Eli Roth - C/D?

I liked Cabin Fever, it balanced the humor/gross outs with scares wthout just being 120 minutes of watching people suffer.

Hostel wasn't as objectionable as SAW, but it was still awful.

i like hostel & hostel part 2

first hostel is really awesome

i have only seen hostel, which some of my horror-buff friends rate but i thought was pretty ho-hum. the only bit that felt sort of interesting to me was the malevolent street kids (symbolic of amoral capitalism trumping all, if you choose to weigh the movie down with more allegorical resonance than it can support).

(i didn't think it was really very repulsive, which was kind of a relief but otoh it probably would have made more of an impression if it had been repulsive.)

What slocki said! I'm partial to the first one (for Paxton being an asshole w/ a brain in his head, for making the revenge bits of the flick totally satisfying, and for the moments of levity working better; the kids in Hostel 2 don't feel like they belong). I like Cabin Fever a lot, too, thought the tonal shift of final quarter of the flick doesn't really do anything for me.

Did Hostel 2 really shit the bed, box office wise?

ya it did.

i thought it was a clever & entertaining sequel.

and i think ppl who find them morally repulsive are silly.

Those folks need to spend 15 minutes with any one of the August Underground flicks to see what morally repulsive really looks like.

Hello tubes!

$35 million world wide on a production budget of $10.2 million (not counting DVD sales / rentals, but also not including ad budget?) can't be all bad, can it? Doesn't hold a candle to the return on the first one, but it's not like this was Harry Potter.

Anyway, I blame Turistas.

liked cabin fever & hostel, thought hostel 2 was garbage in the end.

ok so what is good about hostel? i was pretty disappointed in that movie all the way around -- plot, acting, not being scary. it was the not-being-scary in particular that disappointed me. even the weaker j-horror stuff i've seen usually has some moments of serious creep-the-fuck-out, but i didn't get that in hostel.

fwiw i didnt really care for cabin fever.

i thought it was a clever & entertaining sequel.

-- s1ocki, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 04:38 (39 minutes ago) Link

otm.

also i realize that not being scared is a very subjective measure so i can't really ask anyone to explain why they were scared and i wasn't. i'm just curious what in particular makes roth a name brand, distinguishes him from the b-horror pack. for instance i've also only seen one lucky mckee movie -- may -- and i didn't think that was great either, but it had enough style to make me understand why lucky mckee is a sort of name brand. i didn't get that from hostel.

I started this topic after reading the Grindhouse trailer poll and thinking in general about how the Thanksgiving trailer is close to flawless, and yet the Hostel movies, especially the sequel, didn’t receive the same attention or praise. Is it that Thanksgiving was more overtly satirical? Or that it was two minutes of horror-movie money shots instead of red herrings and slow-building suspense? Or did Thanksgiving play to Roth’s strengths in some other way? (Not unrelated, Hostel and Hostel: Part II seem to divide people in a way that’s very similar to Cloverfield, as far as whether the American lead characters are vapid or sympathetic, or both, or neither, and whether it matters. In all three cases, I think the filmmakers were very aware that they were creating American characters that somehow reflected this particular decade.)

I didn't find Hostel at all scary. As a movie it had a few interesting beats here and there but nothing terribly memorable.

maybe i missed the point if it was supposed to be scary. i mean i jumped a few times but i just thought it was really entertaining

I think the filmmakers were very aware that they were creating American characters that somehow reflected this particular decade.

sure. and in the case of hostel connected them explicitly to the dracula lineage of naifs abroad in weird old europe, which of course you can spin into any allegory you want. to me the movie just didn't do anything very much with either the characters or the setup. the plot is a pile of cliches, which is ok as a starting point, but i was kind of hoping for some sort of twist on them or something and felt let down. (with the exception of those village kids, who were a nice little x factor.)

ok, why is it "silly" to find a couple of torture flicks morally repulsive?

Can't speak for S1ocki, but maybe because dismissing the Hostel movies as nothing but "a couple of torture flicks" is very shortsighted and even willfully disingenuous. If one dislikes the genre, or doesn't like the gore, etc.; fine - but these movies are trying to do/say/be something (even if they arguably fail on some counts). To me, a lot of the dismissal of these movies reeks of modern kneejerk PMRC-ism (i.e. most of the people hating haven't even seen the stuff being discussed; much less considered it in any kind of context whatsoever).

