Eli Roth has been teasing a feature length THANKSGIVING ever since its phoney trailer debuted as part of Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez’s GRINDHOUSE in 2007, but with interest in fauX-sploitation* falling out of favour you’d be forgiven for thinking it might never actually materilise.  

*Ok, so I made that term up. Not banking on it entering the zeitgeist on account that when spoken aloud it doesn’t make a lick o’ sense.

Not so. “It’s happening”, says Roth, who revealed during an interview with the guys over at BehindTheThrills.com that he and collaborator Jeff Rundell (he played ‘The Pilgrim’ in the infamous short) have cracked the story and the writers of CLOWN are working on it right now. What the hell is CLOWN (some of) you ask? We’ll get to that little gem in a minute, you’re in for a treat.

With the THANKSGIVING screenplay arriving soon and a fast turnaround expected (I recall an old interview in which Roth says how the material demands that it be shot fast, to maintain the rough-and-ready look of the trailer), we could be seeing it as soon as next year.

If you’re a UK reader then you were robbed of the GRINDHOUSE theatrical release, meaning that if you never picked up the Blu-ray release in 2010 you might very well have missed one of the film’s highlights. Though Edgar Wright’s DON’T and Robert Rodriguez’s MACHETE were both excellent, Roth’s contribution to the trailer portion of the movie was easily the best, containing some of the most squirm-inducing moments ever committed to celluloid. Check it out below…

 

Sure, extending the gag to feature length has been proven risky, but for every MACHETE there’s a HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN. Actually, I think those two are the only examples… There you go; there’s a 50/50 chance already that this is going to rock balls!

Odds are significantly upped when you factor in the talents of Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford, who in 2010 created a (you guessed it) fake trailer for an imaginary horror film called CLOWN. Deservedly the superb film went viral, and quickly caught the attention of Roth. Not hard to imagine why, since the guys had cheekily slapped the filmmaker’s name all over it. Roth contacted Watts & Ford immediately, and rather than give them a bollocking for using his name, quickly acquired the rights. 

While we wait for the feature length version of CLOWN (which is on its way soon), here’s the video for those of you didn’t catch it the first time.

There’s going to be no escaping Roth over the next few years, as he’s got a production slate that would make even J.J. Abrams wince. Check this out…

…on top of CLOWN and THANKSGIVING, he’s currently attached to direct both Dracula drama HARKER and cannibal horror THE GREEN INFERNO; moving into TV for the first time with HEMLOCK GROVE for Netflix; has written sci-fi flick ENDANGERED SPECIAL and Earthquake thriller AFTERSHOCK; is producing Richard Kelly’s CORPUS CHRISTI and THE LAST EXORCISM 2; is about to start promotional duties on The RZA’s directorial debut, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS, which he co-wrote and produced; and will soon open the doors on his Las Vegas-based horror attraction, the incredible sounding GORETORIUM! 

Let the rights holders continue to dick around with the CABIN FEVER franchise, we’re pretty sure Roth is way too busy to give a shit.

BONUS VIDEOS:

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS

Eli Roth’s GORETORIUM