The 10 Best Thanksgiving Horror Movies Are a Feast for the Senses
Turkey Day is as overlooked for holiday-themed slashers as the day itself.
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Placed smack dab in the middle of Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving is as overlooked for holiday-themed slashers as the day itself—the American celebration is downright drowning in Black Friday deals, football games, and awkward family gatherings. But if you don’t fall asleep immediately after gorging on mashed potatoes and gravy, there are two handfuls of Thanksgiving-themed horror movies that sought to capitalize on their slim competition and will liven up your evening.
Surprisingly, many of the films here don’t turn to the stereotypical events of the actual holiday to conjure their frights. As with most Christmas-themed slashers and their crazed Santas, the Thanksgiving horrors are primarily tied to the idea of serial killers dressed up as pilgrims. (Thankfully, ThanksKilling features a killer turkey on a revenge mission, just to spice up the list.) If you’re looking for a way to quiet down an overabundance of politics across the dinner table, nothing will scare your family into silent terror—or induce laughter—more than a holiday horror film. Below, we ranked the top ten Thanksgiving horror movies to watch this season.
Into the Dark: Pilgrim (2019)
Blumhouse's Into the Dark series produced a TV movie for Hulu, which features a complex home-invasion plot on the day that your house is incredibly full of guests. Why? To remember to be thankful for your life, of course.
Intensity (1997)
Another TV movie, Intensity stars John C. McGinley (Office Space) as a serial killer who torments a family gathered in the Pacific Northwest for the holiday.
Kristy (2014)
Think of Kristy as The Holdovers turned into a horror flick. After most of her dorm goes home for the holidays, a university student (played by Hillbilly Elegy’s Haley Bennett) is left alone—and terrorized by an online cult obsessed with murder.
Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County (1998)
Filmed a year before The Blair Witch Project, this found-footage TV movie features a documentary crew seeking to uncover how the McPherson family disappeared on Thanksgiving. Spoiler alert: Aliens had something to do with it.
Boogeyman (2005)
Following a Thanksgiving trip with his girlfriend, 7th Heaven’s Barry Watson has a vision of his mother warning him to come back home. When he arrives, he finds his mother dead and a supernatural entity plaguing the local psych ward. Despite receiving little critical acclaim, Boogeyman spawned two sequels.
Black Friday (2021)
When zombie-like shoppers stampede into a toy store on Black Friday, employees are forced to batten down the hatches. Can they survive the night?
The Oath (2018)
In this Tiffany Haddish–starring comedy-horror directed by Ike Barinholtz (The Mindy Project), political arguments over Thanksgiving lead to physical violence and mayhem.
Blood Rage (1987)
Filmed in Jacksonville, Florida, Blood Rage is about as pure of a B-movie as an eighties slasher film can get. Blood oozes like ketchup, the killer wields a giant machete, and the dialogue is laugh-out-loud awful. It’s probably the most fun you’ll have all weekend.
ThanksKilling 3 (2012)
Finally, a killer turkey! Was it really that hard, folks? Out for revenge on the day that humanity consumes untold numbers of the celebratory bird, an evil turkey (who talks, by the way!) carves up some holiday mayhem in not one but three ThanksKilling movies.
Thanksgiving (2023)
The award for Best Thanksgiving Horror Movie goes to Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. You could convince me that the Cabin Fever director created the holiday-themed slasher just to win such a prestigious prize. Naturally, it features a serial killer in a John Carver mask who terrorizes a small town in Massachusetts on the big day. Michael Myers, you’ve got yourself some competition.
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