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Is Eli Roth the most interesting modern horror director?
- Thread starter Rembrandt
- Start date
Funny thing about Get Out and Peele is that the opening segment of the movie is the most closely aligned horror scene in the entire movie and it's really really good. Everything else in the movie is couched in horror-adjacent methods like paranoia and social discomfort. I'd love to see Peele attempt a true blue horror movie.
There's much more going on in the Hostel movies than torture porn.
The second film especially has some profound subtext.
Roth is mediocre because he's uninteresting. He says nothing of value or substance. There's no real human insight.
Bitch you barkin up the wrong fuckin' tree
I'm from Oakland, HO!
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not at all. roth has much more constraint than zombie and is a much better director overall.
i think there's a very obvious human insight with the hostel series. even his attempts at social criticism with the green inferno.
what human insight are you talking about exactly? and is this a complaint you would use against evil dead for instance?
saying something of value or substance is a weird metric alone to use for a horror movie director being uninteresting.
I don't think associate Roth's directorial style in most cases with words like constraint even if Zombie is more gratuitous overall.
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I wouldn't either but I also wouldn't say him and Zombie are similar directors or are on the same level.
Of most interesting or best?
Two different things but I would interested in seeing your top 10 most interesting horror directors.
When I say similar I mean the general quality of their output. I also don't think Eli has done anything nearly on the level of the Devil's Rejects but to be fair, neither has Zombie.
Came for Na Hong-jin. Thank you.
Maybe keep Julia Ducournau on the radar? Had her very competent debut with RAW last year.
And what about Pascal Laugier? Haven't heard anything from him after Martyrs though.
Not a fan of Eli Roth. I've only seen Hostel 1 + 2 though. Hated them.
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Zombie has much lower lows. I don't think Roth has made anything as bad as 31 either which can be almost aggravatingly bad because of zombie's excess, which is why I mentioned Roth having more restraint in that comparison since a bad zombie movie is made even worse by his directing style.
Raw was great.
Laugier made the tall man after. I've seen a little bit but eh. Martyrs came out at the right time. New French Extremity was getting a lot more attention in the states.
Eli Roth's horror movies haven't been relevant since last decade. I did enjoy Green Inferno for what it was, even though he insists on making every one of his characters obnoxious.
For some odd reason, he makes his female characters throw out gay slurs in most of his movies.
"That's soooo gay, OMG!"
For some odd reason, he makes his female characters throw out gay slurs in most of his movies.
"That's soooo gay, OMG!"
I would say that Green Inferno is worse than anything Zombie has made, and 31 was borderline unwatchable.
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I would love to hear why.
If anything, it's incredibly average considering the concept and it's inspirations.
Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani just came to my mind, too.
I like their neo-giallo approach. Amer was competent, and L'étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps was very enjoyable just for the style, especially the set design and the lighting. Haven't had a chance to see their new feature, Laissez bronzer les cadavres. But reviews seem promising. And man, let them continue making movies if we get more of these beautiful posters!
I like their neo-giallo approach. Amer was competent, and L'étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps was very enjoyable just for the style, especially the set design and the lighting. Haven't had a chance to see their new feature, Laissez bronzer les cadavres. But reviews seem promising. And man, let them continue making movies if we get more of these beautiful posters!
Okay. Not on my priority list then.
Honestly, the only thing I remember from watching the movie is cannibal munchies, which is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in a movie. Its the kind of terrible movie, where I only remember the experience of not being able to wait for it to be over. If I wasn't watching it in a theater, no way I would have sat all the way through it.
The only interesting thing about his films if you are someone with a better than average knowledge of the genre is picking apart the scenes to see if you can figure out which better film he stole it from. I can see why someone who casually watches his films might like him but if you meet the requirements I mention it's pretty easy to see he is a thieving hack with no actual original ideas of his own. And unlike Tarantino he doesn't even remix things into new and interesting formations that make it unique, he just wholesale lifts shit from other older, better movies.
Green Inferno and cannibal movies are a love it or hate it subgenre. It was "problematic" in the 70s, and it's problematic now. But if you can get over the idea of the native other as a amorphous mass of the unknown and generally evil (for the sake of the plot), they can be fun, which is what I thought abouit Green Inferno. I had a good time watching this idealistic college kids who talk a big game about saving the world being sledgehammer-ed by a reality they don't know.
31 was terrible, but that opening scene and the midget nazi helped the movie go down smoother than it should have.
I like the older Cannibal movies, animal cruelty aside. There's something about the way Roth builds up to things that bugs me. The first 30 minutes to an hour of his movies normally make me check out by the time the gore starts flying. They always feel not cohesive to me, like someone jammed two movie halves together. Only movie of his that felt cohesive to me is Cabin Fever, which isn't great, but its ok.
He's a bit of a budget director. I think he builds his movies around cool scenarios instead of an actual storywhich leads to some paper thin characterizations. I still enjoy them for the most part. I'm really curious how Death Wish is going to be.
Roth is serviceable as a genre filmmaker. When he gets delusions of profundity and tries to make social statements in his work, that's when it all falls apart.
I thought Knock Knock was a fantastic thriller if you imagine it was filmed over a weekend and the Eli and Keanu were taking a break from their other movies.
Sure, I was thinking about including him because I think It Follows is modern horror classic however it seems he's not doing any more horror at least any time soon.
