Hostel

[polkablues]

Rented this the other day.  It was good.  I was impressed.  Easily light years beyond Cabin Fever.  Barbara Nedeljakova should play every role in every movie made from now on.

SPOILERS AHOY

I like movies that jump genres throughout the duration, and Hostel definitely does that.  My favorite section was right in the middle, after Oli and Josh get taken and Jay Hernandez's character is trying to figure out what's going on.  It reminded me of -- and this may seem like ludicrously high praise, but bear with me -- the original The Vanishing.  The ominous tone that Roth builds up here, especially when he goes into the coffee shop and sees the girls, and then when they're riding in the car to the "art show", shows that Eli Roth is more than just a horror director, and might in fact be better at non-horror than he is at the gory stuff.  I'd really love to see a straight, moody thriller from this guy at some point in his career.

[Fernando]

Barbara Nedeljakova should play every role in every movie made from now on.

She's no Imbruglia.

[MacGuffin]

It reminded me of -- and this may seem like ludicrously high praise, but bear with me -- the original The Vanishing.

That was one of the films (along with Audition and The Wicker Man) Roth mentions on his commentary track as influencing Hostel.

[Gamblour.]

Good? Impressive? hmmm I thought the film was poorly written and some sort of frat boy fantasy. Weed, naked women, endless coffers...not to get all Mulvey but the film is this hyper-masculine world where Europe is theirs to conquer with their upper-middle class means. I mean, that's not fucking backpacking. Backpacking is about roughing it and not knowing if you have enough money to eat that day. I know the background is secondary in this film, but the Americans with that money to throw around are truly repulsive. And the objectification of women was bizarrely inherent, even in the cinematography. Like the check-in girl at the hostel, the camera actually tilts down to check out her ass. It's strangely sexist. And homophobic. And the way the characters say "gay" and "retarded" all the fucking time...I guess people do say that, but you know they're usually the most obnoxious people.

[MINOR SPOILERS]
Each character was a cliche. The fanny pack joke was not funny. The scene with the crazy doctor with the gun went on for too long. The meathead's backstory about the girl drowning was so obtuse and blunt. The toe-chopping to toe-nail clippers was a good cut. The escape was mostly good. The eye and puss was mostly ridiculous.

[polkablues]

not to get all Mulvey but the film is this hyper-masculine world where Europe is theirs to conquer with their upper-middle class means.

That was the whole point.  They saw these foreign countries as their very own pleasure palace to exploit, and then the foreign country exploits them in its very own pleasure palace.

Your critique of the movie strikes me as a little strange; kind of the equivalent of watching War of the Worlds and going, "Man, that dude was a really bad father at the beginning."  It's essential to the point of the film that these characters be that way.

[modage]

Good? Impressive? hmmm I thought the film was poorly written and some sort of frat boy fantasy. Weed, naked women, endless coffers...

yeah, the film was supposed to be a frat boy fantasy that turns into a frat boy nightmare.  like slasher films in the 80's killing off the kids who have sex and do drugs, these kids are punished for their excesses. 

[Gamblour.]

I understand your points, but I'm even going past that in terms of the audience for the film. It might cross the line into frat boy nightmare for the characters, but for the audience, it's still this fantasy-violence and an obsession with gore. I'm not saying I don't enjoy that custard-stream of puss from the ocular cavity. I know this style movie thrives on gore...I dunno, maybe I just don't like this genre. I would disagree it's about excesses, that would be a very high proportionality of punishment, especially for the "nice, responsible guy who just wants to get over his girlfriend." Has anyone noted how sin-punishment appropriation is very extreme? Like evangelists were making these types of films? Here, I guess I'm just picking at tenets of the genre, but it's because his violence is sadisitic, almost unjustifiably. And I know that's part of the shock, killing the nice character. But anyway...

And I guess the War of the Worlds comparison is apt, but I feel that this genre is so overdone that it deserves something better than such a typical pairing of archetypes. The cliched parts of the characters reveals the lazy/bad writing. The story itself is pretty interesting. The frat boy fantasy I was detailing has more to do with the phallo-centric camera going on, like the shot where the camera actually tilts to check out the check-in girl's ass. It's not a POV shot, it's just a shot for the frat boys (like Eli Roth).

