As someone who very much enjoyed 'Cabin Fever,' this sounds like something to look forward to. If this and 'The Devil's Rejects' are good, than it'll be a great year for hardcore horror.
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(from Fangoria)
The whole preproduction and first weeks of shooting of writer/director Eli Roth's new movie HOSTEL were shrouded in a secrecy rarely seen even in the horror-movie world. But now that production has wrapped in Prague, Roth has taken time to disclose a bit of valuable information to Fango readers and share a few gruesome, exclusive photos (see more below).
"HOSTEL is about two American friends who go on a backpacking trip to Europe, and they're looking for excitement, girls and drugs and all the stuff that you can't find in America," Roth explains. "Someone tells them that if they want to meet girls, they got to go to Slovakia; he tells them about this hostel where there are tons of beautiful girls who'll have sex with anyone who's a foreigner. So these two guys and their Icelandic friend go to this place, and it turns out to be true; but then the next day [they find themselves] in a whole lot of trouble and we realize there's something really horrible, awful and sick going on there."
Playing the two backpackers are Jay (LADDER 49) Hernandez and Derek (DUMB AND DUMBERER) Richardson, while newcomer Eythor Gudjonsson stars as the Icelander they meet and befriend on the way. The movie also features a cameo by cult director Takashi Miike, whose films have made a strong impression on Roth and greatly inspired him for HOSTEL. "I'd met him when he came to LA for the GOZU DVD," Roth explains, "and I interviewed him with Guillermo del Toro for the DVD. He was so nice, and he's just a tremendous inspiration. Now he's doing a cameo in the film, and I can't believe it!"
The ghastly special FX are the work of KNB, reteaming with Roth from CABIN FEVER, and the director has nothing but praise for the team: "Howard Berger told me we were going to have Kevin Wasner on set, and I'd seen his work on PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Kevin is such a cool guy; he's doing a fantastic job. You can't say enough great things about KNB."
Worldwide distribution rights to HOSTEL have already been picked up by Screen Gems, and Roth hopes for an October release. As for whether fans should expect CABIN FEVER's semi-humorous tone to carry over to HOSTEL, Roth says, "People who loved CABIN FEVER are going to go see HOSTEL and may expect it to be funny or goofy all the way through, and it's not going to be. It's going to start out fun, and then it's going to get really dark and sick, and they may be upset because it's going to be so much more horrific than they thought it would be! And then there are the people who hated CABIN FEVER, and hopefully HOSTEL will win over new fans as well."
More images here (http://www.aintitcool.com/images/hostel1.jpg) and here. (http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20302)
This sounds interesting especially since its something influenced and inspired by Miike
MMMM...... god that is fantastic stuff, Eli really has brought much more faith in the Horror genre. A force to be reckoned with, I'm really looking to this.
cabin fever was okay but a little disappointing. i rooting for this to be good though.
"The movie also features a cameo by cult director Takashi Miike"
:)
should be a fun summer
Quote from: aintitcool link from the first post(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aintitcool.com%2Fimages%2Fhostel5.jpg&hash=82f619fac43c329120142c67907a909057425002)
yep. this will be as good if not better than cabin fever.
Quote from: PubrickQuote from: aintitcool link from the first post(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aintitcool.com%2Fimages%2Fhostel5.jpg&hash=82f619fac43c329120142c67907a909057425002)
yep. this will be as good if not better than cabin fever.
could just be me but that looks almost exactly like the room in Videodrome
I really like how that woman's face looks in the picture. It's almost as if she wants us to stop staring at her.
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I get the feeling this movie will be to "Cabin Fever" what "Devil's Rejects" was to "House of 1000 Corpses". Specifically, a chance for the director to show that he's not as bad as his debut movie would have you believe.
i havent seen either yet but lets hope so. :yabbse-thumbup:
Quote from: polkabluesI get the feeling this movie will be to "Cabin Fever" what "Devil's Rejects" was to "House of 1000 Corpses". Specifically, a chance for the director to show that he's not as bad as his debut movie would have you believe.
:yabbse-angry: :yabbse-angry: :yabbse-angry: :yabbse-angry: cabin fever kicks fuckign asssss...its funny, gory, and sexy....
and hostel looks like the kind of film that would piss on ho1000Kc, and the devils rejects........this will be the greatest horror film, next to the shining and the exorcist..this film will own..
That poster is hilariously bad.
This movie is already overhyped. However, seeing as how the hype for Cabin Fever didn't detract from me loving it, I expect I'll love this one even more.
i think it's clear that a stupid fan created the poster using
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(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.horror-movies.ca%2Fgallery%2F_files%2Fphotogallery%2Fhostel011.jpg&hash=dc258afe299412fa7342f2a6e41cf88e91b10555)
and the picture of the chair that everyone's seen, which coincidentally are the only stills released from the movie other than the weird sex one. i declare it fake
good call.
