Thanksgiving arrives next week, bringing with it the stressful chaos of the holidays and rewatches of holiday horror staples like Blood Rage and Thanksgiving. Despite the horror that the holidays can inspire, it’s a rather niche subgenre when it comes to Thanksgiving. If you’re already tired of the handful of classics or not feeling the holidays this year, this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to Thanksgiving-set horror movies that barely bother with the holidays at all. These titles take place on or around Thanksgiving, but quickly become too preoccupied with the terror to worry much about holiday tradition or theming.
Here’s where you can watch them this week.
For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.
Black Friday – Prime Video, Roku Channel
A raucous, campy creature feature that begins on Thanksgiving and captures the horrors of shopping on Black Friday. Set within a toy store, it follows a group of disgruntled employees as they begrudgingly arrive for work on Thanksgiving to settle in for the busiest day in retail. Meanwhile, an alien parasite crashes into Earth via a meteor. The employees’ rough night gets exponentially worse when their shoppers become bloodthirsty monsters. Director Casey Tebo is most interested in fun with this holiday horror entry, and it boasts a great cast that includes Devon Sawa and Bruce Campbell.
The Boneyard – Pluto TV, Prime Video, Roku Channel, Tubi
With a very atypical protagonist, the film follows a depressed psychic as she works with detectives to get to the bottom of the mystery behind a funeral home owner with three corpses of mummified children in his possession. Only, these aren’t dead children, but “kyoshi,” or undead, cursed children that must feed on human flesh. They’re very creepy, and yet they still don’t prepare for the wild finale teased on the VHS cover box. However, it does take its time getting there. The Boneyard was written and directed by James Cummins, the creature designer behind the inventive apparitions in 1986’s House. It’s a Thanksgiving horror set almost entirely within a creepy morgue.
Deadly Friend – Tubi
The horror begins in earnest on Halloween in Wes Craven’s sci-fi horror movie, but it continues well into Thanksgiving. When Paul loses his robotic bud, BB, he’s devastated. When he loses his would-be girlfriend, Samantha (Kristy Swanson), he decides to rectify both losses by merging the two. Of course, tampering with technology leads to deadly consequences. Aside from the holiday factoring into the plot in a major way, Deadly Friend is worth a watch for the infamous basketball scene alone.
Escape Room – Netflix (Leaves November 30)
If you blink, you might miss that Escape Room happens to be set around Thanksgiving. It’s a small detail highlighted in the introduction to protagonist Zoey (Taylor Russell), who stays behind as her dormmate heads out of town for the Thanksgiving break. Instead of big holiday meals with friends, Zoey finds herself fighting for her life when she tries out a new, mysterious escape room, and it’s rigged with lethal traps. Adam Robitel helms this Saw meets Final Destination thriller that brings the fun thanks to zippy horror direction and elaborate, inventive set pieces.
The Stepfather – Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Roku Channel, Tubi
Terry O’Quinn stars as the title character, a serial murderer who targets single mothers, hoping to find his perfect family. When it doesn’t work out, he murders his new makeshift family, changes his appearance, and skips town to begin anew. Loosely based on mass murderer John List, The Stepfather brings the intensity thanks to a bone-chilling turn by O’Quinn. His reign of terror is set against a Fall backdrop, with the autumnal vibes only adding to the pervasive sense of dread. That also includes a notable Thanksgiving dinner scene.