[polkablues]

The frat boy fantasy I was detailing has more to do with the phallo-centric camera going on, like the shot where the camera actually tilts to check out the check-in girl's ass. It's not a POV shot, it's just a shot for the frat boys (like Eli Roth).

I know what you're saying there, but I would defend that camera-work as an attempt to create a subjective narrative, which Roth does all throughout the movie (for example, when they're chasing the guy in Oli's coat through the streets; none of those shots are POVs, but the way that the camera always just misses seeing his face puts us in the same position as the characters).  The camera checks out the girl's ass because the characters check out the girl's ass, and the film wants us to be complicit in that act.

[Gamblour.]

I like that argument. I think complicity between the film and the audience is a very intriguing realm of thought. For instance, the film Irreversible plays this game between making the audience suffer as the witness and making the audience take pleasure as a complicit spectator. Noe wants to shock the audience and make them aware of their eyes as they watch a 9-minute rape. I think Roth is just trying to appeal to the audience he's clearly geared towards.

Now, are we saying that this film is just fun or that it is actually good? Fun, I can accept, but good...? The writing in the first 45 minutes is just so bad, I would need more justification.

[picolas]

spoils

I think Roth is just trying to appeal to the audience he's clearly geared towards.

i agree. i think i don't like Roth. he's copied himself by making two movies about unlikable teenagers who decide to leave home and end up meeting strange/disturbing characters and dying. and next a sequel.
- i think if this movie had happened, hernandez wouldn't've sought revenge. i think he would've been traumatized beyond traumatization and unable to do anything but go back home.

I'd really love to see a straight, moody thriller from this guy at some point in his career.

i think the fact that roth made the last part of the movie about revenge rather than show the unbelievable pain and sadness this guy would've felt if this had happened and the decidedly very similar kind of story shows that he will never make anything non-horror/non-shock. like shyamalan. he's already frightened of not doing something scary. or he'll have to include at least a few major narrative elements from all his films in each of his films.
- i really really disliked and was annoyed by hernandez's performance up until the torturing when it was still the same but harder to notice. until then, in every shot, he puts an inhuman amount of effort into pretending to not be putting any effort into anything.

there is so little to like about his character and pretty much everyone in the movie. i think it's dumb that the unlikable character things are written so consciously.
- i liked most of the story aside from the ending and another couple of things i didn't think would happen. i was horrified/shocked a lot. it was mostly well made too. visually and.. rhythmically (pacing, editing, camera movement). i give it a sideways thumb. but i don't like roth's attitude.

[Gamblour.]

yes, absolutely

[children with angels]

I pretty much agree with Gamblour about this. Saw it the other day and found myself objecting to iit (morally, politically, whatever) much more than I usually do to - even more conventional - horror movies.

As an extreme horror film (of the American 70s exploitation variety, meeting recent Japanes Miike-style stuff) being crossed with the more conservative 80s teen slasher flicks it delivers to an extent. The concept is nice (though underexplored), and the execution of the violence is pretty sound (though not as shocking as it likes to think it is).

Personally though I just couldn't get past the extreme misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia of the movie far enough to really like it. I don't buy that Roth is making much of a comment on his Americans abroad. Firstly, yes you can obviously see that this is a frat boy fantasy gone bad but there is no question that the only characters we are ever invited to empathise with here are the Americans: like them or not, they are our heroes (particularly hernandez).

SPOILERS
Beyond them, anyone who isn't American or male (apart from the sympathetic Japanese girl), or heterosexual is essentially constructed as grotesque, evil, conniving or dangerous. Sure, you've got the one American guy who's paying for the hostel's services, but he's set up as being absolutely mental (compared to the - possibly - gay 'surgeon' who seems sane but bad by nature) and has thus converted to nasty Eastern European ways (he dismisses the gun in favour of the blowtorch because the comparatively merciful gun is "too fucking American").

The women too are your average evil siren sluts, luring our hapless heroes to their doom with their beauty. They can be righteously called a "whore" when it suits the male lead and can be run over and killed with no worries of conscience (a few people in my audience cheered at this moment). To top this off they may even be that old favourite (gulp...) COMMUNISTS! Based on the bar they're found drinking in with all the Soviet-looking memorabilia.

