Main cast: Reign Edwards (Cody), Kerr Smith (Shane), Courtney Henggeler (Anna), Peter Giles (Ethan), Antonio Raul Corbo (Tate), and Elyse Levesque (Patience)
Director: Marcus Dunstan
They are a lovely family, as far as families in horror stories go: Shane buries himself in his work and his wife Anna feels unappreciated and ignored; Shane’s daughter from a previous relationship Cody is being the usual bratty teen and not getting along with Anna, and Tate… well, he’s just the little kid that typically exists to generate “Oh, will he be kidnapped or killed… the suspense!” suspense in order to keep the adults from just dropping everything and fleeing the scene just like that.
Cody, annoyed that Anna is hiring some people to get the family to take part in the “good old days” reenactment of Thanksgiving of yore (Anna hopes that it will be fun and bring the family together again), makes a wish when she and Tate break the turkey wishbone—that the whole thing will backfire on Anna. You know what they say about wishes, as soon Ethan and Patience in pilgrim costume and all show up at their door during Anna’s party. Those two keep in character throughout, which seems fine at first, until more and more pilgrims show up to join these two and their methods of teaching the family the true meaning of gratitude become increasingly brutal.
Pilgrim is directed by Marcus Dunstan, who also co-wrote this episode as well as wrote the screenplays of the Feast and Saw movies, so it’s not too surprising that this episode eventually degenerates into chaotic gore and bloody mayhem. It’s all fun and good, although I wish things aren’t so predictable here as well. Maybe that’s why Blumhouse Productions dumped this into the Into the Dark landfill, as much of this episode has been seen many times before in various home invasion movies.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I certainly have fun watching this episode because of the gore. Also, Peter Giles makes an excellent villain here, as he’s just the right amount of charm and insanity to make his character both a fascinating and charismatic nutcase.
Unfortunately, this episode suffers from much of the same issues that plague basically every episode in this series: it’s well put together, the set pieces are lovely, but in the end, the whole thing feels like a watered down version of something I’ve seen many times before. Still, it’s amusing that the whole drama starts from the resentful wishes of a petulant Cody that acts like this is oppression, that is appropriation—a typical American college kid, in other words. If anything, this episode only drives home the message that it’s better not to waste money by sending kids to an American college!
