Eli Roth says Thanksgiving is pushing the limits of the R-rating

Director Eli Roth says his upcoming slasher pic Thanksgiving pushes the limits of the 'hard-R' rating, as well as addressing a potential directors' cut.

"The R-rated cut has everything I want. So you can always add more gore, but I don’t feel stifled in any way, it’s the far end of the hard-R spectrum, so what you’re going to see in the theaters is my director’s cut," Roth tells SFX magazine in the new issue, which features David Tennant as Doctor Who on the cover. "The kills have to be incredibly satisfying. It has to be really scary and really fun. We’ve had a couple of screenings where there’s screams, applause, cheers, people thinking we’ve gone too far…"

Directed by Roth from a screenplay by Jeff Rendell (Cabin Fever, Clown), Thanksgiving follows a serial killer named John Carver who arrives in Plymouth, Massachusetts after a fatal Black Friday riot. The cast includes Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Gina Gershon, Rick Hoffman, Milo Manheim, and Amanda Barker.

The film is an adaptation of sorts from a fake trailer he made for the 2007 Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino movie Grindhouse, which has remained viral amongst horror fans for well over a decade. 

Added Roth: "Every time you do one of those kills that you shot before, it has to be as good or better, because otherwise, what’s the point? I don’t want people to watch and go, 'It’s better in the trailer.' So if you couldn’t top what we did in the trailer, you had to do something different. Part of the fun was it freed us up to come up with all-new kills."

The kills in the real trailer definitely differ from that of the fake, with the violence being a little bit more...festive. Someone gets stabbed in the ears with those spikey corn-on-the-cob holders, while another person gets seasoned, basted, and roasted alive. Sheesh.

Thanksgiving is set to hit theaters on November 17, 2023.

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The above is just a snippet from our interview with XXX, which you can see more of from in the latest issue of SFX Magazine, which features Doctor Who on the cover and is available on newsstands from Wednesday, November 1. Keep up to date with all things SFX by signing up to the newsletter, which sends all the latest exclusives straight to your inbox.