Stuff like this is obviously some of the very basis of the American horror: fear of the unknown, fear of anything that's not the status quo. But it's been interestingly subverted enough times for it's conservative underpinnings to not be taken for granted - particularly not by a film that seems to want to be compared to more revolutionary horror.

The interesting question I have to ask myself though is why I get offended by the presentation of these European locals in Hostel, but don't get offended by the (much more common) horror movie images of the American South as a backward dangerous place. I guess when it's abroad that is the unknown, the fear of it seems more irrational and reactionary (and less interesting) to me than when its fear of something lurking just outside your own backyard. I suppose as well, if it's the civilised city folk versus the uncivilised country folk, it is at least different degrees of Americanness being pitted against each other, as opposed to an us-versus-the-world mentality that can be easily automatically created in an Americans-set-upon-in-a-foreign-place story.

[MacGuffin]

Interview: Eli Roth
IGN DVD gets down to the nitty gritty with the man responsible for unleashing Hostel on horror fans. Roth talks about his influences and inspirations, the appeal of Asian horror, and making progress on future projects.

In Hollywood, Next Big Things are a dime a dozen. Anyone with a penchant for self-promotion (and a well-oiled p.r. machine) can create enough controversy or 'buzz' to build a resume; for every Tarantino or Kevin Smith, there are a dozen more filmmakers whose debuts disappeared without a trace once their media coverage cooled. All of which is why it is an especially noteworthy achievement when actors, screenwriters and directors survive that first big wave of attention and move on to bigger and better (not to mention more successful) things. Promise means a lot in Tinseltown, but not as much as actual talent - especially if that talent includes the ability to draw in millions of moviegoers over and over again.

Three years ago, writer-director Eli Roth was horror's Next Big Thing. His debut, the gritty tome Cabin Fever, did modest box office but earned him recognition among the genre's notoriously fickle fans; the follow-up, this January's Hostel, took in almost $50 million in receipts, and established him as a true creative presence, particularly in a playing field populated largely by empty provocateurs. Now released on DVD (check out IGN DVD's review here), the film is earning him even more attention - both for its intense violence and the social and cultural underpinnings that elevate it above the ranks of its competitors.

Roth recently spoke to IGN DVD at length about his new unrated cut of Hostel, about the industry at large, and his personal and professional goals as a filmmaker.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IGN DVD: Hi, Eli. I'm glad that you actually got to read the review I wrote. That happens so infrequently and it's good to get some feedback from the folks we write about.

Eli Roth: I read the site, so it was definitely cool when the review went up. I really appreciated that you liked all of that stuff.

IGN: Well, one of the things that has been interesting is the mixed responses I've gotten from readers, some of which say 'I feel the same way,' while others thought I was totally crazy for reading all of these insane things into the movie that weren't there. But that's what's interesting about the movie - it doesn't 'just' operate on a level of pure visceral thrills. How much of that is intentional, in terms of moving away from the current tide of horror movies?
   
Roth: Everything that's in the movie is there for a reason. It's hilarious to me when people read the reviews and say, "well, I'm sure Roth didn't intend this, but you could kind of read this as an allegory for American imperialism." I'm like, what do you mean I didn't intend it? I wrote it. Everything that comes out of the characters' mouth, every piece of clothing they're wearing, every prop - I decided all of that. [But] the most important thing for me is for the movie to be entertaining, and that's number one. First and foremost, people have to like the movie. But I like movies where maybe the first time you saw it, you think about the gore or the chainsaw fight, but then you watch it a second time and you go, oh my God, everything that happens in Amsterdam is actually paralleled later in Slovakia; everything they do to these prostitutes gets done to them. It's all about the commoditization of other people, and every line of dialogue is intentional.

I think that sometimes you're making a movie and things get in there that filmmakers don't intend, but it's all there. When you're writing and producing and directing it, you have a point of view about the world, and horror movies are one way to express that point of view.

IGN: This movie deals a lot with those issues that you talk about - American imperialism, the perception of Americans in world culture.