Source: Fangoria
Update: We've been duped by the fake poster makers again. We just received word that the poster below is a fake. It's not from Eli Roth or anyone at the studio. It's pretty cool but it's fan-made. As soon as we get the real poster, we'll let you know.
Roth Talks Hostel!
Source: JoBlo
Writer/director Eli Roth is a lot like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, in my mind. He's a guy, not unlike you or I, who simply loves movies, enjoys coming up with cool scenarios and digs the process, the fans and well...making movies! The man paid his dues interning for Howard Stern, doing tons of research for director David Lynch and ultimately got his own big shot with CABIN FEVER, which was a nice hit for the dude. The Arrow and I were lucky enough to hang with him at a Fango Con a couple of years ago, and he came off just like you'd expect: one of the guys. That said, his latest film, HOSTEL, is anything but what you'd expect, with many already calling it a gruesome tale of backpacking gone terribly awry. Recently, our own Johnny Fallon (aka The Arrow) had a chance to speak to Mr. Roth one-on-one about his film, and here are a couple of the questions from their Q&A. I was a huge fan of Eli Roth's debut CABIN FEVER and have been anticipating his next move for what feels like ages. Lots of Roth related projects were announced since, so I was surprised when HOSTEL, a totally left field title wound up being "the one". With that said the film does look mucho promising and I'm looking forward to it! Roth dropped by the Arrow Pub to talk about his latest baby and here's what went down.
What was the spark that ignited the HOSTEL storyline in your twisted noggin?
It started with a conversation I had with Harry Knowles about 3 years ago. We were talking about the sickest thing you could find on the internet. He found a horrible, horrible site and sent me the link, and it scared me so bad I couldn't sleep thinking about it. (The link has since expired...) A few months later, producer Mike Fleiss, fresh off the "Chainsaw" remake he produced with Michael Bay, pitched me an idea about backpackers that he and his partner Chris Briggs had come up with.
They had the title, "Hostel," and the idea to set it in the world of backpacking, but no story or idea of what kind of horror movie it was. I loved the title, and have done a lot of traveling and backpacking, so I was immediately into it, but wasn't quite sure what it was about. Then suddenly, one day about a year later, I thought about that web site Harry Knowles found and I saw the entire story.
When, where did you write this particular screenplay and what was your process?
Once I saw the idea, I just started writing. It was right after the Red Sox won the world series, and since I'm a lifelong member of Red Sox Nation, when they finally won I guess some space in my brain freed up. I had been getting sent scripts for movies to direct – movies that have come and gone in theaters already – and I just kept turning them down because I didn't think the ideas were scary at all. I know your 2nd film can make or break you, because you're either a bona fide director or a one hit wonder. I felt like I had been taking so many meetings about things, and developing projects, and I just needed to sit down and write. I told Quentin Tarantino the story, and he said "You have to write this. Fuck all these other projects – you have to write this idea now!!!!" So I unplugged my phone, cleared my schedule, and banged the draft out in three weeks. It just started pouring out of me. It was a great feeling. I am very lucky to have good people around me to bounce ideas off of. They bring out the best in you.
The flick was shot in the Czech Republic; what kind of barriers did you encounter in terms of shooting in a foreign country?
Well, the language barrier obviously, because there's a large portion of the Czech Republic that speaks nominal English at best. But otherwise, it's much, much easier to shoot in the Czech Republic than in the U.S. I would shoot in the Czech Republic over the States any day. There's no unions here, so the dollar goes a lot farther. You can film with kids without the same kind of strict regulations and hassles you get in the U.S.
I shot one scene where a gang of little kids go crazy with lead pipes, and we just set up three cameras and let them go nuts. Their parents were right there, watching at the monitor, totally cool with it. It was awesome. The most difficult part about shooting in Prague is the nightlife. The clubs are open every night, all night, and then there are after hours clubs that open at 6:30. The girls are so beautiful there, if you're not careful you'll kill yourself by going out every night. I had strep throat five times in a 7 week shoot because I never slept.
Visit any strip clubs down there, if so, how are they? I heard good things!
Nope. I was going to film in a brothel, so the closest I got to a strip club was on our location scout. I never had time. And truthfully, in Prague it's kind of a last resort thing to do. You usually go to a strip club when you strike out everywhere else, and in the Czech Republic the girls outnumber the guys.
You've been fairly secretive about the "what" within Hostel. So I'll ask: "what" evil do these back packers encounter on their journey? Are we talking supernatural here?
"Hostel" is about the kind of evil that terrifies me the most. You can go to aintitcoolnews and read reviews that will spoil the entire movie blow by blow, but that would ruin all the scares and fun when you saw it. Try to avoid reading those if you can, and keep it a mystery. It's much more fun that way, trust me.
From what I've read, Hostel looks like it will be a brutal affair. Will its violence be implied, graphic or a little bit of both?