(oh, and classic - as a horror buff, I'm happy for any non-remake flicks with even a glimmer of imagination, which Roth definitely has)

I thought Cabin Fever was a hoot (if flawed), but Hostel was kinda disappointing after all the hype, I didn't even see many reviews or trailers and still felt like there were nothing I didn't expect, so I never bothered with the sequel (which, if memory serves, wasn't so much a total flop at the box office as it was a reality check for people who thought there'd be a sequel doing big numbers every year like for Saw).

I like Cabin Fever better overall but I think the last third or so of Hostel when it starts the frenzied vengence stuff is the best Eli Roth. Interesting TS: Hostel vs. Naked Prey

apparently he's directed Stephen King's cell phone lolzombie story next?

IMDB sez he's attached, but is still weighing his options. :\

They other thing he's mentioned doing next is "Trailer Trash"; a 'Kentucky Fried Movie'-style movie compiled of lots of 'Thanksgiving'-esque fake previews. Which I think would be really fun.

Hostel 2 is basically a flat-out black comedy

how do you guys feel about Roth as one of those camera hog directors that keeps putting himself in little roles and does more press than the stars of his movies? he seems kind of obnoxious, but I lol'd @ "yeah, he's a professor...OF BEING A DOG! OOH, FACED!"

he's no worse than tarantino on that front

yeah but in a way the fact that he's all buddy-buddy w/ Tarantino makes his following of that pattern all the more unseemly.

I'll allow him his bit parts if he keeps throwing in cameos for the likes of Takasi Miike, Ruggiero Deodato, Edwige French, etc...

Did he even have a cameo in Hostel 2? Regardless, his cameos are a lot less ingratiating and more self-effacing than QT's, so he's got that going for him.

I'm not sure I find the torture-porn flicks morally repulsive, they gnerally just fail as entertainment, and I find the combination of torture and boring to be disagreeable.

I've got no problems with gore - but it needs to be scary or funny. Cabin Fever, as I said, is really good, and I loved The Devil's Rejects.

'hostel' is probably the best-directed of the so-called torture porn flicks, and definitely the best (out of the american ones, anyway). i hope he does 'cell'.

ok, why is it "silly" to find a couple of torture flicks morally repulsive?

-- J.D., Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:21 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Link

i find that as an argument it is never really thought-out and willfully ignorant of what horror movies are.

Yeah the onus of the "moral" arguments seems to be "ew this is gross guys why are you watching this," and that sort of argument completely misunderstands how horror movies work.

Forrest Gump, OTOH, is morally repulsive.

i was trying to think of actually repulsive movies earlier and gump was one of the first to come to mind.

I enjoy his stuff, it's got a degree of personality and charm that I think is refreshing for the genre. It's certainly more likable than the mass conniption of indignant critics over the evils of "torture-porn" these past few years anyway. Fuck's sake.

he's kinda classic for the brilliantly smug way he gets under cavuto's skin here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5nOl1oeP4Q

that's the thing though. i don't care for the films, and fortunately don't have to watch them. but roth is a real dbag for this 'it's all about abu ghraib' malarkey. why not be honest about enjoying watching people being hurt?

i didnt realize that was a sincere stance of his, i thought he was running with cavuto's absurd premise. i agree thats bullshit.

The 'political commentary' might be BS, but I don't think enjoying or making a film like Hostel = SADIST.

xpost

horror (or any) movies are always about the present day. why is it outrageous for roth to acknowledge that??

i mean "DESPITE iraq and terrorism, horror films make big bucks"?

no, thats cavuto's supposed standpoint; im talking about my disbelief in the kind of grand-narrative roth is apparently peddling. bringing it up when challenged to do so in that framework as he was is totally legit but if what banriquit sez is true it just sounds like outright bs defensiveness. ie, he's definitely not making those movies BECAUSE of iraq & terrorism.

He may not be making movies because of Iraq and terrorism, but I can totally believe he's making THESE movies in part because of Iraq/Terrorism.

people will dress up any old rubbish as being about iraq/terrorism -- TWBB, no country, etc.

hi there are some dudes being tortured by american soldiers

hey there's a sudden resurgence in movies about gruesome torture

WHAT A COINKIDINK

Darn does those filmmakers having ideas about STUFF going on like right now!

http://files.splinder.com/0561238eb5c8ec8601ade7b39d43fddb.jpeg

those sorts of readings are fodder for alt-weekly film critics and are usually pretty boring.

nrq i know you don't really get on board with the whole idea of psychoanalyzing culture, but the creation/success of these movies has got to suggest to you that a portion of the american populace is guiltily fascinated by the gruesome, and these movies are a way of dealing with the abjection/guilt of knowing their tax dollars went towards some horrifying shit.

this isn't intended to be a reflection on the average horror viewer of course, but it's an element that exists.

guiltily fascinated by the gruesome that's seen/not seen on the nightly news

those sorts of readings are fodder for alt-weekly film critics and are usually pretty boring.