Roth: Yeah! I just spent four months touring the world. I went all over Europe. I was in South America, Iceland. I went everywhere. And I can tell you that's real. That attitude really exists, and people are tired of it. What most Europeans say are "we love Americans, but we hate Bush" (laughs). I actually went on Fox News on Friday, on Neil Cavuto's Your World Today, and he said, "why do you think people are going to horror movies?" I could have said, well, they're great date movie, but the truth is I think people are really scared right now. They think things are a mess, this war in Iraq - everyone wants it to be over quickly, but it's never going to end. And after Hurricane Katrina the government did nothing to help anybody and everybody just wants to scream and there's no outlet for that. Now you're seeing the ramifications of that: people want to scream. And I think they were so shocked by what I said [because] Rush Limbaugh was going off on me, and there were several conservative radio shows that were playing clips of my interview and now there are all of these ultra-right wing websites that have repeated my interview and are saying, "how could Roth think that [the success] of horror movies is because of George Bush?"

I didn't mean to make it that political. It's not even about Republican or Democrat. But when you're at war and people are scared, people need to scream. And every time anyone gets on an airplane, you're strip-searched. They make you feel like a terrorist. And all you think about as you're going through x-rays and taking off your shoes is "oh my God, is someone going to blow up this plane?" that's become a way of life, but people are still scared and they want to scream. So I feel like it's something that's on people's minds, that people are talking about. I don't think I'm the only person who thinks like that and I don't think I'm crazy for thinking it. Suddenly they've labeled me as a 'Hollywood liberal', and I'm actually a pretty conservative guy. I mean, in some ways I'm liberal but in other ways I'm very conservative, and I was just saying that horror movies reflect the fear of the time, and right now people feel like this war in Iraq is never going to end and this country is spinning into civil war.

IGN: Well, I think if Rush Limbaugh is going off on you then you're probably doing something right.

Roth: I think so too. I mean, I think that as a filmmaker, the best thing you can do is spark discussion. I'm not out to convert everybody to my way of thinking, but I just want to raise issues and at least get people talking about it. I don't think a movie can make everyone change their mind, but I do think it can raise discussions and make people see points of view they haven't seen before and go, "you know, that is actually really screwed up."

IGN: That's also what's interesting about the bonus features, in particular the commentaries, which address anecdotal information, production information, conception and design of the film...

Roth: I tried to make them different for different reasons.

IGN: They allow someone who may be watching the film a second or third time to appreciate different elements of a movie in a genre that has sort of historically been derided or minimized critically.

Roth: It's because it's a horror movie that people dismiss it as stupid mindless violence, and there are plenty of movies that are stupid, mindless violence, and I love them. But it also makes it difficult when you do put thought and other things into a movie, [because] suddenly you get dismissed, and I understand that, but that's why I like putting the commentaries in there. I mean, I don't think anyone would ever watch this DVD and listen to all four commentaries in a row, and I wouldn't want them to - it's too much information for them to digest. The idea is that you watch it, and then you listen to a commentary, and then maybe you watch it again later with a friend, and then there's another commentary. You could own the DVD for four years and always get new information out of it. It's there for you if you want it; it's nothing you absolutely have to listen to.

I try to state at the beginning of each commentary, this one is for the people that want to be filmmakers, or, this one is my story how I went from Cabin Fever to Hostel, and then with Quentin [Tarantino] and Boaz [Yakin] and Scott [Spiegel], those guys know a lot of movies, so it's a lot more anecdotal and stories and joking around. So I felt like obviously the filmmaker commentary, that's not for everybody. A lot of people have come to me and said, "how did you get Cabin Fever made? How did you get Hostel made?" And I want this to be like a record that's more of an informational tool for them. When I was in film school I used to listen to laserdiscs and I looked at that like school, listening to the Scorsese tracks or the Sydney Pollack track on Tootsie - that was like a lecture for me. But I know that's not for everybody, so that's why you have the one with Quentin, and it's just more fun stories, you know?

IGN: In the commentary with you and Harry Knowles, he talks about the distinction between people who see you as a great up and coming talent, and those who don't. How much do you have to kind of court that attention - either on the DVDs or on shows like Your World Today - in order to generate attention and interest in your work?