The violence is very realistic in the film. Some scenes are extremely graphic, and others are done off camera. It's a delicate balance to know when to show it and when to just use sound, because if it's overdone it becomes all about the gore you run the risk of no longer being terrifying.
Is there any female nudity in the picture? I ask because, yes, WE CARE!
I'm in Europe with a movie camera. You think I'm not going to film any naked chicks? I held a casting session where we saw 66 strippers and porn stars in 2 days, and it wasn't just for one role...
Any lesbian fun stuff in the film? I ask because I CARE!
No lesbo action. This ain't Skinemax, sorry...
I heard that the film is more serious in tone than Cabin Fever, taking into account your wild sense of humor, did you have to hold yourself back at times from slapping in some humor?
I made a very conscious decision to make a film that was more serious in tone than "Cabin Fever." It starts out fun, but once the fun stops, the humor dies along with it, and it's just straightforward scary. There are moments of sick humor where people may laugh, but it doesn't get goofy the way "Cabin Fever" did. I feel like I've done that already, and I know that as much as people liked it, the mixed tone of "Cabin Fever" was the number one complaint about the film. "Hostel" is a very different story, so it requires a different tone. It's a much darker scary movie.
The great Takashi Miike has a small role in the film. Please tell me that he performs at least one act of violence!
Miike's the coolest. I was so honored he did that cameo for me. He's great in the movie.
Hostel has already garnered some hype online (a fake poster already surfaced). Being that you also went through the hype ringer with Cabin Fever, I'd be curious to know your standpoint on it. Good? Bad? Scary?
Hype can be the best thing in the world, but too much of it can kill you. There's this weird balance between getting people excited to see the film, and not wanting to overhype it to the point where they can't enjoy it because they've been told it's so great. "Cabin Fever" was definitely a victim of that, and people got really angry if it didn't live up to their expectations that they read on the internet. The truth is, with movies like "Hostel" and "Cabin Fever," the internet's our only shot. They don't have the big stars like "War of the Worlds," and they don't have the advertising dollars that these films do. Studios can spend $30-$40 million marketing a movie. How do you compete with that? You have to find a way to get fans to support your movie, and the internet's the only way to reach them directly without a huge budget.
However, the danger is that if you catch that hype wave and people are excited, you have crazy expectations to live up to. People's enjoyment of a movie is directly related to what their expectations of that movie are. If they heard "Cabin Fever" was some weirdo low budget scary/funny indie movie that got a distribution deal at a festival, they tended to like it much more than people who heard it was the second coming. (Not that it was, I'm just using this to illustrate a point.) The other danger is that people get sick of you – fast, and I know people out there are tired of reading about me. Believe me, I'm flattered the reviews up on the internet are so good, but in a way it's scary because some people are already saying "Here we go again, another overhyped piece of shit from that self-promoting hack Eli Roth..."
People know I'm friends with Harry Knowles, so they think the reviews are fake. People wrote those in after a test screening, and Harry would put them up if they were good or bad. What can I do? You just have to make the best film you can, do the appropriate amount of press, and hope people like it. But overall I definitely think it helps more than it hurts, especially with the type of films that I make.
Any ideas as to what's next up for you? Are Scavenger Hunt, The Bad Seed and The Box still on the hit list or did they fall on the wayside.
They are all in very active development, believe me. I just can't think of anything beyond "Hostel" until the film's finished. I've been working nonstop 7 days a week on this movie since last November, so once it's done I'll take short a vacation and decide what's next.
What was the first drink that you consumed at the HOSTEL wrap party?
I don't really remember much about the HOSTEL wrap party. But I still have the bite marks to prove I was there.
haha, this guy is awesome..
shitty interviewer, embarrassed himself a few times.
and..
Quote from: Eli RothWe were talking about the sickest thing you could find on the internet. [Harry Knowles] found a horrible, horrible site and sent me the link, and it scared me so bad I couldn't sleep thinking about it. (The link has since expired...)
is he talking about goatse? that's almost too obvious. what do u ppl think the sickest thing on the interweb would be to harry knowles? joke answers are welcome but i'm trying to think what kind of sick stuff online could be linked to the subject of Hostel, or a backpacking trip gone wrong.
i'm thinking it would be sick sexual practices, demonlover style, haha actually that would make sense and would be right up NEON's alley --- a good sign that roth knows what his fanbase wants. also makes sense with the pics we've seen, but that's not really SICK is it? oh speaking of fanbase:
Quote from: Eli RothI know people out there are tired of reading about me. ... some people are already saying "Here we go again, another overhyped piece of shit from that self-promoting hack Eli Roth..."
from the Cabin Fever thread:
Quote from: PubrickQuote from: MacGuffinEli Roth Opens The Box Next
THANK GOD.
he's milked this goat long enuff.
