Thanksgiving horror doesn’t mess around. Whether it’s killer turkeys, cannibalistic families, or PCP-fueled maniacs, this small-but-mighty subgenre has produced some of the wildest, bloodiest, most chaotic holiday films ever made. Here are the craziest Thanksgiving horrors — now ranked by just how messy they really get.
1. Thankskilling (2009)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃🦃 (4/5)
A foul-mouthed, homicidal turkey puppet slashes, skins, and wisecracks his way through a cast of clueless college kids. The gore is cartoony but plentiful, and the kills are outrageous enough to earn this cult fave its spot on the throne.
Craziest Moment: Turkey wearing someone’s face like a discount Leatherface.
2. Thankskilling 3 (2012)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃 (5/5)
More puppets. More chaos. More gore. This sequel goes absolutely off the rails with melty, gooey, technicolor carnage. It’s less a narrative film and more a blood-soaked fever dream.
Craziest Moment: An existential puppet worm while literal gore-goop drips around him.
3. The Oath (2023)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃 (3/5)
This grim, violent home-invasion thriller doesn’t rely on buckets of blood, but when it hits, it hits. Brutal, grounded, and mean-spirited, with sudden spikes of intense gore.
Craziest Moment: A kitchen brawl that turns the dining room into a slippery, red battlefield.
4. Kristy (2014)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃 (3/5)
More suspense-driven than splatter-focused, but the violence that is here lands with sharp brutality. The kills are fast, vicious, and unforgiving.
Craziest Moment: A savage early attack that sets the tone for the entire film.
5. Blood Rage (1987)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃🦃 (4/5)
A Thanksgiving slasher classic bathed in bright-red ’80s splatter. Machetes, dismemberments, severed limbs — all handled with that nostalgic effects charm.
Craziest Moment: The “cranberry sauce” line delivered over a grisly fresh kill.
6. Home Sweet Home (1981)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃🦃 (4/5)
A PCP-fueled maniac wreaks absolute havoc on a holiday gathering. The film is messy, energetic, and gleefully violent — not realistic, but definitely gory.
Craziest Moment: A murder scene punctuated by a random guitar solo. Yes, during the murder.
7. Pilgrim (2019 – Hulu’s Into the Dark)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃 (3/5)
Unsettling, culty, and surprisingly violent. The brutality ramps up dramatically in the third act with some truly uncomfortable torture sequences.
Craziest Moment: A deranged “authentic Thanksgiving” dinner that ends in nightmare fuel.
8. Deranged (2012)
Gore Rating: 🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃 (5/5)
One of the bleakest Thanksgiving-set horrors, this one leans heavily into cannibalistic extremity. It’s grim, grisly, and unflinchingly gory—more disturbing than fun.
Craziest Moment: A grotesque family meal reveal that makes leftovers feel dangerous.
Final Bite
If your ideal holiday viewing involves disembowelments, killer birds, deranged pilgrims, and gallons of fake blood, these films make the perfect counter-programming to football and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving horror may be a small corner of the genre, but it’s one of the most outrageous — and these titles prove just how messy it can get.