Roth: Well, sure. When I go on Fox News, I know it's a very right-wing TV station, so I'm definitely going to present an argument that I know is going to get those commentators talking about it. What's amazing to me is - it's hype that can kill you. Hype can be the best thing but it can also be your worst enemy; if people heard Cabin Fever was just some little indie movie that was funny and scary, they loved it, but if they heard "this is the best horror movie ever," and then they saw it, they would be like "this sucks." So it's still the same movie, but it's all what their expectations were, and it's the same with Hostel. I mean, they had a test screening where at the beginning they said, "warning - this is going to be the most violent movie ever made," and people complained that it wasn't violent enough. But when they said, "this is a scary and intense movie," people said "that's the most disgusting movie I've ever seen." So it's all how people are prepared.

I definitely read the sites, and I'm always curious what's going on, but when you see the message boards [saying] "kill this guy," I find it hilarious because I can't believe that somebody would actually get that angry about me. Like, is there that little going on in your life that you really care what I think or what I do? The beautiful thing about horror movies is that no one's being forced to see it. I mean, anyone who's going to see it is actively choosing to see it, so if people think I should stop making movies, you think, well, no, what you should do is just stop seeing them (laughs). Just because I make a movie doesn't mean you have to see it, but there's a lot of people out there that want to be filmmakers and a lot of them are not ailing to take the risks that I took or do the work that I did, and it's kind of the only outlets for their jealousy or vitriol or hatred. I'm not saying I'm immune to criticism, but the negative reviews about my films have generally been negative reviews about me personally than the work.

IGN: I'm more a fan of 'classic' horror films like The Shining and the original Dawn of the Dead, but I think the appeal of Hostel is that it taps into those personal fears in a palpable way but does so imaginatively rather than just by putting it graphically out there on screen.

Roth: Yeah it has no effect. If you show everything on camera, then it just becomes about the special effects. My rule is you shoot everything so you have it, and then in the editing decide how little or how much to put in; that's why when they said, "we need to have an unrated DVD," I went, well, this is my director's cut. Everything I wanted to get in the movie, I got in, so I added thirty seconds just to make them happy. I understand this is a business and you have to cooperate on a certain level; I can't just do what I want. They're spending a lot of money making the movie and advertising the movie, so if that's what they want to do then you do it. But I just thought that anything more would be gratuitous. I didn't want it to be about that. I wanted that to be one portion of it, but not just about that. But then the other problem is that I just wish everyone could just go see the movie because it's called Hostel - I mean, I really do - but you've got to sell it. The marketing people did a great job, but for my taste, I think they gave too much away. Every trailer, I'm like you're giving this away, you're giving that away, but you need to hook people into the theater, and I respect that.

It's true that at our first screening there were two ambulances called; at Toronto Film Festival, these people had no preparation. I went up before the movie and said it's very violent; if you think Emily Rose is a horror movie, this is not that. This is a much more intense, really violent and more realistic film, and some guy left halfway through and fainted on the escalator. Some woman left and thought she was having a heart attack. But they were older people and they were probably not horror fans, but I just thought oh my God, the movie works, and I told Lionsgate and that was what they put all over the trailers. And it's true, but it's almost like I get nervous that it builds it up [too much], because they sort of bring this attitude with them to the movie.

IGN: A few years ago at a press screening for The Bourne Supremacy a kid threw up after the big, climactic car chase, which I thought would give the movie great publicity.

Roth: At the test screenings [for Hostel], the scores were low, and I'm like you've got to realize that when they're saying "don't see this movie," it's a compliment. People are not recommending the movie; they asked them how many would recommend the movie, and only half the hands went up, and that made them really nervous. I said ask the crowd how many of you would recommend it to a horror fan, and every single hand went up. I think you've got to realize that with a movie like Hostel, the highest compliment you can pay it is "don't see it - it's too intense." That's what drove The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre - people coming out of the theater going "you can't handle this movie."

IGN: That kind of brings up an interesting point, which is that studios have stopped screening a lot of films they fear will not perform well with critics. Personally, I think it's a bad idea not to screen them at all prior to release, because I subscribe to the philosophy that in Hollywood, no publicity is bad publicity. It's discouraging that the studios seem to have so little faith in projects they produced...