Quote from: Pubrickit was overhyped cos eli roth needed his first film to be a success. it was his one big chance so it's understandable that he fully went for it and tried to make some money. which obviously worked. i hope now he can ease up on the overhype and move onto another project.
Quote from: Pubrickthis is getting hype cos especially for a first time filmmaker it's CRUCIAL that their first film is a success. obviously eli roth has other ambitions. i think this has served its purpose which was to get him noticed. that's what the hype is about, and now i hope he can move on to better things.
haha, sorry eli.
but seriously what is the sickest thing on the interweb? please no links or pictures, just describe it. the most visceral things that come to mind involve mutilation of the anus in one way or another. which would not be a bad way to go considering how well it worked for Palahniuk. yeah, u know what i'm talking about.
Quote from: eli roth"Hostel" is about the kind of evil that terrifies me the most
evil of the anus?
A lot of people feel the sickest thing is this motorcycle accident victim whose face was dragged on the cement for who knows how long.. it was practically inside out... the sickest thing about it was that he was ALIVE!!!
A lot of people refer to this picture as Dr. Zoidberg
Lemon Party is pretty gross. Tubgirl would still have to be the winner to me, I mean, why? Dear God why?
I might get a big 'Fuck You' here, but could everyone add a little description along with their post for those of us who didn't catch the whole goatse revolution...
Goatse was a pretty glorious image of a rectal passageway - held open by its owners own fingers - that appeared to be suffering from mild distension and inflammation. Ah, the glory days of directing innocent eyes to that site...so many memories...
I've never seen tubgirl, so I too would appreciate a description of that one.
I've never seen the one RK referenced, but it sounds similar to the one of the guy whose face was blown open by fireworks (or maybe they're the same and whoever told me it was a firecracker was misinformed). It's a mangled mess of tongue, teeth and gore, but his pretty blue eyes are still intact - and clearly conscious. In Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle book, that photo is included in the reference materials.
Lemon Party is old men sucking eachother off. Tubgirl is a girl lying on her back in a bathtub shooting water/feces/?? out of her ass about 3 feet into the air and onto her face. I can send you either of them via AIM.
My fave is a site called Vomit Brazil. Lesbian Vomit Consumption porn The episode descriptions are great ;)
Quote from: 72teethI might get a big 'Fuck You' here, but could everyone add a little description along with their post for those of us who didn't catch the whole goatse revolution...
Quote from: GhostboyI've never seen tubgirl, so I too would appreciate a description of that one.
from The Freaking Weirdest Dream It Deserves Its Own Thread:
Quote from: Pubricksigh.
chest, or may i call u Mini-Ebeaman.. the goatse thing refers to the now-defunct site goatse.cx. it is a very popular image on the interweb, showing an old man (late 50s proabably) bending over and stretching his ass apart with his hands, revealing the insides of his anus. it epitomizes what the interweb is all about.
i think the picture u were referring to "Fecal Japan" in that other thread is another famous interweb pic, called Tubgirl. where this chick is lying in a tub with her ass in the air, spraying projectile diarrhea on herself. she has her face and veej blurred out, which once again epitomizes the idea of the interweb.
right now what u are feeling is a small part of urself dying. it's ok.
u might be onto sumthing RK, facial mutilation and ppl filming it without doing anything is pretty terrifying. ppl getting OFF on such mutilation would definitely take the cake, i reckon. can anyone think of other things and how it could be linked to the Hostel plot? whoever gets it right will win the invaluable prize of.. CREDIBILITY!
damn u eli roth, damn u and ur hype!
Quote from: BrazoliangeTubgirl is a girl lying on her back in a bathtub shooting water/feces/?? out of her ass about 3 feet into the air and onto her face. I can send you either of them via AIM.
Oh yeah, I've seen that. It was under the title 'Fecal Japan,' as Pubrick mentioned, over at rotten.com. My friends and I spent a while trying to figure out what she was expelling with that might sphincter of hers, and came to the conclusion that it might be an orange juice enema (mixed with whatever unmentionables the passage of which enemas facilitate).
As for the grossest i've ever seen, It was this guy jacking off and he squeezed his dick real hard as to get all the blood up to the head...then he took a needle and pricked the side of it real quick. First it just looked like one drop of blood, but then he put his hand next to it to reveal a thin stream of blood shooting out...Ugghh, just thinking about... :elitist:
To clarify, P... it wasn't that they weren't helping him. He had already been helped (or was being helped) and was in a hospital with the inside of his head open, free of any face, for everyone to see. He was pretty calm about it, too.
I'm pretty sure that this is the same that GB is talking about and it very well could have been a firework, though I don't remember any burns and you would have to be insane to put a lit firework that powerful into your mouth.
Quote from: RegularKarateHe was pretty calm about it, too.
There's not enough morphine in the world....
