The Green Inferno (2013) Review - Director Series
After the lackluster return from Hostel Part 2, Roth took a break from the director’s chair. He made a fake trailer called Thanksgiving for the Tarantino/Rodriguez double feature Grindhouse, which became a full feature in 2023.
From 2007-2012 he took a break from filmmaking off to other ventures. In 2012, he co-wrote two scripts, the Chilean horror/disaster film Aftershock as well as The Man with the Iron Fists. He also produced the found footage gem The Last Exorcism in 2010 and its subpar sequel in 2013.
In 2009 Roth announced he was going to make a disaster film called Endangered Species In 2013, Roth said he was suspending work on Endangered Species for The Green Inferno. Shooting began in late 2012 in Peru and Chile.
Roth met his first wife, Lorenza Izzo while working on Aftershock in 2012. He would cast her as the lead of his next directorial effort The Green Inferno. The film follows Lorenza’s Justine.
A college freshman who feels helpless in this terrible world and wants to do something to help. She joins a student activist group on her college campus who recently got health insurance for the janitors. Next, they’re headed to the Peruvian jungle to stop the deforestation.
While seemingly stopping the large corporation from deforestation they celebrate on the plane out of the jungle when it crashes. There a tribe of head hunters come upon them and take them captive for their meals.
It was no secret that Roth was inspired by the Cannibal exploitation films of the 1970s, especially Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust. Deodato’s gnarly film is a found footage masterpiece, one that was so real he was arrested in Italy for murder until the cast came out of hiding.
The only found footage film to have a better marketing campaign since is The Blair Witch Project. In the time of Social Media, a marketing campaign like this would be too difficult to pull off.
This leads me to my main issue with this film. All filmmakers take inspiration from films they love Quentin Tarantino has made an entire career of it.
However, what makes Tarantino good is he makes those inspirations his own, they don’t feel like a steal, but he reworks it into his own vision. Paul Thomas Anderson does this as well.
As of now, I wouldn’t say Roth is a bad filmmaker, but The Green Inferno feels like less of an inspiration and more of a, I just love Cannibal Holocaust and wish I would have made the film.
Cannibal Holocaust is remembered over 40 years later because of the genius marketing as well as the quality of the film, and the horrors that lay within. The film still looks real, even now when we know everything is staged. Except for the unfortunate animal cruelty.
The Green Inferno is too glossy to be scary. It’s the first of his films that feels like shock for shock’s sake. All because Roth just wants to make a film as nasty as his beloved Cannibal Holocaust.
Though I don’t believe the film is necessarily bad, but it doesn’t merit its existence. Many others felt the same as Survival International for its portrayal of indigenous people.
The film does have a message inside of all the goriness. The depiction of well-to-do white college kids with more money than knowledge of how to help.
However, it doesn’t stop them from inserting themselves into problems that did not exist. Yet, they think it’s a problem because a certain civilization does not live the way they are living.
It’s a common and just criticism of the upper-crust elite liberals. A group of people that had not had crosshairs on them before or since until Get Out.
Also, Roth casting his girlfriend soon-to-be wife Lorenza Izzo could’ve been a disaster, but she proves she can hold her own and carry a film.
Unfortunately, she has not had the career you think she might after carrying consecutive Roth films. She did have a minor role in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The film isn’t bad, but unfortunately, Roth doesn’t do enough to make this film feel like his own creation inspired by one of his favorites. It’s why this will eventually be forgotten to time while Cannibal Holocaust will remain in the cinematic conscience.
3.5/5 Stars
