The films of Eli Roth are an acquired taste, or at least for me personally they were. It's not because Quentin Tarantino proclaims that Roth is the future of the horror genre, simply based on having seen "Cabin Fever" that the rest of us genre fanatics obediently have to agree. It took me two viewings before I could remotely appreciate "Cabin Fever" and both "Hostel" movies are quite heavily flawed as well. But there's one thing you really can't deny and that is that Eli Roth is an avid and obsessive lover of the genre and that clearly shows in every film he delivers. "The Green Inferno" is a giant homage – love letter, even – to the temporarily popular trend of Italian cannibal movies from the late 70s & early 80s. This very secluded horror niche contains relatively few titles, but each and every single one is a notorious and bona fide cult classic. The most infamous and influential one is, of course, Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust", but there are several more beauties out there and Eli Roth refers to all of them here, like "Deep River Savages", "Cannibal Ferox", "Mountain of the Cannibal God", "Jungle Holocaust" and "Cannibal Apocalypse". In case "The Green Inferno" triggered your appetite – so to speak – make sure that you track down all these controversial but hugely fascinating films.
The beautiful and ambitious freshman student Justine joins an environmentalist activist group led by the charismatic Alejandro, as they are about to travel to Peru in order to protest against the deforestation of the Amazonian rain forest. After a successful, but for Justine very traumatizing confrontation with the deconstruction workers and their bulldozers, the group's ramshackle old plane crashes down in the jungle. Many of the group members die instantly in the crash or in freaky accidents, but the fate of the survivors is even worse as they are promptly surrounded by a tribe of red-colored cannibals. During their captivity in a cage, fear and desperation takes the upper hand while some of the group members – most notably Alejandro – show their true cowardly and repulsive nature. Jungle and cannibal exploitation movies are associated with extreme gore, shockingly explicit ritual killings and copious amounts of bloodshed. Eli Roth certainly doesn't cut back on grotesque violence, as I hoped and expected, but he was wise enough not to include or refer to any real animal killing sequences which made "Cannibal Holocaust" so controversial. "The Green Inferno" evidently isn't suitable for viewers with weak stomachs or sensitive nerves, as several characters are torn to pieces, impaled, beheaded or eaten alive. Although nicely disguised and face-painted (particularly the headhunter and the Elder lady) the extras playing the cannibal tribe members don't come across as too menacing or bloodthirsty, at least not in comparison to the old Italian movies. In a movie handling about primitive tribes and straightforward massacres, you obviously can't expect too much underlying tension or intelligent plot twists, but Roth and his co-writer Guillermo Amoedo nevertheless tried their hardest to provide the characters with some depth and the script with some political insights. Another thing they do rather well is bring variety and surprise in the order the group members are picked off. Some of the characters' deaths come unexpected and quicker/later than I thought. Unfortunately, however, it does remain an Eli Roth film and he continues to make annoying mistakes over and over again I'm referring to an overlong first half hour in which practically nothing happens except for a lot of blah blah (although it's not as bad as in "Hostel"), the use of infantile toilet humor (the tarantula sequence or the ridiculous diarrhea moment) and downright idiotic stuff (like getting an entire cannibal tribe stoned by hiding a little bag of weed in a corpse about to be cooked). But hey, although flawed and badly acted most of the time, it's definitely my favorite Eli Roth film! Oh, and apparently Mr. Roth is also married to the incredibly cute (and 17 years younger than him) lead actress Lorena Izzo. Way to go, Eli!
The beautiful and ambitious freshman student Justine joins an environmentalist activist group led by the charismatic Alejandro, as they are about to travel to Peru in order to protest against the deforestation of the Amazonian rain forest. After a successful, but for Justine very traumatizing confrontation with the deconstruction workers and their bulldozers, the group's ramshackle old plane crashes down in the jungle. Many of the group members die instantly in the crash or in freaky accidents, but the fate of the survivors is even worse as they are promptly surrounded by a tribe of red-colored cannibals. During their captivity in a cage, fear and desperation takes the upper hand while some of the group members – most notably Alejandro – show their true cowardly and repulsive nature. Jungle and cannibal exploitation movies are associated with extreme gore, shockingly explicit ritual killings and copious amounts of bloodshed. Eli Roth certainly doesn't cut back on grotesque violence, as I hoped and expected, but he was wise enough not to include or refer to any real animal killing sequences which made "Cannibal Holocaust" so controversial. "The Green Inferno" evidently isn't suitable for viewers with weak stomachs or sensitive nerves, as several characters are torn to pieces, impaled, beheaded or eaten alive. Although nicely disguised and face-painted (particularly the headhunter and the Elder lady) the extras playing the cannibal tribe members don't come across as too menacing or bloodthirsty, at least not in comparison to the old Italian movies. In a movie handling about primitive tribes and straightforward massacres, you obviously can't expect too much underlying tension or intelligent plot twists, but Roth and his co-writer Guillermo Amoedo nevertheless tried their hardest to provide the characters with some depth and the script with some political insights. Another thing they do rather well is bring variety and surprise in the order the group members are picked off. Some of the characters' deaths come unexpected and quicker/later than I thought. Unfortunately, however, it does remain an Eli Roth film and he continues to make annoying mistakes over and over again I'm referring to an overlong first half hour in which practically nothing happens except for a lot of blah blah (although it's not as bad as in "Hostel"), the use of infantile toilet humor (the tarantula sequence or the ridiculous diarrhea moment) and downright idiotic stuff (like getting an entire cannibal tribe stoned by hiding a little bag of weed in a corpse about to be cooked). But hey, although flawed and badly acted most of the time, it's definitely my favorite Eli Roth film! Oh, and apparently Mr. Roth is also married to the incredibly cute (and 17 years younger than him) lead actress Lorena Izzo. Way to go, Eli!