The Green Inferno

Think about the first time you rode some big, new roller coaster. As you waited in line and contemplated what lay ahead, your heart started beating faster. When you occupied your seat, and the picture in front of you began to move, you found yourself wondering what you had gotten yourself into. As you arrived at that first really scary moment, you resisted the urge to close your eyes, even as others around you were enjoying the thrill by thrusting their arms into the air. From that point, everything was a blur of shouts and screams, ups and downs, punctuated by brief moments of relative stillness. Then, suddenly, the ride ended. You were surprised how quickly it went by and, even though you felt a little queasy, you were glad you had the experience. You even may have commented that it wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be, and that you kind of enjoyed it, all as you started to look forward to that next uncomfortable challenge. You just rode a scary new coaster, but might as well have been experiencing the uncomfortable thrill of a new Eli Roth movie… one like "The Green Inferno" (R, 1:40), for example.

Personal feelings about graphically violent movies like the "Saw" franchise or Roth's own "Hostel" films aside, Roth's film "The Green Inferno" has a colorful history. The film traces its roots to cannibal-themed movies made in Italy during the 1970s and 80s. Roth's 2015 resurrection of this controversial horror sub-genre draws most directly from 1980's "Cannibal Holocaust", a movie so realistic that director Ruggero Deodato was arrested and put on trial for the murder of some of the actors in the film. (Deodato was only exonerated after he gathered all of his actors together for a TV show appearance and then demonstrated in court the special effects used to create the actors' "deaths".) That movie's working title was "The Green Inferno", a title which was eventually applied to the most gruesome scenes in "Cannibal Holocaust", specifically, the film within the film that purports to show footage from a missing documentary film crew. (This was the first use of the "found footage" or "pseudo-documentary" device, which was popularized in the U.S. by 1999's "The Blair Witch Project".) The title "The Green Inferno" was later also used as an alternate title for the 1988 sequel "Cannibal Holocaust II". Eli Roth filmed "The Green Inferno" in the jungles of Peru in 2012. His film opened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. It was scheduled to be released in the U.S. in September 2014, but financial problems at the film's production company led to the film being pulled. Blumhouse Productions stepped in and the company's multi-platform releasing arm, BH Tilt, released "The Green Inferno" on September 25, 2015.

After a brief scene of bulldozers flattening a rain forest in the Amazon, the narrative of Roth's cannibal film starts innocuously on the streets of New York City. College freshman Justine (Lorenza Izzo) and her roommate, Kaycee (singer-songwriter Sky Ferreira), are annoyed by the student activists protesting outside their window, but Justine is also intrigued. She attends one of the group's meetings in which their charismatic student leader, Alejandro (Ariel Levy), discusses their plan to save a village in Peru from being overrun by bulldozers paving the way for a natural gas mining operation. The students plan to dress as workers, chain themselves to trees and bulldozers, then live stream video from their cell phones to get the world's attention – and keep themselves from being shot by the armed mercenaries which protect the operation. Justine's dad (Richard Burgi), a lawyer at the U.N., expresses his reservations, but Justine goes on what she naively believes will be a weekend trip to save a native tribe from extinction.

After landing in Peru, everything goes according to plan until their small plane crashes in the Amazonian jungle. Several of the students die in the crash, but the survivors are captured by the very tribe that the group was there to save. Not speaking any English or having had any positive experience with outsiders, the tribe considers their captives their enemy – and their dinner. One of the students is ritualistically killed by the village's elder / high priestess (Antonieta Pari) and then he is promptly dismembered, cooked and eaten. His friends watch in horror from behind the wooden bars where they are confined. What follows are more killings, more feasting and various attempts by the students to escape before the natives finish them off, whether for food, as punishment, or because of their brutal religious practices.

"The Green Inferno" is a wonderful family movie. (Still reading? Just checking.) Actually, the film is more restrained than I expected. There's much less nudity than in previous Eli Roth movies and the gore, as disturbing as it is, could have been a lot more graphic, given what's happening on screen. Most of what's shown is on par with typical slasher flicks. You might even say that this is a relatively… tasteful cannibal movie. The story's solid, the acting's fairly decent for this genre and the film works as a horror movie, a thriller, a political commentary and there's even some dark comedy. Some call this kind of movie "torture porn". I think that's a stretch, but the more graphic scenes make it difficult to simply call this movie "entertaining" without qualifying the term. I judge movies based on how entertaining they are and how well they each accomplish their individual goals. Based on those measures, I'd have to say that, much like that big, new roller coaster, this movie isn't for everyone, but many will find it bloody good. "B+"

If you were hooked (pun, ha ha) on the SAW movies then this film will be a good after meal snack. Yes, it was way overboard meal preparation and surprisingly realistic body snacks (in most cheap slasher/slice/dice films the prosthetics look artificial). Filming and acting were better than expected and sold me. Part of the reason the acting was somewhat capturing was the reality of a tropical Peruvian forest and the gusto in which the novice tribal people took to their roles. End result is nobody (including the eco provocateurs, tribes peoples, deforesters) came away smelling like roses, in fact, I would not have been displeased if, in the end, they were all munched upon by the resident leopard, vanquisher of evil. A couple of picky points that lowered the rating. First, every tribal member (no matter the age) was totally painted in red clay like pigment - all the time; not realistic given the humid conditions and time they would have needed to apply said substance. Second, all the women (and young girls) wore tops to cover their breasts which as we all know about tropical tribes - that just doesn't happen. Third, why would the village attack the construction armed mercenaries in a clearing given their stealth in a forest. Fourth, a lot of gaps foremost was Samantha's escape then we hear nothing more. Supposedly we are suppose to pay attention to tattoos. Suggestion: Watch again, afterwards, with cast commentary as it's more interesting than the film.

