The Green Inferno (2013)

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nThe Green Inferno (2013)

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nDirector: Eli Roth

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nCast: Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Daryl Sabara, Sky Ferreira, Nicolas Martinez

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nWhen a director dedicates his career to horror films the waynJohn Carpenter or Wes Craven did, it’s something special. Even more so today,nwhen in my opinion, horror films have gotten the shaft by Hollywood. The gloryndays of horror films are long gone, supplanted with watered down horror fornthirteen year olds. So when a director like Roth continues to make horror filmsnin spite of the way horror films are being treated by Hollywood, then I paynattention, then I applaud. I mean, technically, by making films like The GreennInferno,  Eli Roth is going against thengrain, he’s fighting for this type of film to get out there, to be seen. LikenRock and Roll, gory horror films aren’t dead yet. I speak this way coming fromnthe perspective of a guy who lived through the glorious 80’s, a time when gorynhorror was king in cinemas and films like Cannibal Holocaust (1980) wouldnactually get released in theaters! A time when Hellraiser films didn’t gonstraight to video! So, is Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno worthy of celebrating?nIs it a true throwback to the glory days of gory horror?

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nThe film is all about these activist college kids who wantnto tie themselves up to some trees in the middle of the Amazon jungle, you knownto protect nature from the evil corporations who want to take the trees down innthe name of ‘progress’. To these kids, this jungle belongs to the tribes thatnlive in them! Problem comes when the plane they came in crash-lands in thenmiddle of the jungle and the college kids are abducted by a tribe of hungry fornflesh cannibals! Will the college students escape with their lives? Will theynsee civilization ever again?

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nThe Green Inferno is the kind of film you hear about fornyears and years before you actually get to see it. For example, it was made waynback in 2013, and its only now, in 2016 that I finally get to see it. This typenof delayed release happens with films of this graphic nature, because majornHollywood studios don’t really want to back this sort of film up. They don’tneven want to spend the money marketing it, because to them, these types ofnfilms are made for a cult audience, a small niche of freaks who willnundoubtedly love it. To the rest of the world, this is a disgusting film,nworthy of rejection. And it’s true, this is the way these films are perceivednby the grand majority of people. I suggested The Green Inferno to somencoworkers, I spoke of the films connections to Cannibal Holocaust, showed themnsome pics. Their reaction? The general consensus was that I needed psychological treatment. Typical.nIt’s safe to say that this film is definitely something gorehounds will nondoubt appreciate, everyone else will find it too disturbing. The gore is trulynsomething on this one. I mean, the camera does not shy away from thenbloody bits. In this sense, The Green Inferno got things just right. Also, kudos to Roth for actually shooting in Peru, in the jungle in the middle of nowhere, it makes all the difference in the world.   

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nBut is it a good movie? I say yeah, it entertained. Itnshocked. It complied with all those things you are meant to see in a cannibalnmovie. My only real gripe with the movie were some situations that werendownright silly, I counted three of these situations. The problem with thesenunbelievable situations is that they takes you out of the film, which is sondeadly serious most of the time. Okay, I’ll get down to it, if you don’t wantnto read about this scene, skip to the next paragraph [SPOILER ALER! SPOILERnALERT!] So the scene that was extremely silly and unconvincing was this scenenin which the young college dudes who have been caught by the cannibals decide it’sna good idea to put a bag of weed inside of one of their dead friends, so thatnwhen the cannibals eat her, they will all get high. The idea being that thisnwill give them a chance to escape. It’s not a bad idea, the problem is that it’snnot enough weed to get a whole tribe high. Worse part is they put the weedninside of a plastic bag, which would not allow for the body to absorb it? Thenwhole scene just made no sense. Soon enough the whole freaking cannibal tribenis high on weed and laughing and ha ha ha…the big payoff is of course that thencannibals get the munchies, and kablam, there is the punch line of the wholenthing. I get it. But it was not pulled off in a convincing matter. [END OFnSPOILER] Sadly, this was not the only nonsensical moment in the film.

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nThough effective, The Green Inferno (2013) does not reachnthe levels of tension and intensity that say Cannibal Holocaust (1980) reaches,nthe latter being the most obvious influential film here. Eli Roth even includesna list of all the Cannibal films that came before The Green Inferno in the endncredits, so it’s safe to say that The Green Inferno is a film that paysnrespects to a sub-genre that has long gone; society deemed these types of filmsntoo strong, too much. Plus, it’s hard to make money of a type of film that notneveryone has the guts to see. A lot of people can’t take seeing cannibalsneating eyeballs and tongues, even if it’s all actors and special effects, it’snthe concept that gets people uncomfortable. For example, Cannibal Holocaust wasnbanned in many countries, people stood up and walked out of theaters becausenthey just couldn’t take it, the director had to go to court to prove the actorsnwere not harmed or killed while filming, I mean, Cannibal Holocaust shook thenfilm industry back in the early 80’s. The Green Inferno feels like an afterthoughtnto all that, a homage every step of the way. In my opinion it needed betternactors, these characters were too squeaky clean to ever attempt anything likenthis. I mean, okay, they were activists, but activists who do this sort ofnthing aren’t preppy, rich kids looking for an adventure. The young actors weren’tnthe best choice in my book, they didn’t feel like the kind of people who’d pullnoff a stunt like this. I guess that was the whole idea, to thrust rich daddy’sngirls into the middle of hell itself, but it’s just one more element that wasn’tnpulled off convincingly. Why does Eli Roth continue to populate his films with unlikable protagonists? All thatnaside, I ended up enjoying The Green Inferno, in an age where horror films arende-horrified, or watered down, I applaud this one for being so ‘in your face’.

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