9 Clues To John Carver’s Real Identity That You Might’ve Missed In Thanksgiving

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Thanksgiving and the killer’s identity.

Summary

• Patrick Dempsey’s casting was a big clue to his role in Thanksgiving, hinting at his potential as the movie’s villain.
• The opening shot gave away Dempsey’s character as the killer, mirroring Halloween’s famous POV shot.
• Sheriff Newlon’s interactions with Amanda and suspicious actions throughout the movie offer subtle hints to his true identity.

While not every viewer can guess Thanksgiving’s killer the first time around, the 2023 slasher makes this revelation surprisingly easy to surmise upon a rewatch. Not all slasher movies are whodunits, but the slasher revival of the ‘90s leaned into this element of the genre. Movies like Scream, Cherry Falls, Urban Legend, and Valentine moved away from the villain-centric supernatural horror of the Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Child’s Play franchises. In its place, these ‘90s slashers opted for a whodunit-style mystery format wherein guessing the killer’s identity was a big part of the horror movie’s appeal.

Director Eli Roth’s 2023 slasher movie Thanksgiving followed this formula, with the movie teasing the masked villain’s identity throughout its runtime. Although Thanksgiving’s ending reveals the killer to be Patrick Dempsey’s Sheriff Newlon, there are many red herrings offered to viewers before this revelation. Both of the heroine’s love interests, Ryan and Bobby, seem suspicious at various stages, while Mitch Collins is the most obvious suspect. However, there are quite a few subtle clues that give away the villain’s identity early, from Newton’s casting to his firearm handling to the suspiciously bloodless circumstances of his apparent third-act demise.

9 Patrick Dempsey’s Thanksgiving Casting

The profile of Sheriff Newton’s actor alone is a clue

There is an old adage that a whodunit’s killer or victim can be immediately ascertained by a glance at the cast list. Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey is by far the most famous actor in Thanksgiving save for popular TikTok star Addison Rae, meaning he was always likely to be either the movie’s first victim or its villain. The fact that Dempsey previously played a red herring love interest in Scream 3, a quintessential ‘00s revival slasher, didn’t help his case. Although Thanksgiving 2’s story may offer a more surprising killer, Dempsey’s casting alone clued in savvy viewers that he’d figure into the events of the movie in a big way, if not the biggest.

8 Thanksgiving’s Opening Halloween Reference

Roth’s slasher literally gives away its killer in the opening shot

One of the most obvious clues that points to Dempsey’s Newlon comes before the villain even gains his motivation. The opening shot of Thanksgiving is an homage to Halloween’s famous opening sequence, which takes place from the POV of the movie’s killer villain, Michael Myers. Thanksgiving’s opening shot appears to be from a killer’s perspective as they shakily walk to a suburban door, breathing heavily, only for the camera to then cut directly to Newlon and reveal that the POV belonged to Dempsey’s now very suspicious sheriff.

7 Newlon’s Interactions With Gina Gershon’s Amanda

The sheriff is a little too close to one civilian

While Thanksgiving’s opening Halloween reference gave away its killer, the very next scene hinted at his motive. Mitch Collins welcomes Sheriff Newlon into his home for Thanksgiving dinner and Mitch’s wife Amanda openly flirts with the detective about his single status. It is pretty transparently obvious that Amanda and the sheriff share a mutual attraction, and Newlon is clearly particularly distraught when a Black Friday riot soon claims Amanda’s life. Although he is horrified by all the stampede’s violence, he is pointedly more upset by Amanda’s death than the rest of the chaos.

6 Newlon Shutting Down The Killer’s Lair

Dempsey’s character makes a suspicious choice early in Thanksgiving

A year after the riot, the owner of Plymouth’s local RightMart is insistent about keeping the store open on Black Friday despite the events of the preceding year. In contrast, Newlon uses his status as the sheriff to shut down the Carver House, a local historical attraction. When the house turns out to be the killer’s lair, it is pretty obvious who had access to the venue, knew it would be shut down, and could turn it into a macabre setting for their murderous display while it was empty.

5 John Carver’s Unlikely Firearms Expertise

Thanksgiving’s killer is unusually adept at handling guns

Unlike the fake trailer that inspired Thanksgiving, Roth’s finished movie is not as bloody and outrageous as many of his earlier efforts. Notably, the masked villain John Carver is particularly fastidious about firearm safety and even uses smoke grenades to limit random civilian casualties. While one police officer posits that the killer might have experience in the military, they ignore the more obvious conclusion thatJohn Carver is secretly a cop himself. Specifically, he is Plymouth’s Sheriff Newlon, which would explain how he accessed these crowd control implements.

4 John Carver Tranquilizing Other Police Officers

Thanksgiving’s killer avoids killing his fellow officers

Speaking of Carver’s methodical killing spree, it is notable that the killer cuts one victim in half, decapitates another, and cooks one unfortunate soul alive, but never lets any stray bullets kill police officers. Instead, Thanksgiving’s killer makes sure to use tranquilizer darts to disarm the police rather than shooting and killing them. Given how ruthless the villain is in every other circumstance, this choice hints at the possibility that Carver refuses to kill cops because they are his coworkers and friends.

3 Newlon’s Absence In The Thanksgiving Parade Scene

The Sheriff’s absence in this pivotal scene is hard to ignore

While Thanksgiving’s disappointingly low slasher body count is unfortunate, there is one scene that lived up to the original Grindhouse trailer’s wild, gory excess. The Thanksgiving parade scene truly delivers, with Carver decapitating a mascot and sending a pole through the skull of one unlucky motorist in two of the movie’s nastiest kills. However, it is pretty tough to ignore the fact that Newlon is nowhere to be found in Thanksgiving‘s third-act parade scene, particularly when the rest of the local police force is providing protection for the remaining survivors.

2 Thanksgiving’s Later Victims Are Shown To Newlon

John Carver’s bloody trail includes some late new additions

In Thanksgiving’s third act, Jessica and Bobby manage to access the footage of the riot that Kathleen attempted to bury. They immediately share their findings with Sheriff Newlon, who commends them for their good work. This footage unveils a pair of previously unseen rioters who are among the victims that Carver soon claims during the Thanksgiving parade. For any particularly eagle-eyed viewers, this is proof that Newlon added these new victims to his list after receiving the footage, but before the parade took place.

1 Newton’s Bloodless Thanksgiving “Death”

The killer’s apparent death is suspiciously tame

Almost all the kills in Thanksgiving are brutal, with one character being graphically battered via mallet, one getting disemboweled by a table saw, and one getting his neck snapped. As such, when Jessica finds the movie’s chief suspect, Sheriff Newlon, lying beside his car in a small puddle of blood, it is pretty obvious that Dempsey’s character isn’t really dead. The only reason that Roth’s gory slasher would give a major character such a tame, disappointing fate is that he is merely playing dead, which soon turns out to be the case in Thanksgiving’s relatively predictable twist ending.

Thanksgiving
(2023) is available on Netflix.