Eli Roth Drops New Fake Trailer The Piano Killer Ahead of Alien Gorefest Jimmy and Stiggs
Eli Roth is back at it, proving once again that sometimes the bloodiest jokes take decades to land, with a fake trailer for The Piano Killer.
Back in 2007, Roth set horror fans buzzing with a splatter-filled, fake trailer for Thanksgiving tucked inside the Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse double feature. The gag was so good, he started cooking up a bigger scheme — a feature-length carnival of absurd previews called Trailer Trash. It was meant to be a buffet of twisted “coming attractions” like Nascar Dog, Bear Witness, and Farmageddon, with assists from Edgar Wright, Robert Rodriguez, Peter Berg, Howard Stern, and effects master Greg Nicotero.
The dream never made it past the drawing board, but after seventeen years, Thanksgiving finally clawed its way to the big screen. And now Roth is dipping his hands back into the bucket of cinematic mischief with a new spoof: The Piano Killer.
This latest faux trailer is currently unspooling before Jimmy and Stiggs, a riotous, gore-drenched alien invasion flick — but thanks to the magic of the internet, you can watch Roth’s latest brainchild right now. True to form, the teaser closes with the promise “Coming in 2042,” a sly wink at the long, strange wait between Thanksgiving’s fake debut and its eventual full-length release.
Roth’s been busy elsewhere, too. Earlier this year, he launched The Horror Section, a company hell-bent on creating all things terrifying: films, TV, podcasts, games, you name it. Its first big move was acquiring the distribution rights to Jimmy and Stiggs from writer-director Joe Begos, teaming up with Iconic Events to blast the film into theaters nationwide on August 15th.
Jimmy and Stiggs is no slow-burn sci-fi — it’s a neon-lit fever dream. Begos plays a down-and-out filmmaker convinced he’s been abducted by aliens. He ropes in his pal, played by Matt Mercer, and the two plunge headfirst into an intergalactic vendetta. On The Boo Crew podcast (via Bloody Disgusting), Begos described the opening: “I play a coked-out filmmaker who is at the edge of his wits… the opening scene is him just melting down.” The meltdown’s shot in first-person POV, and before the dust can settle, aliens swoop in for a high-octane abduction sequence.
From there, reality unravels. The protagonist wakes up dazed, pieces of the memory bubbling to the surface. His friend shows up to stage a drug intervention — just in time to get snatched himself. The aliens seal the apartment shut, warp his thoughts, and turn the place into a psychedelic warzone.
Fuelled by an alien implant and the desperate need to stay awake, our hero binges on cocaine and painkillers while blasting away at his attackers. Blood sprays in vivid neon. Lights flicker and warp. The camera spins like a drunken carnival ride. Then, just when things seem over, the friend returns… only now he’s infected. Cue abduction number two.
Originally planned as a tight 35-day shoot, the film ballooned into a sprawling production split across multiple phases. The silver lining? Every alien you see is a practical animatronic, not a CGI render — a love letter to old-school monster movies.
Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving started life in 2007 as a gleefully gory fake trailer within the Grindhouse double feature. Packed with holiday horror clichés and outrageous kills, it quickly became a cult favorite among slasher fans. After years of fan demand, Roth expanded the concept into a full-length feature, transforming the one-joke grindhouse homage into a brutal, suspense-driven slasher. The finished film centers on John Carver, a masked murderer who turns a small Massachusetts town’s Thanksgiving celebrations into a blood-soaked nightmare, blending dark humor, inventive kills, and seasonal dread into a modern holiday horror staple.
Between Roth’s tongue-in-cheek Piano Killer and Begos’s wild-eyed Jimmy and Stiggs, horror fans have a summer lined with nostalgic winks and fresh chaos. And if The Piano Killer really is “coming in 2042,” you can bet Roth will make the wait worth it… and probably a little bloodier than you expect.