-- omar little, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 11:55 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

totally agree w/ this

"those sorts of readings are fodder for alt-weekly film critics and are usually pretty boring."

Uh no they are pretty much part and parcel of all criticism in the latter quarter (at least) of the twentieth century. Seriously if it doesn't make sense to you, don't be a lit major or film student cuz you won't like what people are doing to Dickens and I Spit On Your Grave.

well most of the time it's bullshit being used to fill up space

(xpost)That doesn't mean they can't be boring in the hands of alt-weekly film critics though haha.

i mean sometimes it's otm but then you get people assigning iraq readings onto that alligator movie with that prison break choad and it's enough already

What about the alligator movie with the Alias guy? Are those okay?

think its more that sociopoliticizing visceral pleasures in this fashion is pretty dumb - if people like enjoy seeing other people tortured in cinematic format, its not because of a war being waged several thousand miles away, its because of some native element of humanity xp

sometimes it's not totally off-base, but it's usually pretty zzz. eg drillbit taylor is about an army deserter: IT'S AS IF JOHN HUGHES SAW ALL THIS COMING.

deeznuts i don't wanna turn this into CHALLENGING CULTURAL CRIT OPINIONS or anything but i think that people are aware that there is a war going on, and that (to an arguable degree) it affects their anxieties and the way they think about things and what they think about. does it affect the movies they choose to go see? maybe not Viewer A or Viewer B individually, but the large scale success of the films is suggestive of something shared.

xp

Let's say Obama wins in November and the Geneva Convention laws are reinstated, and 100 years from now this ends up being the one decade ever in which the U.S. sanctioned torture.

The two Hostel movies aren't set apart from this decade -- and in fact they're quite different from the 1990s violent-movie ideas about pop culture somehow being the catalyst for our darkest desires (see Funny Games, Natural Born Killers, etc., etc.). Hostel: Part II especially focuses on two American businessmen who sign up for the program and work through their Neil LaBute issues in an environment that permits them to have any amount of control that they want. And just as a movie about Germans in the 1930s will always be seen in the context of Nazism, this movie will give a little window into the dreamlife of Americans in this decade. Especially because these two movies deal with Americans in the context of the rest of the world (unlike Saw et al), it really is more than alt-weekly fodder to make the comparisons.

that'll make for a really boring thesis in 2108

Well, when we're a second class country then and folks want to understand why, it would be a place to start.

that paper will lead the way

The stuff that Sabrina Harmandealt with is not just everyday American life, and we won't always be the practicioners of torture, but it is part of our "brand" in this decade, especailly outside of the U.S.

i look forward to your exciting thesis on [whatever film you repped on that film thread i didn't read]

xp to nrq

hoos, im not denying that there may be some kind of effect on the mass psyche or whatever. but i dont think these arguments explain the success of such films (why wasnt hostel ii as if not more successful than hostel, much less far far less so?). in other words, these criticisms may be somewhat interesting in & of themselves, & there may be some truth to them - but their basic premise is horseshit & its mostly a masturbatory exercise.

BIG HOOS goin' negative

damagin my image as the idealistic enthusiastic top poster

ppl should thinking about and analyzing stuff. it's so masturbatory.

i dont get paid for masturbating, do you?

i don't need to watch a film to know that torture is bad and americans are all fucked up.

it makes most sense to me to see it all as ideas moving through the culture. it's silly to pretend that things in pop culture don't reflect things elsewhere in the culture. not so much cause-and-effect as conscious and subconscious thematic assocations.

i guess that stuff is boring to some people, but those people just shouldn't read criticism.

i mean do you reject any reading of culture whatsoever, or just this one?

i dont get paid for masturbating, do you?

-- deeznuts, Wednesday, March 26, 2008 12:14 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

in the sense that you're describing... yes.

