Eli Roth said the cat in the movie was such a good actor, and performed on cue, that he called him Leonardo DiCatprio. The name of the cat is Tonic and he previously starred in Pet Sematary (2019).
Eli Roth wanted all the film's kills to be not only gory but creative, paying homage to the creative kills of golden age slasher films such as the Friday the 13th films, Nightmare on Elm Street series, Happy Birthday to Me (1981), and My Bloody Valentine (1981).
According to filmmaker Eli Roth, the film that was advertised per fake trailer in Grindhouse (2007) was about "a kid who's in love with a turkey, and then his father killed it, and then he killed his family and went away to a mental institution and came back and took revenge on the town." In an interview with Total Film Magazine, Roth has said that the full-length film isn't meant to fit that description anymore: "We said, 'Let's pretend "Thanksgiving" was a movie from 1980 that was so offensive that every print was destroyed. All the scripts were burned. The director disappeared. The crew members changed their names. One person saved the trailer and uploaded it to the darkest corners of 4chan, and now it's made it out. So this is a 2023 reboot.' Once we said that, it freed us up."
Eli Roth was in the process of casting the movie when his friend Gina Gershon texted him and asked, "When are you putting me in a horror movie?" Roth responded, "Actually Gina, I have a part for you right now."
Amanda Barker (Lizzie) is actually from Hanover, Massachusetts and she is the 9th great niece of John Carver. Her accent in the movie is genuine.