Who Is The Killer In Thanksgiving? A Wild Horror Movie Ending Explained

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s “Grindhouse” experiment flopped at the box office, but it deserves credit for ushering in a wave of modern exploitation movies inspired by the disreputable flicks of yesteryear. The double feature also produced some faux trailers that ultimately became full movies, namely “Machete,” “Hobo with a Shotgun,” and Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving.” All of these movies are fun in their own way, but “Thanksgiving” stands out from the pack, as it’s bound to become a holiday staple for many slasher aficionados.

“Thanksgiving” doesn’t try to rewrite the formula for slasher movies — if anything, it’s dedicated to honoring the hallmarks that define the majority of them. However, it does a great job at keeping the killer’s identity concealed until the end, while simultaneously making viewers believe that several characters could be behind the atrocities. Throw in some brutal kills and dark humor, and you have everything you could ever want from a slasher flick. With that in mind, let’s dig into “Thanksgiving” and find out who the villain is.

“Thanksgiving” is about the mysterious, Pilgrim-disguised killer, John Carver, who picks off the residents of Plymouth, Massachusetts, one year after a brutal Black Friday riot that claimed many casualties. Thus begins a whodunit to uncover the villain’s true identity — and find out how he’s connected to the riot — before more townsfolk get offed in bloody fashion. Jessica (Nell Verlaque), a high school student, and Sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey) set out to bring the serial slaughterer to justice, which is easier said than done.

Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” has a weird origin story, but it wasn’t influenced by any actual killers causing havoc during the holidays. The movie stems from Roth and co-writer Jeff Rendall growing up during the 1980s — the peak era of slasher movies — in the state where the titular holiday originates from, and wanting to make a horror flick about it. For the most part, “Thanksgiving” is a simple hack ‘n’ slash picture that’s designed to provide thrills, chills, and blood spills, but it is socially topical.

While the idea began as a fun slasher premise, “Thanksgiving” was inspired by real tragedies later on. Roth claims that videos of Black Friday shoppers trampling people in the pursuit of greed gave him and Rendall ideas for the riot that leads to the killer’s rampage in their movie. Hopefully, it scares people into forming orderly queues and treating their fellow shoppers with respect moving forward.

The ending of “Thanksgiving” is delightfully unhinged, treating viewers to some big reveals and tasty twists. It sees Jessica’s friends and family get kidnapped and taken to John Carver’s lair of death. Naturally, some of them don’t get to live happily ever after; Jessica’s stepmother, Kathleen (Karen Cliche), is cooked and served up like a turkey, and the killer gruesomely disposes of her friend Evan (Tomaso Sanelli) during a livestream.

Later on, Jessica’s ex, Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks), is discovered wearing the killer’s costume, and all signs point toward him being the culprit. However, Jessica learns that he was set up by Sheriff Newlon after she notices that the cop is wearing the same pants the killer wore during one of their previous interactions. The copper eventually owns up to the crimes, revealing that he wants revenge for losing his family in the aforementioned Black Friday riots. He blames Jessica’s family for the whole ordeal, as her dad owns the store in which he lost his lover and their unborn child.

Bobby and Jessica team up to take down the sheriff and restore peace in Plymouth, but that’s a pipedream, as Newlon’s body disappears when the authorities go to collect it. This implies that he survived and will unleash more terror at a later date, setting up yet another upcoming sequel you should know about.

While Patrick Dempsey is ultimately unveiled as the masked maniac in “Thanksgiving,” he only donned the disguise for the aforementioned dinner scene in which stepmother Kathleen is served up as the main course. The rest of the killer’s scenes were handled by stunt performer Alex Armbruster, which makes sense given that most of those sequences are action-packed and were dangerous to film.

That said, Dempsey’s villainous role might have ruined the perception that he’s a hunky good guy — a reputation he earned through projects like “Grey’s Anatomy.” The release of “Thanksgiving” coincided with the actor winning a Sexiest Man Alive award, and Roth believes their collaboration showed off Dempsey’s dark side. “I think he just finally put McDreamy to bed, but now this is like pouring gasoline on the McDreamy fire,” he told People.

At the same time, most viewers will probably agree that Sheriff Newlon is one of the dreamiest slasher villains out there, and that’s because of Dempsey’s charms. As such, it’ll take more than the actor playing a character who cooks human beings for Thanksgiving dinner to stop his admirers from crushing on him.