Roth: No, that's not it. It's piracy. I mean, yes, if they don't have confidence in a movie, they don't want negative buzz to get out and they will just put it out in theaters, but the truth of the matter is the piracy has gotten so bad. I mean, five weeks before Hostel was in theaters, people were trading it on the internet, even before we had an advance screening. Like nobody knows how it leaked out, stuff leaks out from labs, and it's gotten so bad that people are just panicked. Definitely [studios] are nervous about bad buzz, but I do think that piracy is almost like the closer - like "why bother?" Because the genre movies are the ones that get pirated.

IGN: But if those pirated copies are going out, they are going out from the mastering houses, not from videotaped screenings, particularly when security at press screenings is becoming increasingly tight. Do you think that kind of piracy - videotaping screenings - is a real problem?

Roth: You might be right about the advance screenings and the security, thinking about it, because there are usually people monitoring them. But here's the difference: we had a press screening in Dallas, it was November, six weeks before Hostel came out. Now, every journalist was invited, genre fans, security checking for cameras, right? Well, after the screening, the projectionist tells me "I can't wait to watch this later tonight with my friends." Everyone left the theater, and I don't think that guy pirated it because the movie was out before this, but that's the reality. If you have some projectionist who calls his buddies at midnight and says, "I've got a print of Hostel and it's not out for six weeks, so come check it out," there was no security there, and the studio was going to come by and pick up the print the next day. That's the reality of it, and all it takes is one - just one. It's not even having the actual security at the screening, it's like some other person in some other city where your movie is just sitting in some can in some projection booth in Dallas. If some guy wanted to set up a video camera and videotape it, they could have done that in two hours and that thing would be on the internet.

But I do think that piracy is a big problem, and it's going to kill [the industry]. That's why people want to do these day-and-date releases with the DVDs. There's a reason that Hostel came out 90 days after its theatrical release. That thing could have lingered in theaters longer but there was a real concern about piracy, so they said "let's just get the DVD out." And the internet and technology is so fast now, I got so many letters and emails from people saying "congratulations on Hostel, it was awesome." And that was all before [Tuesday]. "I watched your DVD this weekend." I'm like, how the hell did they get a DVD? Well, they downloaded it, and they think that doesn't bother me. You spend a year of your life working on something and a lot of people work on it and spend a lot of money and then people just take it for free in a matter of minutes. It's going to hurt everybody.

IGN DVD: Over the past several years, an influx of Asian horror has changed the way you make and we look at horror movies. Why do you think that Asian horror seems to work so effectively with American audiences?
   
Eli Roth: Just like there are different subgenres of American horror, there are two very distinct subgenres of Asian horror. There's the Asian ghost movie, which is the wet girl with the black hair in her face, like The Grudge and The Ring. The other subgenre of Asian horror is extreme violence - they call them 'shocking Asian cinema'. [This includes] films like Audition, but it started with Battle Royale, those ultraviolent, no-holds-barred films like Suicide Club, Ichi the Killer, and [Takashi] Miike has been the most prolific director of these types of films. So Hostel is very influenced by that style of Asian horror; it's not at all influenced by the Asian ghost films. The reason that these films are so effective is because they don't have limits on them. When a director like Miike is making a film like Audition or Ichi the Killer, he doesn't think "I can't do this because it might offend people or turn some people off." He says, "this is what this movie is about, it's for a specific audience and I'm not holding back. If it scares me and disturbs me then I'm going to film it and make it part of the movie."

When you're sitting and talking to the studios, and I know this because this is what happened to me repeatedly after Cabin Fever, they offer you a script to direct. You go, "well, it's really not that good, but it could be good if you do this, this and that," and they go, "well, we can't do that. We'll never get away with that - this is Warner Brothers. Eli, this is Universal - we can't kill kids." So the studios have this governor on them that says we can't offend people because we want to reach the widest audience possible. What they don't realize, because they're generally not horror films themselves, is that it's the very danger that draws people to these films in the first place. People want to be disturbed when they go see a horror movie. When they go see Hostel, they want to be shocked, they want to be disturbed, they want to be provoked, and the nature of my favorite horror movies are the ones that go into that shocking, disturbing, forbidden territory that you think I can't believe they thought of that. It's so sick you don't want to think about it, but everybody thinks thoughts like that.

