THANXGIVING THE DIRECTOR'S CUT

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Jason actor Ari Lehman celebrates THANXGIVING
Fango caught up with Ari Lehman, who played Jason in the very first FRIDAY THE 13TH and gave us the scoop about another calendar-oriented fright flick that he recently took part in. “It’s called THANXGIVING,” he tells Fango, “and it’s about these independent horror filmmakers who go off into the woods with some of their hippie friends and chicks to make a movie. And they run into these backwoods cannibals who like to have a bit of human meat on their Thanksgiving table. One of the cool aspects of the movie is that sometimes you can’t tell whether what you’re watching is part of the movie they’re making, or if it’s part of the actual movie you’re watching—so it has a little film-within-a-film thing going on.“I play Delbert Eaton,” Lehman continues, “this backwoods guy who’s all like ‘Get off of my land!’ And I got to shoot a shotgun in the movie. I came onto the set and they were like, ‘Here’s a new scene we just wrote,’ and I was like, ‘Great.’ So I put on my wardrobe, read the scene and got it memorized, and then I came back out and said to the writer, Richard Novosak, ‘This script says I have to shoot a shotgun. ’He went, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and called over the director of photography and said, ‘Tell Ari how to do this,’ because that guy knows how to handle weapons. So of course I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I can shoot a shotgun. That’s no problem.’ So he showed me how to do it one time, and it was so *loud*, man; I was definitely somewhat intimidated. But in the back of my head, I could hear Kane [Hodder] being like, ‘Come on, man, don’t be a f**king pussy.’ I could hear those guys saying, ‘Come on, man, it’s fun.’ So I just grabbed the gun, summoned up my gumption and got into the scene.”THANXGIVING was lensed “way up in the woods in Missouri, not far from St. Louis—a beautiful, beautiful place” by first-time director Bobby Ray Akers Jr. “This is something that should inspire us all,” Lehman says, “because Bobby Ray was a fan—he met me, I believe, at a FANGORIA convention. And he had been an actor; he was getting a little bit frustrated with auditions and trying to get into movies. So he said, ‘You know what, I’m going to make something cool of my own.’ I had mentioned to him about how Sean [Cunningham] came up with FRIDAY THE 13TH, which kinda set off the idea in his mind for THANXGIVING, and I encouraged him. He also had the help of Richard, who’s a great writer and just took the ball and ran with it. He came up with the concept of the film within the film and so many other ideas.“We also had a bunch of good actors,” Lehman continues. “We did have some people who dropped out—I think a lot of independent horror movies experience that, where you get no-shows. And people have to remember, it’s not just about being professional, it’s a courtesy. You’ve got 25 people waiting for months and then you decide not to show up…at least give us a call, let us know! But what was amazing was, when there was a no-show, they got someone else there within an hour. Other actors came, and they did a great job. There was just this synergy where people got together and said, ‘Let’s make this work.’ ”Lehman speculates that THANXGIVING should be ready for release by this Thanksgiving; you can find out more about the movie at its official website.
Michael Gingold - Fangoria.com (September 29, 2006)