10 Movies Within Movies Everyone Wanted To See
8. Thanksgiving - Grindhouse
Arguably the best part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's B-movie double feature Grindhouse was the abundance of fake trailers inserted throughout the two films, as directed by the likes of Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright, and Eli Roth.
Roth's contribution was a trailer for Thanksgiving - a seasonally-themed slasher film in the vein of John Carpenter's Halloween, focused on a knife-wielding killer dressed as a pilgrim slaughtering the unsuspecting residents of a sleepy town during the holiday.
The ominous synths, familiar POV shots, creepy voice-over - "You'll come home for the holidays... in a body bag" - and wealth of ultra-violence made a persuasive argument that Thanksgiving would actually be a feature film well worth watching.
After all, who will ever forget the incredible moment in the trailer where an unsuspecting cheerleader removes her underwear and performs a jumping splits on a trampoline, just as the killer shoves his knife up through it?
It's one of the most memorable death scenes from any horror movie of the last 15 years, and yet it's not even a real movie.
Sadly despite several of Grindhouse's fake trailers turning into actual movies - Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun - Roth's attempts to develop Thanksgiving into a feature-length film haven't panned out, and it's safe to say that too much time has probably passed now.