I'd hoped for something - maybe a more clearly horrifying, less trashy-exploitative reinterpretation of the 70's Italian shocker that Mr. Roth was faithfully emulating. There WAS something unnerving (and elusive) to "Cannibal Holocaust,"as grubby and amateur an effort that it was. Sadly however, "The Green Inferno" misses whatever that quality was by such a huge margin, one wonders what on earth the filmmaker was thinking. Did he even understand what made that earlier film work?
Cardboard characters with cliché feelings, motivations so caricatured they border on contempt for the audience. We don't care that these characters may perish. Neither the story nor the filmmakers take them very seriously beyond their value as flesh, a miscalculation on several levels.
The internet has conditioned or calloused us to footage of dismemberment, beheading and viscera. This subject was taboo and terrifying in the 70's when one could only see it on the rare videotape - the secretive quality made it so much more forbidden. Today, we actually need more context to be horrified.
The primitive natives could have played a wonderful contrast to the American/European characters, but they were treated with even less interest beyond their basic caricature. A simple look at "Apocalypto" might have given Mr. Roth some pointers about how an alien culture can be horrifying with violence. But there is nothing that lofty here. What the natives do is given the aura of "yikes" rather than dread or horror.
"What is it that makes cannibalism horrifying?" is a question which isn't even asked in this film. The filmmaker takes it for granted that it IS horrifying and leaves it there. There is no exploration beyond the visual; what we do get in terms of exploration feels tame since there is no awareness of why it even needs to be understood.
Horror is not an easy genre to master, we are skeptical about the nature of manipulation. We are more aware than ever about psychology, media, character motivations and what makes stories compelling; it's the reason why TV and film has rapidly become so much more sophisticated. Death requires more context to induce terror - horror movies cannot take anything for granted. Mr Roth's successful efforts concentrate on the issues of sadism/torture and/or the fear of pain. This one takes the subject of cannibalism and doesn't explore it beyond it's basic mechanism.
This is a sad, bland film which is sadder given how much the intent was to be shocking and ghastly. It achieves neither.
Cardboard characters with cliché feelings, motivations so caricatured they border on contempt for the audience. We don't care that these characters may perish. Neither the story nor the filmmakers take them very seriously beyond their value as flesh, a miscalculation on several levels.
The internet has conditioned or calloused us to footage of dismemberment, beheading and viscera. This subject was taboo and terrifying in the 70's when one could only see it on the rare videotape - the secretive quality made it so much more forbidden. Today, we actually need more context to be horrified.
The primitive natives could have played a wonderful contrast to the American/European characters, but they were treated with even less interest beyond their basic caricature. A simple look at "Apocalypto" might have given Mr. Roth some pointers about how an alien culture can be horrifying with violence. But there is nothing that lofty here. What the natives do is given the aura of "yikes" rather than dread or horror.
"What is it that makes cannibalism horrifying?" is a question which isn't even asked in this film. The filmmaker takes it for granted that it IS horrifying and leaves it there. There is no exploration beyond the visual; what we do get in terms of exploration feels tame since there is no awareness of why it even needs to be understood.
Horror is not an easy genre to master, we are skeptical about the nature of manipulation. We are more aware than ever about psychology, media, character motivations and what makes stories compelling; it's the reason why TV and film has rapidly become so much more sophisticated. Death requires more context to induce terror - horror movies cannot take anything for granted. Mr Roth's successful efforts concentrate on the issues of sadism/torture and/or the fear of pain. This one takes the subject of cannibalism and doesn't explore it beyond it's basic mechanism.
This is a sad, bland film which is sadder given how much the intent was to be shocking and ghastly. It achieves neither.