Caníbales

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 (2013)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A group of college students decide to head to South America where they're going to protest some developers who are damaging the rain forest and threatening a tribe that has lived there for thousands of years. Their plan doesn't quite work when their plane crashes in the jungle and soon the survivors have the unlucky fate of being served up for dinner.

Eli Roth's homage to the Italian cannibal movies of the 70s and early 80s is a rather mixed bag. After the movie was over I really didn't know what to think about it because there had been so much hype built around it. For the most part I don't think the film lived up to the hype but this is going to depend on your knowledge of the genre. If you have no idea what CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, EATEN ALIVE and CANNIBAL FEROX are then there's a great chance that you're going to be shocked and horrified at what you see here. If you're familiar with those films then you're going to see THE GREEN INFERNO as a watered down American film.

Again, it's really hard to judge this movie but I'm overly familiar with the Italian cannibal movies so let me get that out of the way. I think this film is going to shock, outrage and gross out the majority of the people who watch it as there's no question that this contains some of the most graphic and goriest violence that has ever been in an American film that had to go in front of the MPAA. How this got a R-rating is rather shocking in itself and it really makes you laugh when you watch something like this and think at one point something like SCREAM had to be cut to avoid a NC-17 rating. Again, the gore effects are rather great with many practical effects that are quite effective. The gore and violence, again, will shock most people.

With that said, if you're familiar with the brutal films in the genre then you're not going to blink an eye here. There's really nothing shocking, outrageous or too graphic if you're familiar with the films that I mentioned before. This movie certainly doesn't have the animal violence but it also doesn't have the graphic rape, mutilations or any of the infamous moments from those films. You'd think that this homage would wink at those movies and their graphic moments but the film doesn't even try. This just gives the movie an overall watered down feel that fans of the genre are going to notice and especially when you consider that there's not even any real nudity in the picture. If you can't show nudity then you know certain elements of violence aren't going to be shown.

I think another disappointing thing is that the jungle settings really aren't used. Those Italian movies worked so well because you could enjoy them as adventure stories but that's not the case here. I will say that the build-up was a lot more entertaining than I expected it to be because the violence doesn't happen until the last portion of the movie. The performances are certainly better than you'd expect with Lorenza Izzo making for a good and likable lead. The story itself is okay with some sly humor thrown in at times but then again there are some really stupid moments. There's one girl in the cage who gets "sick" and this scene is just downright stupid. There's an incredibly awful jump scare towards the end, which will have you rolling your eyes.

THE GREEN INFERNO is a decent movie but at the same time it doesn't quite live up to all the hype that people have created for it the past couple years.

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.

The Green Inferno is another one of Eli Roth's torture porn films, except this movie looks on cannibalism, which is meant to pay homage to one of the most controversial films of all time, Cannibal Holocaust. And the film decently establishes the lurid nature of this environment, but it takes too long to get to the creature feature, and when it does get there, the supposed shock value isn't compelling enough to become a satisfying torture porn. And the story then twists to something that is supposed to mean something, but it ends up feeling odd and underwhelming. It could have been just a straightforward exploitation film.

The movie has a pretty long opening exposition, concerning a young woman who was invited by a group of activists who wanted to save the Amazon rainforest by orchestrating a scandal to the loggers for online awareness. But this setup is so long, it has to be establish its own "world" even if it hardly has anything to do with the main plot, we're just walking around with these campy written characters that are often tough to care about since they are caricatures of a standard tree hugger or just another horror movie character cliché. To be fair, the movie's strange sense of humor does make these scenes entertaining, but in the end, these people are just not so engaging. We sometimes wanted some of them to get wacked off by a bunch cannibals already.

And when they get to the real threat of the story, it does deliver, maybe only works once. The first body count, well from these main antagonists specifically, is honestly pretty bizarre, by how effectively grounded this slaughter is depicted. I'm no expert for realistic violence, the amount of blood surely is ultimate, but you can really feel the horror within the images and tone of this scene. And the horror didn't stop at the aftermath by just keep showing how they feast this body until they feed leftovers to the animals and such. But everything else just went ridiculous. Sure, there are still more guts and blood all over the body counts, but they fall short of credibility of horror in cannibalism compared to the first kill. It's basically silly gore for the sake of earning more "shock."

The point is it's not that compelling. Complaining at the over-the-top moments can be missing the point of the director's flavor at his own work, but it kind of really does underwhelm the whole ingenuity of this horror. But even if we're just judging by the amount of blood in the entirety, it still doesn't feel that much. Again, one bizarre death scene doesn't hold up any satisfaction of bloodlust within the entire movie. Now the filmmaking, it's average enough for a B-horror film. Though, the camera showcases enough of the weirdness of this culture and the body parts they are decorating for their tribe or something. The acting is alright, with Lorenza Izzo competent enough as the protagonist who we could only legitimately inserted into. The rest are basically cookie cutters compared to this cookie cutter.

The Green Inferno can be worthy of glorious gorefest for one scene. One scene, only. And that scene serves the shock the movie is expecting, but for sick mind like mine, the movie kind of needs more of that. It's sad to watch, but it does create more genuine danger towards the people they are supposed to run away from. Everything else just kind of bogs down the suspense, letting the silliness take over until the movie itself becomes a joke. And I'm not against to its sense of humor, since they do work, while some are just meant to gross out, specifically when it involves something else than gore. Well, there's no denying how violent it still is, but it's also kind of forgettable. The characters are even more so, but who cares about them in a horror film? But if this film is expecting to have the same value or controversy as the movie this is inspired from, or at least marginally, then it could have done harder.

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.