Right-Mart's notorious Black Friday sale was more insane than anything Crazy Eddie ever advertised. Technically, it was Black Thursday, but it wasn’t just
prices getting slashed during the riot that ensued. The next year, most citizens
of Plymouth, MA tried to forget it ever happened, but the mystery man in the pilgrim
mask remembers. Boy, does he ever. Everyone he deems responsible had better
watch out in Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving, which opens today.
At
the behest of her obnoxious new stepmother, Theresa Wright’s father Thomas
agrees to open the Right Mart on Thanksgiving, offering a free waffle iron to
the first one hundred customers. Several of people die for those waffle irons
during the resulting stampede. She was there to see all the madness up close,
after admitting her toxic friends through the employees’ entrance. Like most
Gen Z’ers, they make everything worse, posting cell phone footage of the riots,
with their snarky commentary. Their footage provides a handy starting point for
the killer, who will become known as “John Carver,” because he wears one of the
masks of the original governor of Plymouth Colony, which are littered all over
town during Thanksgiving.
In
terms of tone, Thanksgiving is a lot like Terror Train, because
most of John Carver’s prey really have it coming, except Theresa, who like
Jamie Lee Curtis, is largely a victim of guilt by association. It is also often
gruesome, but in an admirably energetic way. Thanksgiving was inspired
by Roth’s fictional trailer for Tarantino’s Grindhouse, but he and
co-screenwriter Jeff Rendell wisely went back to the drawing board,
reconceiving a largely fresh and new Thanksgiving-themed slasher.
We have a way of “loving
to hate” villainous captains of finance like Gordon Gekko and Billions’
Bobby Axelrod so much, we actually start to dig them for real. That could be
the case for Dominic Morgan. He talks a good game and he is a master manipulator.
Massimo Ruggero should know. The head of the NYL investment house has a talent for
“motivating” his protégé, but it still isn’t exactly a trusting relationship. Ruggero
will have to look out for himself if he wants to get ahead, but safety really
isn’t a concern for double-dealing schemers in the pilot episode of Devils,
which premieres this Wednesday on the CW.
Ruggero
was the only trader in London’s financial district smart enough to “short”
Greece. He made NYL pots of money and should earn himself a plum promotion.
Unfortunately, it is not entirely his mentor Morgan’s decision to make. As a striving
immigrant from a hardscrabble Italian fishing village, Ruggero has the wrong
background as far as the upper-crust directors are concerned. However, the blue-blooded
faction is up to their necks in a deal with a considerable downside. It would
definitely help Ruggero’s prospects if the deal went south, so maybe he will
just help it along.
Presumably,
the body we see plunging to its death in the flashforward prologue is somehow
related to all this skullduggery. Naturally, there is a fair amount of expository
business in the pilot, but intrigue holds plenty of promise. Plus, the clear
implication that a Wikileaks-style group is just as morally compromised as the investment
bankers opens up some very interesting dramatic avenues to explore. However,
the emerging subplot involving Ruggero’s wayward ex-wife feels unrealistically contrived.
Ruggero’s
informal kitchen cabinet includes two promising supporting characters, Wade, a
professor at the London School of Economics, and Oliver Harris, his brilliant
but financially-challenged student, who will be doing most of Ruggero’s
off-the-books research and legwork.
