Okay, I watched Cabin Fever last night for the first time and in between laughing and being disgusted, I was thinking about just how enjoyable this is considering the things I've heard. it's actually a really solid horror-comedy and is better than any of these intentional horror homages like dudebro party massacre. the intentional cheesy atmosphere almost turned me off but i stuck with it and even with the intention to create that cheesy atmosphere, eli still delivered a solid film and while it might have worked with a more serious tone, its attempt to balance the horrors of the people in the cabin with the surrealism/absurdity of everything else makes for a much more entertaining movie. you have the cop that seems straight out of a skit with him constantly talking about parties and while at first he just seems like a dumb, young cop tryna make a friend, you then see him ride off on a bicycle ringing its bell. it's so ridiculous but it really works because it doesn't rely on these moments to be enjoyable like the aforementioned movie - instead of making those elements the main attraction, they just exist in the world. the pancake scene is insane but what's even crazier is that it basically leads to a revenge plot and invents tucker and dale vs evil along the way. I haven't seen the remake but i just saw that ti west (???!!!) directed the sequel before his big break which is even weirder (but another point to roth's strength as producer, but i'll get to that later). cabin fever is essentially a modern evil dead and the best "cabin horror" movie since. i love cabin in the woods but that quickly veers more into horror-comedy, like evil dead 2, whereas cabin fever and evil dead 1 both have more serious/horror tones.
and this weird movie came out the same time as the ring, blade 2, resident evil, halloween resurrection, jason x, and basically a lot of other movies that definitely weren't like this.
then he went on to create the hostel series which unfortunately got hit with the bad rap of being torture porn, even though the first one wasn't really full of it. the concept of hostel alone is interesting and frightening, playing off people's fear of both traveling and going to small countries. an underground torture ring full of rich, powerful people from across the world preying on tourists. it does a solid job of building that up and some of the people paying for this experience so it doesn't feel just like a disconnected threat. it feels and seems a lot worse when you see the background of the people paying for this experience, their reluctance or enthusiasm, etc.
and the series somehow got better and better; the 3rd one is still pretty good, even though roth had nothing to do with it. the series' closest comparison is saw and it seems a little unfair to compare the two. even with saw having a plot that gets insanely convoluted - the main draw is still the traps, the violence, and gore; its attempts to say something more about the violence almost always falls flat with no real depth behind something like amanda creating inescapable traps and even with them trying, it's hard to care with the plot being so unnecessarily confusing. the audience knows that. the directors know that. the plot was written around the traps and shit. hostel's violence was designed around the plot.
he had the thankskilling trailer in death proof and that had such a positive reception that people constantly asked for him to develop it into a real movie. who knows if it ever will.
but instead he created the green inferno. a modern homage to cannibal genre movies of the old. the movie received so much hype on the festival trail and with roth comparing it to the classic cannibal holocaust (but with a herzog eye!), but it ended up in release hell where it was delayed for two years before it finally released. a gory movie that basically showed why those films aren't made anymore - it was panned for its lack of scares and excitement. fair complaints. it does lack the impact of cannibal holocaust, which had the low-quality camera quality, timing of filming/release to help make its impact bigger. cannibal holocaust sought to criticize documentarians by portraying them as selfish, harmful people that burned villages to stage scenes and find enjoyment in doing so; when the climax happens, it seems well deserved. the "savagery" of the cannibals wasn't unprovoked and was an interesting tackling of cultural relativism and voyeurism. green inferno's targets are the same as the internets. the characters are rich environmentalists and eli roth tackles the subject of superficial volunteerism by having the main character only really get involved because she's interested in a guy. the group seemingly does no research on their own of the people and situation there. etc. etc. it's actually a pretty decent concept that can be wrongly misinterpreted as an attack on volunteerism in general, which i don't think was the intent.
where the movie falls flat is everything that happens once they get kidnapped. cannibal holocaust did a great job of exploring the situation a lot more and building up the tension. you get dropped into the situation quickly and it escalates quickly. inside the cage once captured, there really isn't much there besides roth displaying gruesome images every other scene. that works if you're interested in the gore but the comparisons to cannibal holocaust makes it fall flat. the tension starts coming from within the cage with the characters plotting their escape and taking advantage of each other. some entertainment comes from that but there's really not much there that can happen, especially with the cannibals becoming more background threats compared to what's happening in the cage. i enjoy the movie but it's definitely a disappointment.