We all have very strange thoughts. We don't know where they come from, we don't sit and try to think of horrible things to do to other people, but sometimes you're sitting there and you think, "what if everybody's heads just got cut off?" it's just human nature to think of stuff like that because horrible things happen in the world, so everybody thinks, "God, could that happen to me?" and seeing it in a movie, you think, "oh, I'm not crazy for thinking of that." That's one of the reasons that children respond to fairy tales. It's like hearing someone else say it, that there are these horrible monsters out there, it makes them feel like they are normal. I think the best horror movies really feel like fairy tales for adults.

IGN: What are some of your favorite horror movies?

Roth: Well, it was different. With Cabin Fever, it was very much inspired by Evil Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and John Carpenter's The Thing and Last House on the Left and Dawn of the Dead - American horror of the late '70s and early '80s. Those kind of old school down-and-dirty, kids in a cabin, blood, guts, nudity. But after I made Cabin Fever, I had the privilege of going on the film festival circuit, and I went to Fantasia in Montreal and the Brussels Film Festival, which was all genre films, and suddenly I'm seeing films like Audition, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, films that never make it to a theater in America, and I was blown away. My jaw was on the ground, and I was like, this is where it's at. These people are fearless. You feel like you're in the hands of a dangerous filmmaker, and they're making them for adults and they're not watered down. They're saying this is very violent, and this is harsh and this is what the story is, and if you don't like it, stay away.
   
I said I want to make a film like that. I want to make a film that is not necessarily going to be more violent, but it's going to be a mainstream American wide theatrical release but it's going to push it farther. I want to push the boundaries of the 'R' rating farther than anyone has before in a wide release. What's great is when a film like Hills Have Eyes comes along and the ratings board was giving it trouble, and they say, "but look at what you let Hostel get away with." So it helps everybody get more violence in movies.

IGN: How tough is it to balance that desire to push the limits of the ratings system and make sure that it has a point? [Warning: Spoilers ahead.]

Roth: There was a point at the end of the movie in the original script when instead of killing the businessman, Paxton gets off the train and he sees the guy and the guy is with his daughter. You think he's following the guy in the bathroom, but he doesn't. We trick the audience, and the guy comes out of the bathroom and nothing's happened to him. He's waiting for his daughter and she doesn't come out of the girls' room, and the trick is that Paxton slit the little girl's throat as a way of getting back at the father. When I was writing it, I thought that's a fate worse than death, to have your child murdered like that, and it gets back to this guy. But then the bigger point was that even Quentin and Boaz read it and they were like, "Eli, it feels like you're trying to be the shocking guy. I don't believe that this guy, if he was really a good guy, would kill a little girl. This is the only moment in the script where it feels like you're trying to get the reputation as the bad boy." I said I don't want that. It feels like it's just trying to be shocking to be shocking, and that's not what it's about. We wound up shooting several endings, but I think the one we have is the right one. [End spoilers.]

IGN: Are some of these alternate endings something we might see on another DVD in the future?

Roth: I don't know. When we make the DVD, it's before the theatrical release, so we maxed out the DVD. The making-of my brother did, which I think is really superb, is almost an hour long. With that and four commentaries, and Sony wants to put their trailers on, there's no more space left. So even if we wanted to put that original ending on, it's just a matter of prioritizing it. I don't know. I hate when people put out a bare-bones DVD and another one comes out later, which is why it was really important to me to load up this DVD. That way if they want to do some special edition, people won't feel like they got ripped off. There's no plans for it right now, but the truth of the matter is that it's a business and these things are not up to me, so anything can happen.

IGN: One of our recent stories looked at Double Dips and Most Wanted DVDs. Is there a movie you would most like to see released on DVD?
   
Roth: Torso by Sergio Martino. It's such an incredible film, such an amazing movie. I'd love to see a special edition of Pasolini's Salo. Criterion put one out but it's not available in the US. I think those two movies are unbelievable films, but you know, Pasolini's dead, so it might be hard to get him for commentary. Another film I think has never been released in the US on DVD that I've been watching over and over that's shocking and amazing is a film called To Be Twenty by Fernando Di Leo, which I think he did in 1979. It's an Italian film, and it's one of the best, most f*****-up movies I've ever seen. You watch this movie and your jaw is on the ground and you cannot believe somebody actually had the balls to make a movie like this. I'd bow down before Fernando Di Leo, but he's dead too.