Quote from: 72teethAs for the grossest i've ever seen, It was this guy jacking off and he squeezed his dick real hard as to get all the blood up to the head...then he took a needle and pricked the side of it real quick. First it just looked like one drop of blood, but then he put his hand next to it to reveal a thin stream of blood shooting out...Ugghh, just thinking about... :elitist:
I got sick reading that....literally
Quote from: 72teethAs for the grossest i've ever seen, It was this guy jacking off and he squeezed his dick real hard as to get all the blood up to the head...then he took a needle and pricked the side of it real quick. First it just looked like one drop of blood, but then he put his hand next to it to reveal a thin stream of blood shooting out...Ugghh, just thinking about... :elitist:
I'd love if Hostel is actually based on this.
I'm seeing this tonight...
um, Hostel, not the guy jerking off thing.
Okay... so, I saw it. Now what?
This wasn't the final cut. There was a kinda crummy temp score and the effects were CLEARLY not finished. The sound in general sucked as well.
Once I got over these things, I enjoyed myself pretty well.
I can see this getting way overhyped already. They told us about how many people walked out on it during the last screening and Cabin Fever was possibly one of the most overhyped films ever made. If the hype doesn't get out of control, this movie will probably satisfy horror fans... otherwise, it's probably going to disapoint.
I think it's possible that the people who left during the first screening were just out for some water because while it got me squirming a couple of times, I've seen way more gore than this and while the movie doesn't TOTALLY rely on the gore, it's definitly an important part of it. There are some serious implausibilites in the film too.
**SPOILERS**
I still don't know what internet thing this was based on. There were a couple of scenes that made me wonder. The only thing I could really think of was that video of the woman walking into a moving train.
It also could have been the blown up face guy, but if so, they decided to tame it down a bit for the movie.
**END SPOILERS**
All in all, I give this six of Mod's horror-movie skulls... maybe six and a half, but that's pushing it.
yeah, it's impossible for me already to enjoy this movie. even though I KNOW it's been overhyped, and i should lower my expectations to reasonable levels, i cant and now its just a matter of waiting to be disappointed. but as long as its better than cabin fever, atleast he's making progress. but yeah, the first batch of reviews got me SO PSYCHED for this.
Lions Gate makes room for 'Hostel'
Lions Gate Films will handle North American theatrical and television distribution for Screen Gems' R-rated "Hostel," the extreme gore-fest from writer-director Eli Roth. In a shared-pot deal, Screen Gems will keep domestic home video and international theatrical distribution rights to the film, which is set for release Dec. 21. The companies will share all revenue on the picture. Quentin Tarantino, Scott Spiegel and Boaz Yakin are executive producers on the project, which centers on an American backpacker (Jay Hernandez) who stumbles upon a mob-run torture ring involving human trafficking and sex tourism. Mike Fleiss and Chris Briggs are producers of the project.
sweet! release before the end of the year. just in time for oscar contention! this is going to ruin my xmas buzz though. :(
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Trailer here. (http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1385858&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300)
Release Date: December 21st, 2005 (wide)
Starring: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson, Barbara Nedeljakova, Jana Kaderabkova
Screenwriter: Eli Roth
Directed by: Eli Roth
Premise: HOSTEL is an amalgamation of many of terrifying things about human nature and the world at large, culled from lots of pulpy-but-true stories of international organized crime, human trafficking, and sex tourism. Relentlessly graphic and deeply disturbing, the film is rife with explicit sex and brutal violence that may delight hard core genre fans, and prove difficult to stomach for general audiences.
eh. i'm not more psyched for it now. its like Saw without the cool stuff. i guess they rushed this out after the release date announcement, but still, you'd think Eli could've come up with something, i dunno, cool for a teaser.
From The Brilliant Minds Who Brought You... :yabbse-rolleyes:
Inspired By True Events.... :yabbse-rolleyes:
who brought us Texas Chainsaw Massacre that has anything to do with this?
Haha, Mod, you crack me up... up, down, up, down...
It's not like Saw though... I haven't even seen Saw, but from what I've heard/read about it, they're not very similar.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there are like a billion boobs in this movie. In fact, there is far more screen time devoted to boobs than to torture.
Quote from: RegularKarateOh yeah, I forgot to mention that there are like a billion boobs in this movie. In fact, there is far more screen time devoted to boobs than to torture.
Oh, you just forgot to mention that little detail, did you now?
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!
Quote from: RegularKarateIt's not like Saw though... I haven't even seen Saw, but from what I've heard/read about it, they're not very similar.
i just meant the trailer: being locked in a room and tortured. but i'm sure the films will be totally different. the trailer was kinda lame but it doesnt dampen my enthusiasm, it just doesnt increase it. but RK, though seriously, SEE SAW!
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... just kidding you guys.
is that steven soderbergh in the background?
