Blood Rage (1987)

Every November, lovers of the horror genre come together to bitch about the lack of Thanksgiving-themed horror movies. The holiday seems like the perfect setting: familial issues, holiday stress, and access to a carving knife are the perfect recipe for disaster. But the oft-forgotten 1987 slasher Blood Rage did use that recipe, with mixed results.

You may have heard of this film as Nightmare at Shadow Woods (as its heavily edited version), or as simply Slasher (as it appears on the original VHS) - all three versions are available from Arrow Films with cast and crew commentary - or, like most, maybe this is the first you’re hearing of it at all. However you know it, the story is as follows: adolescent twins Terry and Todd are in the backseat of their mom’s car at the Drive-In, where she’s trying to get it on with her boyfriend in the front seat (ew). The twins ditch the car and happen upon another vehicle where a teenage couple are fully nude having sex. Terry absolutely loses his marbles and hacks up the couple, but by the time anyone notices what’s happened, he’s already slipped the weapon into the hands of Todd, who ultimately takes the fall for the crime. Years later, on Thanksgiving day, Todd escapes the mental institution where he’s been held to go to the apartment complex where his mother and brother are living to tell his mother that he’s been wrongly accused all these years. Todd’s escape reignites some blood rage in Terry, and no one in the complex is safe.