Thanksgiving News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Horror director Eli Roth has given fans a and spoken about the writing process for the chilling slasher sequel.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

Thanksgiving 2 has officially been greenlit.

Each week, we scour the internet for all things indie MMO-related, so you don’t have to. This week, Eternal Tombs (image above) shares some lore, Ethyrial and Fractured Online get hacked, and several MMOs are running Black Friday sales. Plenty of other stuff is also going on, so let’s quit wasting time and get started with this week’s Indie MMO Spotlight.

During the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Universal Pictures has debuted the first look at Dreamworks Animation’s highly-anticipated in the form of a massive Po balloon. The fourth installment to the Jack Black-led martial arts animated franchise is currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on March 8, 2024.

Ned Luke, the voice of <a data-analytics-id=«inline-link» href=«https://twitter.com/Dexerto/status/1727795287115141386?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1727866717261414467%7Ctwgr%5E137c3f516104eabbc513eddf2f1d310050e489ed%7Ctwcon%5Es4_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eurogamer.net%2Fgta-5-michael-actor-ned-luke-swatted-while-playing-on-thanksgiving-stream» target="_blank" data-url=«https://twitter.com/Dexerto/status/1727795287115141386?ref_src=» https:>Grand Theft Auto V

Ned Luke, the actor behind GTA 5 main character Michael De Santa, has been swatted while playing the game for fans in a Thanksgiving livestream.

Marvel built its comic book revolution on the back of one idea: rendering colorful superheroes as relatable. In the mid 20th century, DC do-gooders were essentially square-jawed Sunday school teachers, which let Marvel corner the market on heroes with human depth and fragility. The Fantastic Four were vulnerable to insecurity and in-fighting. The X-Men represented the cost of bigotry on a wide scale.

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds is hosting a Thanksgiving-themed celebration in-game! Plus, once you’ve had your fill of turkey, the Black Friday celebrations kick in straight after. These seasonal events hardly surprise since Ni no Kuni continues to spoil its player base with festive celebrations year-round. 

Why does anime food always look so good? It’s a question that’s befuddled scholars since time immemorial (or err, at least as long as anime has been around), and one that always prompts anime fans to dish out about their absolute dream dishes from their favorite anime shows and movies every time it’s asked.

Pearl Abyss shared several Black Desert news this week. First of all, the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game can be purchased at a 90% discount until November 28 via Steam or until November 29 via the official website. This means you could get Black Desert for just a dollar (or euro).

Thanksgiving in the United States comes with a number of traditional televised events, but maybe none as seamless and low-key entertaining as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

There’s a correct method to jamming two corncob holders into a teenager’s ears for maximum terror. Eli Roth has known the way since he was a kid in Massachusetts, shooting horror movies in his backyard and coming up with kills that would eventually find their way into his new slasher, Thanksgiving, 40 years later. The gag is simple: Start with the corn picks tucked in the screen victim’s ear, yank them out at full-speed, and make sure the actor is screaming at the beginning and surprised at the end. When it’s all played in reverse, the practical effect looks absolutely gruesome — or, for a horror movie, perfect.

The list of truly great horror-comedy movies is surprisingly short. Making something funny that’s also convincingly tense and satisfyingly gory takes a delicate touch, which is probably why Wes Craven’s Scream movies are the finest examples we have of hilarious slashers. While the most recent Scream movies have certainly dabbled in bits and pieces of Craven inspiration, they’ve never quite been able to capture the combination of fright and fun that makes the original four movies great. Thankfully, Eli Roth’s goofy, genuinely creepy new slasher Thanksgiving (which originally started as a joke trailer within the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino double featureGrindhouse)is here to give Scream and its immediate sequels the follow-up they truly deserve.

No matter how gory Eli Roth's films may be, the Thanksgiving director doesn't believe in the animal violence trope that remains prevalent in the horror genre.

Director Eli Roth says there's a much darker, more serious message behind his fun slasher Thanksgiving.

Though it took a few years (or 10), Director Eli Roth says he's been wanting to make a Thanksgiving-themed slasher film since he was a kid.

You might think that Mortal Kombat players would be numb to grisly finishing moves by now, but Mortal Kombat 1's new "disturbing" Thanksgiving Fatality has proven that not to be the case, as it's shocking the whole community with how gross it is.

When NetherRealm Studios dropped a new Halloween-themed Fatality for Mortal Kombat 1 last month, players turned up their noses — not just at the add-on content’s pricing, but at the idea of paying for Fatalities altogether. Now, NetherRealm is ready to turn players’ stomachs with a new Thanksgiving-themed Fatality that might just be the series’ most disgusting finishing move yet.

With the holiday season underway, NetherRealm Studios is joining in on the festivities with some holiday Mortal Kombat 1 Fatalities, including a Thanksgiving-themed one. It, like every other Fatality, is pretty gory, but that might not be what grosses you out about it.

Eli Roth wants Thanksgiving to have the same generational impact as Wes Craven's Scream.

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.

Thanksgiving director Eli Roth is keen to turn his upcoming holiday horror into a franchise.

Spyglass Media Group and Sony Pictures have teamed up with AI and metaverse company MeetKai to create a horror metaverse experience for the upcoming horror film Thanksgiving.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is one of our funniest holiday traditions, a kitschy paean to commercialism that is the only place I can think of where you can find Goku, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the Jolly Green Giant all in the same place, cheerily introduced by Al Roker. Part of the fun is in seeing who made the cut, and who, sadly, did not. (Someday, Vegeta…)

There aren’t enough horror movies about Thanksgiving. Sure, there’s ThanksKilling — the movie about the killer turkey — but that’s just not enough when Christmas has so many. Thankfully, Eli Roth is here with Thanksgiving, a slasher that’s technically been 16 years in the making.

It's funny now to think about the hysteria that followed Scorpion cartoonishly ripping someone's spine out in the original Mortal Kombat, but as graphical fidelity in games continues to improve, the line between simulated gore and the real thing can get blurry. Some developers embrace those advances—developers on The Callisto Protocol reportedly studied «real-life examples of horror and gore»—but Tripwire Interactive is taking a different sort of approach with the upcoming zombie shooter Killing Floor 3.