(https://xixax.com/files/picolas/pita.jpg)
that's definetly pta.
my friend directed the documentary film that had that scene in it. it is way sick. the info of the movie is here...
http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=106807
Quote from: matt35mm on September 05, 2005, 07:02:51 PM
Quote from: 72teethAs for the grossest i've ever seen, It was this guy jacking off and he squeezed his dick real hard as to get all the blood up to the head...then he took a needle and pricked the side of it real quick. First it just looked like one drop of blood, but then he put his hand next to it to reveal a thin stream of blood shooting out...Ugghh, just thinking about... :elitist:
I'd love if Hostel is actually based on this.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.xixax.com%2Fimages%2Fhostelposter.jpg&hash=c8dae326dad2c8cc1526f8ff8ed968edc8def087)
release date is now January 13th, which would normally mean suckville but hopefully this is just too EXTREME for general audiences.
i'm surprised it doesn't say,
Quentin Tarantino Presents
A Film Presented By Quentin Tarantino
HOSTEL - written & directed by eli roth
A Tarantino Presentation
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the 4th presentation by quentin tarantino...
That poster was a mistake. People will think "is Saw II still out? jeez..." as they walk past it.
Quote from: matt35mm on November 18, 2005, 12:42:40 PM
That poster was a mistake. People will think "is Saw II still out? jeez..." as they walk past it.
Definitely. They should use the same image on the site. The long dank corridor with the girl tied up in a chair at the end of it. With or without the chainsaw wielding dude.
German Poster
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that's just mean :yabbse-sad:
more graphic and gruesome german trailer for Hostel here... http://www.diehostel.com click TRAILER
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that visual gag was already used for the poster of Deuce Bigalo: European Gigalo.
Two more posters for ya
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Quote from: edison on December 11, 2005, 12:42:49 AM[edison's first poster]
Looks like a discarded concept for an Alias box set cover.
Quote from: hacksparrow on December 11, 2005, 08:14:48 AM
Quote from: edison on December 11, 2005, 12:42:49 AM[edison's first poster]
Looks like a discarded concept for an Alias box set cover.
Or a poster you'd see on the wall of a Supercuts.
At least three times in the past week people have said to me: "Hey, you see that new Tarantino movie coming out?" It makes me pretty mad.
Anyways, I just Eli Roth talking about this movie on TV. I haven't seen Cabin Fever, but he made me wanna see this. Anybody see a sneak preview or anything?
EDIT: to elaborate on what he said on the show: he said that this movie will make people wanna have lots of sex. 9 months after this is released there will be unusual increase in the amount of babies born on that day.
Quote from: JimmyGator on January 03, 2006, 07:01:39 PM
Anyways, I just Eli Roth talking about this movie on TV. I haven't seen Cabin Fever, but he made me wanna see this.
he does that. see: cabin fever excess hype!
RK saw it. he said it was good. http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=7665.msg204574#msg204574
Scream Kings: Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino
Source: NY Metro
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Filmmaker Eli Roth, 33, is a true horror believer. Instead of doing the electric slide at his bar mitzvah, he had himself sawed in half with a chain saw and insisted on a fake-blood-splattered cake. In 1995, he won a Student Academy Award for his NYU thesis film Restaurant Dogs, which cribbed the title sequence from Reservoir Dogs and so offended his professors that several protested the prize, calling the movie “sophomoric, overtly offensive, and gratuitously violent.” In 2002, Roth’s feature debut, Cabin Fever, a sick film about teens stranded in the woods with a flesh-eating virus, grossed $100 million (in ticket and DVD sales) on a $1.5 million budget—and, perhaps as importantly, it got the attention of Roth’s idol Quentin Tarantino. Now the two are buddies, and Roth’s second, nastier feature, Hostel—about doomed American backpackers in Europe—is opening as a “Quentin Tarantino Presents” film this week. Logan Hill talked to them.
Quentin, I assume you’ve seen Eli’s homage to you by now?
Q.T.: It’s really funny. And to win that award and have professors mad at you? For a horror director, that’s perfect.
Eli, you decided to make Hostel while floating in Quentin’s pool, right?
E.R.: I was getting offered remakes, but one day Quentin says, “What are your ideas?” I told him about this one movie that would be really cheap, $2 or $3 million, and completely sick. He said, “That’s the sickest fucking idea—make that movie.”
You made it for less than $5 million.
E.R.: Horror audiences don’t need to see some TV actor they’re familiar with. So we said, let’s keep the costs low to keep the gore high.
Q.T.: One of the exciting things about Hostel is there’s this kind of new horror film right now: ultraviolent, get-under-your-skin movies. It’s really the first new wave since the eighties slasher films—even the Scream movies still owed stuff to that period.
Where does it come from?