IGN: In one of the commentaries, you talk about being happy to be known as 'the horror guy'. How concentrated do your efforts have to be going forward to make sure you continue on that trajectory?

Roth: I'm not worried about that. I'm not worried about that. I always wanted to be 'a' horror guy, but the truth of the matter is the most important thing for me is that people think of me as a director and a filmmaker and a storyteller. I love being the horror guy and the guy who made those horror movies, but I also feel that when I'm ready and the story is right I'm going to do different types of films. Before I did horror, I did 20 different animated shorts and they were all comedy, so the director I want to be is someone like Quentin or Peter Jackson or Robert Rodriguez or Sam Raimi, that's just an incredible genre filmmaker, that can make horror, but can also make action or sci-fi or comedy or drama and can really do anything. That's the type of director that I'd like to be, but horror movies are such a great canvas to be able to freely experiment with different genres. You can make a horror movie and have a comedy scene or a drama scene; you can have every different type of genre within the umbrella of a horror film. So I think I want to make great horror movies, and even if I'm not directing horror movies, I'll always want to be producing horror movies or writing or have my hand involved in them some how. That's my passion and it's what I love. But for right now it's just an incredible canvas to try to become a better filmmaker and learn the craft of filmmaking.

IGN: Your current filmography lists several upcoming projects.

Roth: Right now it's just Hostel 2 and Cell. Eventually I'll do this film with Richard Kelly. I saw him last night and probably after Hostel 2 and Cell I'll do that one, The Box, but it's amazing how much my tastes have changed, even in the last two years. So I try not to predict what I'm going to do beyond one or two films but every deal I get involved in gets reported on the internet.

IGN: Do you have a single guiding principle that you apply each time you work on a horror project, in terms of structure or aesthetic design?

Roth: I feel like you should get in at the last moment possible and get out as soon as possible. I think you should make movies as long as the story dictates. It's like the gore; people ask me how I decided how much gore to put in, and I tell them that the story will tell you how much gore is required. When you're reading the script and following the story, you can feel when it's too long, and when you go see a movie and it feels too short, you feel it. It's just something you feel in your guts. I don't have any one guiding principle except do what's best for the film. Oh, and don't be too precious and don't fall in love with your own material.

[grand theft sparrow]

Not much more I can say that hasn't already been said.  Better than Cabin Fever but still didn't hit quite right.  It was well-made but Roth (and Tarantino) can't get out his own way and succeeds in making a really messed-up movie about nothing.  OK, we get the "Europeans don't like ugly Americans" thing but he could have dug a little deeper. 

The part that best illustrates where it went wrong was the scene with the manic American customer.  Roth gets points for creating a situation in which finding out why the killers are motivated to kill actually makes it creepier but loses points for not expanding on it.  We've had our fill of psychos who kill for the sake of killing.  I want to know why, for example, Miike's character came all the way from Japan to do this.  What does he do with his life that he feels like torturing and killing someone would be fulfilling for him?  The idea that the people who patronize this establishment live and work with us is what I found scarier than if the fratboy douchebags survive or not. 

And that third act?  100% Tarantino.  The man is so revenge-obsessed; you'd think Kill Bill would have gotten it out of his system.

Overall, I think it's like a German scheisse video: great to break out at parties and watch people squirm but nothing you want to watch on your own more than once. 

[JG]

I watched this tonight and liked it well enough.  I don't really care to elaborate cause I don't feel like this  kind of movie needs an elaboration.  it is what it is and  most of u guys with quasi-postiive reviews summed it up pretty well.  I'm still up in the air about how I feel about Roth, he seems pretty intelligible (he knows his genre, he knows film), but I don't feel like its always reflected in the movie.   i get the sense that  every single choice he makes is carefully measured, he knows what he wants the viewer to feel and how to suck them in, but there some moments that are just pretty painful and i could really do with out. 

Looking back, Rick Hoffman should have been nominated for the xixax best supporting actor award.   his short appearance was the highlight of the film.