Despite being the only theatrical flop of Tarantino's career, 2007's Grindhouse spawned a mini MCU-style franchise as several of the fake trailers that played in between Planet Terror and Death Proof became feature films themselves.

The fake Thanksgiving trailer promised a gaudy exploitation horror treat, and I wondered if fans who longed for such a thing to actually exist were disappointed with this effort – its a lot slicker, a much more modern thriller than the lurid, off-colour splatter homage of the original fake trailer.

I wasn't bothered by that, but never having been the biggest fan of Eli Roth's oeuvre, I also didn't expect to like it as much as I did. It was about much more than just the inventive kills in the fake tailer (some of which are left out here) and had an actual story, and unlike some of his other films, the acting is good enough to sell the concept.

A frenzied mob is ready to stampede a big box store in Plymouth, Massachusetts on the evening of the annual Thanksgiving day sale. Jessica (Nell Verlaque) and her friends are going to get in early since her industrialist father owns the store, but when the shoppers lined up outside see them inside they storm the barricades, swarming the terrified and completely ineffective security guards, crashing through the doors and causing literal carnage that sees several people brutally killed.

A year later and the town has barely started to heal, Jessica's group has splintered and she's even more estranged from her father as he plans to open the store and risk the whole conflagration again. But bodies start piling up, starting with the waitress of the local diner (chopped in half by a skip bin, in case you forgot what kind of movie it is).

Jessica, her friends and the local sheriff, Eric (Patrick Dempsey) are all on the case, sure one or several of them are next – as the killer hunts down and dispatches more victims, he tags Jessica and her friends in video posts about them, menacingly showing an ornate table set for a Thanksgiving dinner, all their names on the nameplates around the table.

After a few decent horror movie set pieces, including a chase through the empty school building and the cheerleader on the trampoline scene from the trailer (not quite as squirm-inducing), the whole gang set up a sting to flush the killer out during the Thanksgiving parade, and he strikes.

He sets off smoke bombs and abducts Jessica, her surviving friends and her bitchy stepmother, all of them finding themselves captive and awaiting whatever grisly fate awaits them.

Roth doesn't forget his own fake trailer that spawned the movie nor the classic tropes from the genre. Unlike a lot of the flicks from the period it's referencing, Roth and his co screenwriter Jeff Rendell know that a certain level of pace is required to sustain the maintenance of disbelief, so it all feels plausible, urgent and deadly while it's going on.

Just bloody and profane enough, and with everybody believing in their roles, it's a very effective splatter chiller that knows what to do and when to end.