More than 15 years after the fake trailer for a slasher movie called Thanksgiving debuted alongside screenings of Grindhouse in 2007, Eli Roth is finally making it a reality. And things are actually coming together rather quickly behind the scenes, it would seem, as the filmmaker has added a pretty unexpected cast member to the ensemble in the form of TikTok star Addison Rae. This, according to The Hollywood Reporter, who state that Rae has signed on for an undisclosed role in the flick.
Rae has an astounding presence on social media, with nearly 90 million followers on TikTok. Naturally, Hollywood eventually came calling, and she made her feature debut in Netflix’s He’s All That in 2021. Now, she’ll make the somewhat unlikely jump to horror for Roth, who, as the man who made Hostel, doesn’t exactly pull his punches when the occasion calls for blood to be spilled. She’ll join a cast that already includes, as we recently learned, Scream 3 and Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey. The rest of the cast is expected to be filled out with up-and-comers. Filming is expected to begin in March in Toronto, and, that being the case, we may be hearing more on the casting front sooner rather than later.
No official synopsis has been revealed just yet, but THR notes that the film “concerns a slasher who comes to a small Massachusetts town with the intention of ‘creating a Thanksgiving carving board out of the town’s inhabitants.’” For anyone who has seen the trailer that played with Grindhouse all those years ago, that does sound about right. It will be the third film to actually come about as a result of the fake trailers produced for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s double feature, following in the footsteps of Hobo With a Shotgun and Machete. The world still eagerly awaits Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS, as well as Edgar Wright’s Don’t.
Roth most recently directed the Borderlands movie, which is set to arrive later this year. He actually had to step away from reshoots on that film to make this project happen. Roth is producing alongside Roger Birnbaum, working from a screenplay by Jeff Rendel. Also of note, Spyglass is behind the film, and they are the very same production company that brought Scream back to life last year, with Scream VI on the way next month.
Thanksgiving does not yet have a release date set.