Eli Roth is a director whose style is evolving, reaching a more refined level. In his beginnings he was much more direct and dirty, if I may say so, which has its advantages, because he gave you what you were looking for, a no-holds-barred gore, which sometimes turned into real fun-fests, but at other times became excessively repetitive and flat. This level up helps to cover up what for me, is his biggest Achilles heel, his limited level as a dialogue writer, which still hasn't improved. Focusing on The Green Inferno, we have a clear homage to the Italian cannibal cinema of the 70s and 80s. If you're familiar with Cannibal Holocaust or Cannibal Ferox and liked them, you'll surely love Green Inferno, but if you disliked those, I don't think this is the film for you. Because let's face it, when you're about to see a film whose plot is cannibalism in the Amazon, well, Roth isn't fooling you. He may offer it to you in smaller quantities than you expected and yet it's still more substantial than the average level of horror today. Perhaps what most sets him apart from the older films is that first part of the film with a social critique never before seen in Roth's filmography. The presentation of the characters, both activists and indigenous and their interpretations are more than correct. You get to empathize with some of them, which may not be very pleasant when you know what awaits them... The music by Manuel Riveiro is a success, as well as the photography by Antonio Quercia and the FX by Ozzy Alvarez.

Because let's not fool ourselves, hell may be green, but its smell is red.

Eli Roth is a director whose fame certainly goes before him. These days you don't really get many directors unashamedly dedicated to the horror genre like you did in years gone by. I like Eli Roth for this reason and I do find him a somewhat engaging, funny and entertaining guy. On the flip side I would have to say that I have found his output to be somewhat patchy and uneven. And frustratingly sparse at that. The Green Inferno is his first feature film as director since Hostel: Part II from way back in 2007! It's a long time to be out of the game. The question would have to be has he came back in a good way? Well, despite the undoubted promise of the central idea, it's a film that is kind of as frustrating as most of his other work.

The basic idea here is to bring back a type of movie that only really existed briefly over thirty years ago. The cannibal film was a particularly notorious sub-genre. Most of the films got banned here in the UK; some still remain so to this day in their uncut forms. Their combination of graphic violence, sexual assault and real animal killing made them real bad boys of the horror genre. Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is the one film that Roth has mentioned in particular as an influence and for this viewer it is easily one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. Its docudrama, found footage style mixed with a proper mean-spiritedness made it a pretty gruelling film but very well made. The Green Inferno takes a decidedly different approach to its material and it's not always a successful one. Where Holocaust was relentlessly confrontational, Roth's film is often quite jokey. This approach means that the tone overall fluctuates wildly but it definitely dissipates the overall threat posed by the cannibals. The choice of protagonists points to the change immediately in that it centres on a group of eco aware students who travel into the middle of the Amazonian rain-forest to stage a viral protest against some environment destroying workers, needless to say things take a bad turn and they wind up captive by a tribe of cannibals. The very fact that the film centres on a group of students makes this film surely the first cannibal film that doubles up as a teen movie! It's an awkward combination with a pretty ropey script and – the main girl played by Lorenzo Izzo aside - unlikable characters. The social commentary is not so unexpected for this type of movie, as Cannibal Holocaust had that too but it is modernised considerably here – the target is after all viral warriors who are more interested in being famous than for doing the right thing.

So how does it work simply as a horror movie? Well, it certainly has its fair share of gory violence. But it has less impact than it should because of the silly jokey tone that permeates it, even once the students have been captured. Because they aren't taking their situation seriously enough, it's hard for us in the audience to either unfortunately. The on-location photography certainly adds a fair bit it has to be said and the cannibals themselves are quite distinctive too, in particular the more prominent members of the tribe were somewhat creepy. I can't help feeling though that if Roth had reigned in the silly stuff and went full-on with this material with a more disciplined approach then it would have made for a far better film. It feels slightly like a missed opportunity and I am sad to say this as I was really on this one's side and had quite a bit of optimism for it.

The Green Inferno is a standard Eli Roth fare - gore galore, cannibalism, and occasional humor - set in the Amazon rainforest. The acting is terrible right off the bat, but thankfully it isn't an issue halfway through the movie when the body count starts up. The characters themselves are paper thin, only about 3 of which are given actual personalities while the others are just fodder for the natives.

The premise of the movie is disturbing and will sound appealing to most horror fans, including myself, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, the gore is done very well; as usual Roth uses great practical effects to create some wince-inducing scenes. The problem is that the first half of the movie feels like a student film. Really bad acting, horrific dialogue, and the documentary style filming doesn't help at all. It's not so much an issue once the characters are captured, but you aren't able to get immersed into the world from the get-go so you're never truly frightened or concerned for them when the bloodshed begins.

The biggest issue is that The Green Inferno isn't scary in the slightest. Apart from a cheap jump scare near the end, there's little to no suspense or tension in the movie. It's just a linear storyline with characters getting killed off one by one with very little left to the imagination. It also isn't funny. There's maybe two times I chuckled at the tongue-in-cheek jokes. Most of them come across as forced, partly due to the acting and partly due to the jokes not being very funny. Roth tries for a darker, more disturbing atmosphere and he succeeds, but he sacrificed the potential fun to be had with the film. It's not terrible - Eli Roth fans will get exactly what they're expecting - but it also isn't anything new. The Green Inferno is a decent effort but a wholly mediocre movie watching experience.