Thanksgiving ending spoilers follow.
Ahead of the sequel arriving next year, Thanksgiving has slashed onto Netflix if you missed it at the cinema.
Eli Roth's slasher takes place one year after a Black Friday riot at RightMart superstore which led to multiple deaths including Amanda's, the wife of the store's manager Mitch, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the birthplace of the Thanksgiving holiday.
As the store prepares for another Black Friday sale, a serial killer (wearing the mask of Pilgrim John Carver) starts to pick off residents one-by-one as part of a larger revenge plan. But who is behind the Carver mask and why?
Let's dig into Thanksgiving's ending to explain who the killer is in case you were too busy hiding from all the gore.
Major spoilers ahead.
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Thanksgiving ending explained: Who is the killer?
During the most twisted dinner party ever where the killer serves up Jessica's stepmother Kathleen who was roasted alive, Carver starts a livestream and kills Jessica's friend Evan with a meat tenderiser.
As Carver starts to carve Kathleen up for dinner, Jessica and Scuba manage to cut themselves free, but only Jessica manages to leave the house. She runs through the woods and to a nearby warehouse where she finds Sheriff Eric Newlon unconscious outside on the ground.
She spots Carver running into the warehouse and Jessica follows, before she discovers that it's her ex-boyfriend Bobby wearing the mask. Bobby was a baseball star on the rise when the Thanksgiving riot saw him break his arm, ruining his career, so it makes sense that he'd be seeking revenge.
However, there's another twist in the tale. Bobby escapes and Jessica goes back to the Sheriff to get his help to track Bobby down. She spots that the same type of brambles stuck to her clothing are also stuck to the Sheriff's clothing, which he can only have got if he was in the woods like she was.
Knowing he's been discovered, the Sheriff confirms that he is the Carver killer. He reveals that he was having an affair with Amanda and she was pregnant with his child when she was killed in the Thanksgiving riot a year ago.
The Sheriff sought revenge on everybody he believed was responsible for Amanda's death. He had taken Bobby and put him in the Carver costume, intending to kill him and frame Bobby for the murders, which will now include Jessica's murder.
(Bobby was one of the people, along with Jessica, who snuck into the store early before the sale, prompting outrage from the crowd outside and inciting the riot.)
Unfortunately for the Sheriff, Jessica has been livestreaming the entire confession. The Sheriff attacks Jessica in a rage, but Bobby shows up to save her before they try to escape in a nearby truck.
Before they leave, Jessica starts to inflate a parade turkey balloon with flammable gas. As the Sheriff tries to chase after them, Jessica shoots the balloon which causes a massive explosion with the Sheriff is caught in the middle of.
Jessica reunites with her friends and all is well... or is it?
When the police search the warehouse the next day, there is no trace found of the Sheriff or his remains. They decide that the Sheriff must have been totally incinerated in the explosion, but us horror fans know that it probably means he's not finished yet.
After all, we know that Thanksgiving 2 is coming next year...
Thanksgiving is available to watch on Netflix in the US and is available to buy digitally in the UK from Prime Video, iTunes, Microsoft Store and more.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
