'Thanksgiving' review: Predictably gory but unpredictably nimble

Hmm, I think the forks I bought for Thanksgiving dinner are a little too big. — Photos: Handout

A generation ago, film director Eli Roth made Hostel: Part II, one of the most heinous things, never mind movies, on the planet – a film of lingering torture sequences, bad faith, worse misogyny and galling laziness.

Now Roth has made Thanksgiving, based on a mock trailer (two minutes, 19 seconds) he shot that same year in 2007, for the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez double feature Grindhouse. And get this: Thanksgiving works. It’s predictably gory but, at its best, unpredictably nimble.