Will Jordan Peele continue to do Horror movies? I was pretty sure it was only a one-off thing, but I could be wrong.
Edit: yeah, apparently https://www.gq.com/story/jordan-peele-horror-movies
Cool, didn't think he would go that route.
No way. Easily the most overrated director in horror along with Rob Zombie. Even though I've had my gripes with some of his work, Ti West has made the best horror film in modern years with House of the Devil.
Yeah, He plans on doing more "social thrillers". He said along with Get Out, he's had other similar ideas about other social issues and exploring them with horror.
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thanks, i'll have to check them out. i've been trying to get into giallo recently, so these should be interesting.
there were a few scenes when they're in that cage that seem out of place like the whole diarrhea bit. green inferno was a definitely a disappointment.
really interested in that death wish remake. supposedly the script is really good so it'll be interesting to see how he handles it. has potential, though.
that's disappointing. while i think the witch is overrated, i'm definitely on the side that considers it follows and it comes at night classics. the latter deserves all the praise the witch got, honestly.
I haven't seen all of his works, but what I have seen leads me to believe he thinks 70s and 80s exploitation films are the height of horror, and he's tried to recreate that with better budgets and effects but the films are still garbage. There is an interesting idea in Hostel, the underground sale of people for slaughter, but it's couched in xenophobia and terrible stereotypes, and the film helped usher in the new wave of gore-oriented films (I'll thank him for the New French Extremity, but the American films that followed were terrible).
His producing is a little better because he believes in other directors who seem to have a more deft hand at their craft than he does. I appreciate he wants more horror films, he's just not good at writing compelling or scary films, so it's a give/take situation.
His producing is a little better because he believes in other directors who seem to have a more deft hand at their craft than he does. I appreciate he wants more horror films, he's just not good at writing compelling or scary films, so it's a give/take situation.
I liked Cabin Fever and really liked Hostel, but Knock Knock was just terrible beyond belief. It was hard to watch.
Eli Roth is the kind of director that failed upwards rather quickly and is now stuck in a weird spot where he can get work, but only because he can work for cheap and get films done quickly. The only appreciable footprint he's left in the genre otherwise was being the primary driver for the creation of the "torture porn" descriptor, and even if you're the kind of person to use the term unironically, he's not even the best director for those kinds of films.
I don't think he is, but only because I haven't seen his movies. and the OP is a well-written and convincing argument for how his career has been interesting—not necessarily good, but always clearly a guy working in dialogue with his knowledge of the history of horror cinema.
That's the thing: I like Wan and Flanagan and Peele and Eggers a lot, but I'd find it difficult to say any one of them is the most interesting director in horror. Either because they're "simply" fantastic craftsmen (Flanagan and Wan) or because they haven't made enough yet to evince common threads (Peele and Eggers).
Ti West is the answer in my mind. Like, The Sacrament sucks. But then The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers are two of the best horror movies of recent years, and Trigger Man and The Roost show that he has a perspective.
Others I think are worth keeping an eye on are Oz Perkins and Jennifer Kent and Sean Byrne.
That's the thing: I like Wan and Flanagan and Peele and Eggers a lot, but I'd find it difficult to say any one of them is the most interesting director in horror. Either because they're "simply" fantastic craftsmen (Flanagan and Wan) or because they haven't made enough yet to evince common threads (Peele and Eggers).
Ti West is the answer in my mind. Like, The Sacrament sucks. But then The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers are two of the best horror movies of recent years, and Trigger Man and The Roost show that he has a perspective.
Others I think are worth keeping an eye on are Oz Perkins and Jennifer Kent and Sean Byrne.
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I liked the sacrament! i need to give the innkeepers another shot. ti west's career has been interesting so far. his part in v/h/s is one of my favorites.
Like you said, I find a lot of them to be great directors but not truly interesting in their work. they can handle material and make fantastic scary movies - but their work seems a lot more classical, to me, which isn't a bad thing. Peele has a lot of potential because it seems he wants all of his work to be subversive and he has the ability to tackle a lot of tropes from a totally different perspective; it's just too early to say he's the most interesting in horror now.
in regards to Oz Perkins, should i jump in with the blackcoat's daughter or i am the pretty thing that lives in the house?
I'm super excited about kent's next movie and thanks for reminding of byrne! bryne is a really great choice; his filmography is short but he's been on a roll of making "different" horror movies. the loved ones takes a lot of really surprising twists and turns - it's so good. the devil's candy was great, too.
Jeremy Saulnier has my attention, too. he's only done green room but that movie was so fucking good. he has the potential to make really grounded horror movies if he decides to stick with that. Along with Mickey Keating and the Soska sisters. American Mary is quality body horror and their part in ABCs of Death 2 is nuts in the good way. I would love to see them with a bigger budget or at least more push behind their work.
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oops, i meant to clarify. i meant in the horror genre, but yeah, blue ruin is an incredible movie.
Yeah, I'm not really getting it. He made one amazing movie, which wasn't even exactly a horror film to begin with
Let the dude get a few flicks under his belt first.
Hostel Part III is better than the first two? What? I don't even know how such an opinion can exist and I have my fair share of controversial opinions. What does Part III do better?
No
Roth is basically that scene from Inglourious Basterds. More of a let down than anything else.
Roth is basically that scene from Inglourious Basterds. More of a let down than anything else.
