Thanksgiving Director Eli Roth Says He’s ‘Lost Track’ of How Much Blood He Uses in His Horror Movies (Exclusive)

Eli Roth spills a lot of blood. Fake blood, that is.

PEOPLE recently spoke with Roth, 51, about his new horror film Thanksgivingholiday-themed slasher that follows a mysterious serial killer dressed as a pilgrim who comes to Plymouth, Massachusetts in November to commit a series of murders in his hometown for the holiday.

“I used to do that,” Roth says when asked if he keeps track of how much fake blood and guts he uses in his films. “I used to count by the gallon, but now I’ve lost track.”

Roth burst onto the horror scene with his 2003 film Cabin fever and has since directed a number of films in the genre, including 2005’s Hostel and in 2013 The green hell.

For Thanksgivinghired make-up artist Adrien Morot, who won an Oscar in March for his work on Whaleand Morot’s wife, Kathy Tse (who also worked on Whale).

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The killer in the new film ‘Thanksgiving’ by Eli Roth.

Pief Weyman/TriStar images

“The heads, the bodies were so realistic,” says Roth. “You look at this head like you can’t believe it’s fake looking at it so close in broad daylight.”

Thanksgiving it’s filled with murder scenes that grimly fit into the holiday spirit, as the film’s killer (dressed like a 17th-century pilgrim) seats his victims at the table and prepares the group for a gruesome Thanksgiving dinner. In one moment teased in the film’s trailers, the character is stabbed in the ears with two corncob holders — a scene Roth describes as “such a cheap joke.”

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Nell Verlaque in ‘Thanksgiving’.

Courtesy of Tristar Pictures

“I love, love, love cheap tricks. I love doing something that I could have done when I was 10 and get away with it in a big movie,” he says of the scene, which he must have shot with the help of actor Jenna Warren acting the sequence backwards and then reversing recording for the film. “It’s so naughty and deeply satisfying, that ear corn holder.”

“I remember the studio people saying, ‘We’re going into overtime. What’s going on? Is this going to work?’ ” recalls Roth. “And then finally in the sixth or so, we flipped and it looked perfect and everyone was screaming and we showed it to the crowd and everyone jumped out of their seats.”

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The Thanksgiving Day Parade in the new movie ‘Thanksgiving’.

Courtesy of Tristar Pictures

“Now it’s in the trailer. It became one of the signature murders, but it was the cheapest, dumbest gag,” he adds. “It was so satisfying.”

Roth tells PEOPLE that the concept for Thanksgiving has been on his mind since he grew up a huge horror fan in Massachusetts. In 2007, Roth and co-writer Jeff Rendell created a spoof trailer for the film that ran in theaters during the Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse and spent years in between developing it into a feature film.

“It was a real pleasure to not only make a Thanksgiving movie, but to fill the November void of a horror movie,” Roth tells PEOPLE. “I felt like the calendar was missing a horror movie for November. My mission in life was to bring Halloween into November.”

Thanksgiving in theaters on Friday.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education