Q.T.: Man, it all started with Takashi Miike [the Japanese director known for fast, cheap, and viciously out-of-control films like Audition]. He’s the godfather. And Seijun Suzuki, and of course Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale. It really heated up in Japan about six years ago, and America has been warming to it. Saw, Saw II, Wolf Creek, these are all a part of this subgenre. For Kill Bill, I had to make one version for Japan and a less violent version for America. Eli was able to make the Japanese version and release it in America.
Why?
Q.T.: Because audiences have had six years to absorb Japanese films on DVD. That level of intensity would have pushed people away. Now audiences have made it mainstream.
But isn’t it still just teenage guys in the theater?
E.R.: No! They say half the audience for Saw II was teenage girls.
Quentin, how does Eli fit into this new scene?
Q.T.: He’s what horror films have been waiting for: not a video director trying to make his first movie and then move on or the older guy who resents the fact that he’s still doing horror films. Eli wants to make horror films.
How do you rate his gore?
Q.T.: The problem is, if you go to see an ultraviolent movie, you’re buying a ticket to contraband. Only, most are rarely as shocking or intense as their trailers. But this new group of films is really scary—and I think Eli’s made the most horrifying entry.
A lot of genre filmmakers seem—annoyingly—to be sticking metaphors in their films, like George Lucas inserting Iraq commentary. Does yours have a message, too?
E.R.: Well, I think you’re really talking about that feeling people get when somebody’s doing a terrible job of it, trying to cram a message down your throat. At Crash, I couldn’t breathe. But you know, a lot of people read Cabin Fever as a metaphor for AIDS. I’m just not going to spell it out.
What about Hostel?
E.R.: Look, I just want to scare you. But maybe you watch it a second time and you see that all the stuff the American backpackers are saying about Amsterdam hookers in the beginning of the movie could be said about the Americans at the end. That this slaughterhouse they end up in is a demented version of Amsterdam’s brothels and the movie’s really about exploitation.
Is that why it’s so scary?
E.R.: I was really just thinking about how terrifying those Al Qaeda videos are—that idea that no matter what you say, they’re still going to torture and kill you. And I thought, Wouldn’t it be more terrifying if it wasn’t a political act but a sexual act? Like those Americans paying for a hooker in Amsterdam.
At least Eli hated Crash. This kind of self-aware, exploitation stuff isn't impressive. Isn't there a reason why most exploitation films are relegated to a b-movie genre?
I didn't think Cabin Fever was as good as the Harry Knowles' of the world would have me believe but it was interesting. I haven't seen Saw I or II, and if not for Pubrick's review, I would have NO desire to see Wolf Creek at all... but for some reason, I want to see this. I can't put my finger on it but I think it's because from interviews with him I've read, I think that Eli Roth has it in him to make a truly great horror movie someday, not like those douches that made that Chaos flick.
And at least Eli hated Crash.
just found this in Ghostboy's AICN review of Cabin Fever...
"Let me break into my normal review mode to say that I've seen the movie twice now, and the second time Eli Roth was there to answer questions. I asked him about Lynch's involvment; he said that while he was in pre-production, he asked Lynch if he could put his name on the project to get more attention. It worked, better than he had expected, and by the time Lynch went to Cannes in 2002, people were thinking that he had directed 'Cabin Fever.' When he finally saw the movie for himself, he told Roth that it was great, and that it didn't need to be overshadowed by his name. So they replaced his exec producer credit with a very special thanks."
David Lynch: Classier than Tarantino
Hostel definitely delivered. I disliked Cabin Fever immensely but I play fair. I thought Eli Roth brought what he wanted so if he wants to keep making horror films, I'm game.
it was nice to see he gave Special Thanks to Takashi Miike, because this really did feel like a Miike film. Especially the last 20 minutes or so.
yes thank god for RK and his reasonable review months ago. without it, this movie may never have had a chance. it was good, not great and about 6 skulls or 6 1/2 is right on the money. the movie gets tons of credit though regardless of the execution because it's not a remake or a sequel or a ripoff and it's an original scary great idea. i'm still not totally sold on roth as a director (or writer for that matter) but like rob zombie i root for him to be because his head definitely seems to be in the right place. (and like devils rejects i felt this was a big step forward for roth). the theatre i was in was passing out hostel barf bags and it was super sold out and everyone there was just so psyched for this film to be good it was a great community experience. many people seemed disappointed afterwards, but i wasnt. i think the main mistake in this film was in the marketing. every freaking ad for this film, playing every 10 minutes on tv is ONLY scenes inside the awful place which takes up a relatively small part of the film. so, it ruins the surprise and it builds the expectation for things that cannot possibly be delivered. the glimpses you get build a movie far scarier than anything that could be shown. i think the ads should've been all leadup and goodtimes and then just hinted at 'but things went wrong. really wrong.' and shown subliminal like 6 shots of awful so quickly you cant even make it out and then HOSTEL. because if you didnt know where they were going to end up and what sort of shit was going to go down the film would've been 10x as successful as a viewing experience. when things seemed bad you'd just have to keep following it, waiting for the other shoe to drop and when he finally is inside that place you would just FREAK OUT, but unfortunately thats just where you meet up with all the trailers, so oh well. still, it was pretty good and definitely sat with me afterwards. also pretty funny in a really sick way. go see it, horror fans, but please be reasonable. :yabbse-thumbup:
Quote from: Brazoliange on January 06, 2006, 10:59:08 PM
it was nice to see he gave Special Thanks to Takashi Miike, because this really did feel like a Miike film. Especially the last 20 minutes or so.
i believe he has a cameo in it.....when there outside the "art" museum, and rodrqeuze asked the asian dude, im pretty sure that is him.
yes, it was him. "Be careful. You could spend all your money in there."