he follows that up with knock knock, a throwback to erotic-thrillers with keanu reeves starring. knock knock is a subversive home invasion movie that involves reeves being tortured among other things by two beautiful strangers. it builds up tension well even though something immediately strikes you as wrong - but it could be either side, really. the main criticism around this was the shift in tone and it not being played as serious as it should have been. others say its his best movie because of that and it's a possibility the movie is a comedy or a satire of the film he's remaking and the genre in general. i actually don't remember much of this movie so i'm not gonna speak on it a lot.
i can't think of any other modern horror director with such an interesting filmography and ideas. he's not robert eggers or even james wan; he's kind of in a league of his own and really more reminiscent of someone like sam raimi. now he's gonna be directing bruce willis in a remake of death wise.
if not roth, who else?
and this weird movie came out the same time as the ring, blade 2, resident evil, halloween resurrection, jason x, and basically a lot of other movies that definitely weren't like this.
then he went on to create the hostel series which unfortunately got hit with the bad rap of being torture porn, even though the first one wasn't really full of it. the concept of hostel alone is interesting and frightening, playing off people's fear of both traveling and going to small countries. an underground torture ring full of rich, powerful people from across the world preying on tourists. it does a solid job of building that up and some of the people paying for this experience so it doesn't feel just like a disconnected threat. it feels and seems a lot worse when you see the background of the people paying for this experience, their reluctance or enthusiasm, etc.
and the series somehow got better and better; the 3rd one is still pretty good, even though roth had nothing to do with it. the series' closest comparison is saw and it seems a little unfair to compare the two. even with saw having a plot that gets insanely convoluted - the main draw is still the traps, the violence, and gore; its attempts to say something more about the violence almost always falls flat with no real depth behind something like amanda creating inescapable traps and even with them trying, it's hard to care with the plot being so unnecessarily confusing. the audience knows that. the directors know that. the plot was written around the traps and shit. hostel's violence was designed around the plot.
he had the thankskilling trailer in death proof and that had such a positive reception that people constantly asked for him to develop it into a real movie. who knows if it ever will.
but instead he created the green inferno. a modern homage to cannibal genre movies of the old. the movie received so much hype on the festival trail and with roth comparing it to the classic cannibal holocaust (but with a herzog eye!), but it ended up in release hell where it was delayed for two years before it finally released. a gory movie that basically showed why those films aren't made anymore - it was panned for its lack of scares and excitement. fair complaints. it does lack the impact of cannibal holocaust, which had the low-quality camera quality, timing of filming/release to help make its impact bigger. cannibal holocaust sought to criticize documentarians by portraying them as selfish, harmful people that burned villages to stage scenes and find enjoyment in doing so; when the climax happens, it seems well deserved. the "savagery" of the cannibals wasn't unprovoked and was an interesting tackling of cultural relativism and voyeurism. green inferno's targets are the same as the internets. the characters are rich environmentalists and eli roth tackles the subject of superficial volunteerism by having the main character only really get involved because she's interested in a guy. the group seemingly does no research on their own of the people and situation there. etc. etc. it's actually a pretty decent concept that can be wrongly misinterpreted as an attack on volunteerism in general, which i don't think was the intent.
where the movie falls flat is everything that happens once they get kidnapped. cannibal holocaust did a great job of exploring the situation a lot more and building up the tension. you get dropped into the situation quickly and it escalates quickly. inside the cage once captured, there really isn't much there besides roth displaying gruesome images every other scene. that works if you're interested in the gore but the comparisons to cannibal holocaust makes it fall flat. the tension starts coming from within the cage with the characters plotting their escape and taking advantage of each other. some entertainment comes from that but there's really not much there that can happen, especially with the cannibals becoming more background threats compared to what's happening in the cage. i enjoy the movie but it's definitely a disappointment.
he follows that up with knock knock, a throwback to erotic-thrillers with keanu reeves starring. knock knock is a subversive home invasion movie that involves reeves being tortured among other things by two beautiful strangers. it builds up tension well even though something immediately strikes you as wrong - but it could be either side, really. the main criticism around this was the shift in tone and it not being played as serious as it should have been. others say its his best movie because of that and it's a possibility the movie is a comedy or a satire of the film he's remaking and the genre in general. i actually don't remember much of this movie so i'm not gonna speak on it a lot.
i can't think of any other modern horror director with such an interesting filmography and ideas. he's not robert eggers or even james wan; he's kind of in a league of his own and really more reminiscent of someone like sam raimi. now he's gonna be directing bruce willis in a remake of death wise.
if not roth, who else?
