A Thanksgiving Tradition: Family, Football, and Fratricide
Most holiday slashers pick the obvious ones: Christmas (Silent Night, Deadly Night), Halloween (Halloween), Valentine’s Day (My Bloody Valentine). But Blood Rage—shot in 1983, buried until 1987—had the audacity to say, “No, let’s do Thanksgiving.” Why? Because nothing says gratitude like a carving fork lodged in your throat.
Set in the perfectly named Shadow Woods apartment complex, the film pits twin brothers against each other: Todd, the quiet one institutionalized for a murder he didn’t commit, and Terry, the psychotic golden boy who actually did it. Ten years later, Todd escapes his asylum, Terry picks up his machete, and Mom’s engagement dinner turns into the kind of Thanksgiving where the stuffing isn’t the only thing that gets split open
“That’s Not Cranberry Sauce”
Every slasher needs a catchphrase. Freddy had his wisecracks, Jason had his silence, and Terry Simmons—our handsome suburban psychopath—has his culinary quip: “That’s not cranberry sauce.” He says it twice, just in case you missed it, as he gleefully hacks his way through neighbors, friends, and unsuspecting babysitters. It’s absurd, grotesque, and somehow perfect. Thanksgiving never got a better tagline.
Mark Soper plays both twins—Todd the trembling innocent, Terry the smirking butcher—with the dedication of an actor who knows this is his one chance to make film history, even if that history involves a machete slicing a tennis player by the pool. His performance is uneven, but in a slasher, uneven can be glorious: he’s stiff as Todd, unhinged as Terry, and weirdly mesmerizing in both roles.
Louise Lasser: Mother of the Year (from Hell)
Louise Lasser, former Mrs. Woody Allen and star of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, gives one of the most gloriously unhinged maternal performances ever captured on 16mm. As Maddy, the alcoholic single mother who can’t tell her twins apart (literally), she drinks her way through Thanksgiving with the manic energy of a woman juggling casserole dishes and existential dread.
By the end, she’s sloshed, sobbing, and armed—proving that nothing says “family values” like shooting your favorite son in a fit of hysteria. Lasser’s scenes of nervous cleaning, desperate phone calls, and total meltdown are both horrifying and darkly hilarious. She’s every smothering mother in slasher history rolled into one trembling, mascara-streaked package.
Shadow Woods: The Apartment Complex From Hell
Forget cabins in the woods or haunted houses. Blood Rage gives us something scarier: a Florida apartment complex with carpeting that hasn’t been cleaned since the Carter administration. Shadow Woods is a maze of babysitters, pools, tennis courts, and babysitting neighbors who exist only to be slaughtered. It’s banal suburbia—until the machete comes out.
Director John Grissmer milks the setting for maximum absurdity. Teenagers play tennis at night, couples sneak into apartments for “dessert,” and random neighbors wander in like they’re auditioning for a PSA about community safety. It’s the perfect backdrop for Terry’s rampage, because it feels like the kind of place you’d never expect a massacre—until you remember Florida is, in fact, Florida.
The Gore: Thanksgiving Carvings for All
The gore in Blood Rage is plentiful, practical, and unapologetic. Heads split, torsos hacked, limbs lopped off—all with the cheerfulness of carving a turkey. Special effects artist Ed French delivers gooey practical kills that might have gotten cut in the censored theatrical release but are lovingly restored in the Arrow Blu-ray.
Highlights include:
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A hand severed mid–engagement dinner, proving diamonds aren’t forever.
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A decapitation by machete that looks suspiciously like a bowling ball accident.
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A carving fork to the neck, because someone had to die poetically at Thanksgiving.
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Poolside tennis players stabbed mid-flirtation, proving once and for all that cardio is dangerous.
It’s all over-the-top, ridiculous, and strangely charming—the kind of gore that’s more comic-book than cruel.
Ted Raimi, Condom Salesman
As if to underline its cult credentials, Blood Rage includes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from Ted Raimi (Sam Raimi’s brother) as a bathroom condom salesman. Yes, you read that correctly: a man selling Trojans at a drive-in urinal. It has nothing to do with the plot, but like cranberry sauce on the table, it just feels right.
The Twins’ Showdown: Nature, Nurture, and Nonsense
The climax pits Todd and Terry against each other at the apartment pool. Todd finally emerges from his whimpering shell, confronting his brother in a clumsy underwater brawl that ends with Mom pulling the trigger. Except she shoots Terry, not Todd, and then collapses when she realizes her mistake. It’s operatic in its stupidity, tragic in its camp, and unforgettable in its execution.
Todd survives—sort of—but the final image is of Maddy blowing her brains out while police sirens wail. Thanksgiving dinner is officially ruined. The baby lives, but you know he’s destined for therapy by age five.
Why It Works (When It Shouldn’t)
Objectively, Blood Rage is trash. The acting is uneven, the dialogue ridiculous, and the plot thinner than a Butterball turkey breast. And yet, it works. Why? Because it never pretends to be anything else. It embraces its sleazy, absurd premise and runs with it—blood splattering, actors screaming, Louise Lasser melting down in the corner.
It’s not a polished slasher like Halloween, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s gonzo, gory, and gleefully camp. Watching Blood Rage is like eating too much pie: you know you’ll regret it, but while it lasts, it’s delicious.
The Arrow Resurrection
For years, Blood Rage languished in VHS purgatory, hacked to bits in its Nightmare at Shadow Woods cut. The 2015 Arrow release restored the gore and gave the film new life, proving once again that no piece of Eighties slasher trash stays buried forever. Fans can now savor the full buffet: uncensored gore, alternate cuts, and commentary that treats the film with more seriousness than it ever deserved.
Final Carving
So is Blood Rage a good movie? Absolutely not. But is it a good time? Without question. It’s campy, gory, ridiculous, and endlessly entertaining—a Thanksgiving slasher that finally gives the holiday the bloodbath it never asked for.
If you’re looking for subtlety, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for cranberry sauce, carving forks, machetes, and a family that makes Norman Bates’ household look functional, Blood Rage delivers the feast.
And remember: “That’s not cranberry sauce.”
