Monday, September 28, 2015

The Green Inferno review



Ah, Eli Roth. A name in modern horror that truly divides fans of the genre straight down the middle. Some love his work, while it seems others absolutely hate him and his "lame attempts at shock-horror". 
My opinion on Roth: he's a hell of an idea man, a really good filmmaker and does a good job at casting his films. His problem? Eli is dreadful when it comes to dialogue. Absolutely horrific. It's the grace of the talent of the actors that seem to save his films from becoming laughable farces. 
Roth is obviously a fratboy douchebag, so he only knows how to write fratboy douchebags. See literally every character in Cabin Fever and Hostile. 
Ironically enough, I feel that Hostile Part 2 is Roth's best written film, and that features a main cast of female protagonists, juxtaposed to the knobs in the first Hostile, or the mixed nuts of males/females in Cabin Fever. 

This brings us to Eli's latest(and first directorial effort in 7 years), The Green Inferno, a cannibalistic love letter to Italian flesh eater cinema of the Grindhouse era. 
The plot goes as this: upon hearing news of Ugandan Tribes being wiped out by Big Business who want to mine the lands that the Tribes inhabit, a group of college activists fly down to make a difference. Sadly, their plane crashes in the middle of the jungle and the students are captured by the cannibalistic villagers. You can guess what happens next isn't pleasant, and you'd be right. Lots of blood, gore and pooping takes up the remainder of the film, all while what's left of the students try to figure out an escape, before they end up passing through the small intestines of the locals.
I loved The Green Inferno. It moves at a good pace, does an excellent job with the characters(we still have to put up with Roth's lousy dialogue, though it's not as bad here) and the gore is uncomfortable and awesome. 
Sadly, it would seem that Inferno will likely be a box office bomb, although it's still possible for it to recoup it's 5 million dollar budget. This is important, because with the endlessness of found footage exorcism remakes that seem to be glutting main stream horror, the genre needs more diverse films like The Green Inferno to shake things up. 
Hopefully we don't have to wait another 7 years for Eli Roth's next film, because he seems to be growing as a filmmaker*.

*there's a certain diarrhea scene that makes me question this statement.