10 Worst Motives In Slasher Horror Movies

Eli Roth's Thanksgiving is nothing if not a slasher flick that doesn't take itself too seriously, but at the same time the killer's motive is pretty damn lousy.

The third act reveals that the person killing people in a creepy John Carver get-up is none other than Sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey), who embarked on his crusade out of revenge for the death of a woman, Amanda (Gina Gershon), in the film's opening Black Friday stampede.

As it turns out, Eric was having an affair with Amanda, and more to the point, she was pregnant with his child. 

And so, his grief-fuelled rage prompted him to start killing anyone with even the most tangential association with the events of that fateful night, whether they really played a part in Amanda's death or not.

You can generously argue that Newlon's motive was intentionally lame in order to mimic the trashy exploitation films that inspired Thanksgiving, but c'mon, was this really the best they could do?

If anything, a film this wild should've gone way sillier with something more overtly Thanksgiving-themed beyond "my loved one died during Thanksgiving."