(I mean, I've got a whole other theory about how Silence of the Lambs was such a big hit because it was released at the same time as the start of the first Gulf War, and everyone needed a rollercoaster ride with a beginning, middle, and end to relieve the tension of those few weeks.)

i think criticism is by definition a selfish projection of the critic & should be distrusted; when the critic tries to apply his reading to the populace en masse it should be distrusted even moreso xp

hey slocki if thats so then link me? i wont be mean i promise, just genuinely curious

it's silly to pretend that things in pop culture don't reflect things elsewhere in the culture. not so much cause-and-effect as conscious and subconscious thematic assocations.

the second sentence is permission to print shitty cult-studs money. srsly tho. let's not actually think about how the medium and the business work; let's instead draw "interesting parallels" between cloverfield and 9/11.

also it's not pop culture relfecting the culture but "reflecting" Our Times. this isn't even a thing -- of course it does. but does it say anything interesting?

well whether it says anything interesting is the question, right? upthread i was asking what anyone thought was interesting about hostel, since i didn't particularly think anything was. but there's a difference between thinking hostel isn't very interesting and thinking there's no connection between having a public debate about torture and the emergence of something called "torture porn."

but does it say anything interesting?

This is precisely the question you seem to be rejecting out of hand. Maybe we need Dave Q to come in here and turn "Americans be into torture cause some dudes be torturin" into "Hostel vs. Faster Pussycat Kill Kill" or something

(and just because there's a lot of iffy cultural criticism doesn't disqualify the general impulse to try to make sense of the culture.)

xpost hoos otm

what the hell are you doing reading this message board if you think that talking and thinking about culture is a waste of time?

(a funny answer would be "wasting time!")

another explanation of the 'culture' might be that quentin tarantino was appearing on every talk show on earth to hype the film at the time, that it received pretty fantastic publicity for a horror flick, & that it therefore made a lot of dime xp

that what be the correct answer, but at any rate what am i doing now, slocki??? im just saying that some of the weirdo overarching plotlines critics try to ascribe to pop phenoms bug me, basically

i don't wanna see girl with eye hanging out of socket, is all, and i am CONSTRUCTING ELABORATE REASON FOR NOT WANTING TO.

HAH

DO YOU SEE?

lol u british

:D jokes bruv

low blow

amazing low blow [started by chaki, last updated 32 seconds ago]

lol u guys i haven't even seen these movies :D :D

that what be the correct answer, but at any rate what am i doing now, slocki??? im just saying that some of the weirdo overarching plotlines critics try to ascribe to pop phenoms bug me, basically

-- deeznuts, Wednesday, March 26, 2008 12:31 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

well i have no problem with disagreeing with them... and i am really wary of over-generalizations. but it seems to me that people tend to want something very specific out of entertainment & storytelling, and thinking about why that is is interesting.

i think that for the most part people want something very entertaining & distracting out of their entertainment & storytelling! i think the same of pop music, & thats the main reason i dont typically bother to read music crit. i'd argue that it's actually easier to read a film like hostel as 'entertaining & distracting' than it is to read it as something designed to play off our fears of the war in iraq or the tortures inflicted at abu graib.

i'd argue that it's actually easier to read a film like hostel as 'entertaining & distracting' than it is to read it as something designed to play off our fears of the war in iraq or the tortures inflicted at abu graib.

sure, that's a valid and straightforward read, but that doesn't mean it's the only valid read.

yeah, but...i think its easily the most accurate in terms of explanation of success or endearment, which is what im getting at

except that it's kinda like saying people like food because they're hungry. it's true as far as it goes, but it doesn't tell you much about what kind of food, or why some people like some food better than others, or why certain foods cycle through popularity at certain places and times, and how what's happening with food in barcelona affects food in chicago, or vice versa, and on and on. (not to mention all the times people eat when they're not even hungry to start with.)

or why people are 'entertained' or 'distracted' by any given thing.

Eli Roth: When I’m filming a kill scene [as a director], I just get happier and happier as we chop up body parts. Like when we cut the eye out and the eye goo runs perfectly, I’m so happy, because I know the movie’s going to work. Because I know that those are the scenes people are… In Hostel, those are the scenes people are paying to see, so it’s like once you’ve got those scenes filmed and shot, you just breathe easier, because the whole movie is building up to those moments.

that is not the least bit psychotic at all

I went to a screening of Inglorious Basterds at USC with a Q&A w/ Roth at the end. We ran like hell out of there as soon as the credits were rolling.

You guys...what?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQGA42-U0Ro

Fuck that. I will not allow him to ruin one of my favorite childhood books.