous rampage with an unassuming driver who picks up the feathered foul in an attempt for sexual favors from the bird. It’s unclear whether the driver is aware this is a bird, is into zoophilia, or if he imagines him as a small feathered man. Either way, Turkie kills the pervert and takes his car in pursuit of the group of students. Turkie catches up with Johnny first, killing the wanna-be football star’s dad after the two reconnect with Johnny telling his father he made the starting lineup. 

In the most divisive scene of the movie, Turkie pulls a Jack Frost (1997) and kills the boyfriend of the promiscuous Ali before stuffing the co-ed and eventually killing her. Not only is the scene unfunny, but it just leaves a foul taste in the audience’s mouth after watching. Note to all low-budget horror filmmakers, please don’t include these types of scenes in your horror movies. I am sure the filmmakers even look back on the scene in distaste. 

What more young filmmakers need to do in their low budget films is include scenes like Turkie having a conversation with Kristen’s father, the local sheriff, over a cup of coffee. The two make small talk, before Turkie kills the sheriff (Chuck Lamb) before wearing his face and fake mustache like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs (1991). The students, minus Ali, make their way to Kristen’s house, only to be greeted by Turkie doing his best Barney Fife impression. Again, it’s unclear if Turkie’s disguise is really good, or if the student is unaware that the sheriff is not a turkey, but nevertheless, they soon find out that Turkie is the sheriff in disguise before he gets away.

In the most heartfelt and heartwarming scene, Turkie bursts out of the stomach of Billy after he mistakes a JPEG image of a turkey for a Thanksgiving feast. Dying in his best friend’s arms, Billy and Darren flashback to all the great times they had together including eating ice cream, holding hands while running in the park, and swinging on playground swings all set to a lovely song with lyrics such as “Billy, Billy, Billy you were my best friend.” RIP Billy.

Avenging the death of their redneck friend, the trio of Kristen, Johnny, and Darren make their way to Turkie’s tipi where they meet up with the hermit from the beginning of the movie who shoots Turkie into a garbage container of radioactive waste. Having believed they carved that turkey up for good, Darren, Kristen, and Johnny decide to watch George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) for some reason back at Kristen’s house while her father’s corpse rots in the room next door. When Kristen and Johnny begin to make out, Darren makes his way to the kitchen for some Thanksgiving leftovers, only to be confronted by the freshly baked radioactive Turkie who cuts out the tongue of the lip-licking Darren. 

Johnny is carved up by Turkie with an electric knife, ensuing a chase between Kristen and Turkie for our final showdown. Kristen lights the foul-mouthed turkey up in a blaze of glory before tossing him into a fire pit outside. Kristen celebrates by taking a big bite of the turkey’s fried leg. In a final scene stinger, a family is enjoying a peaceful Thanksgiving meal before the cooked Turkie reanimates back to life to shout the final line, “Do I smell a sequel, biotch?” before the credits roll. 

ThanksKilling premiered at the Sacramento Horror Film Festival in December 2008, before releasing on DVD a year later in the fall of 2009. Downey and Stewart self-distributed the first 1,000 copies of the film, before receiving a larger distribution from Gravitas Ventures. 

Turkie was created by Downey in his apartment, with the base of the turkey made from a foam turkey hunting decoy. The hero head puppet, the one used in close-ups of Turkie speaking, is said to still remain with Downey to this day. The remaining special effects of the film are created by Troy Smith using whatever he could find on a budget, including strawberry jam. 

In the nearly two decades since its release, ThanksKilling has garnered a sequel in 2012 titled ThanksKilling 3, with a much larger $100,000 budget, though this film was not as well received by fans. It also received a live musical adaptation in 2013 titled ThanksKilling: The Musical, with actor Ryan Francis even returning to his role as Darren for many performances. Downey and Stewart would go on to work on several projects and continue to be creative partners to this day with work such as The Head Hunter (2018) and V/H/S/Beyond (2024).