Quote from: md on January 06, 2006, 04:17:59 PM
Its in the vain of takkashi mike and battle royale...and if your a fan of those films you should certainly like this
Right on the money, really really great horror film and to sum it up in a few words I'll quote my friend
"The equivalent to seeing Hostel is this: Watch a hardcore porn and then take a butcher knife and cut up some thick juicy steak you see in the fridge for an hour"
But, ya, loved every minute of it.
just got back from it...i usually dont wirte my dumbass reviews about film until much later but nothings going on tonight...not drinking ...so, ....
this did live up to the hype for me....its not perfect but i loved it anyway...and it will make my top ten in 06....
spoilers...................
-i liked the tits and the hot women..
-i like oli?...he reminds me of a guy i know...
-the guy who gets drilled in the knee acts like me aroudn women..
-the puke and suspense/terrro was incredible...
-i like the bubblegum kids
-i loved the torch eyeball and the puss coming out after its cut off
-i liked the roth cameo w/the bong kid
-the pulp fiction shit was pointless
-the cell phone picture w/oli was priceless
-roth is funny
-i like how the tone was diveded in 3 parts: humor-horror-horror/comedy
end of spoilers................
roth delivered the goods...
The Bob Dylan-dressed kid walking out in front of me gave the film a rather crass but appropriate review, "That shit was weak. It wasn't scary or gory."
It was a well made film that was chocked full of suspense that never lead anywhere. It was like a horror painting. An image that'll follow me around. And the next time I'm in a dimly lit garage perhaps the film will occur to me. I will probably feel chilled. I will not, however, watch the movie again I imagine.
Hell I might rent it. C+.
Nah. B- because I agree with all of neon's points.
I enjoyed this movie. Not so much scary as just really, really gross. So gross that it becomes funny, which complements the earlier, purposely funny aspect. This is the pitch-black comedy of 05.
Overheard some bozo on the way out: "There was too much story." He must have hated King Kong.
Quote from: Ultrahip on January 08, 2006, 06:45:34 AM
Overheard some bozo on the way out: "There was too much story." He must have hated King Kong.
uh... King Kong just blew. well, kinda.
anyway, Hostel's sweet (in that it's a "SWEET MOVIE DUUUUUUUUUDE!"). there, i completely encapsulated what it is to watch this movie. it's good shit.
Quote from: samsong on January 08, 2006, 01:39:56 PM
uh... King Kong just blew. well, kinda.
what are you smoking??
Quote from: samsong on January 08, 2006, 01:39:56 PM
it's good shit.
oh, right, i forgot..
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When talking about the new generation of horror directors Eli Roth’s name will invariably come up. He has directed two of the most exciting horror films for the new generation, Cabin Fever and Hostel, and is also one of the most visible having appeared in Bravo’s The 100 Scariest Movie Moments and even gotten Quentin Tarantino to present his new flick.
Hostel is certainly a big change from the disease horror of Cabin Fever. Hostel is about three backpackers in Amsterdam who are so damn horny they leave the sex capital of the world to travel to a small Slovakian city to find even looser, hotter women. They have some of the best times of their lives until they are kidnapped by a company that specializes in killing stupid backpackers.
Daniel Robert Epstein: You’ve been promoting SuicideGirls a lot. When I met [Shaun of the Dead director] Edgar Wright, he knew of SuicideGirls from you.
Eli Roth: I tell every director, ”You got to do an interview on SuicideGirls because you get a password and he interviews the most incredible people” [laughs].
DRE: What’s Quentin [Tarantino] say?
Roth: Quentin said “That’s really cool. I got to do that.”
DRE: Tell him he’s welcome to email me anytime he likes.
Roth: I definitely will. We’re supposed to go to Iceland for New Years.
DRE: That’s awesome!
Roth: Yeah it should be really fun. We were just there like a month ago at the Icelandic Film Festival for the world premiere. It was the first time we had a finished print of the movie. I was also there for New Years last year. I met Eythor [Gudjonsson] when I was there with Cabin Fever and I wrote the part of Oli for him in Hostel. Quentin was telling me about a QT fest that he does in Austin and how we should do it in Iceland. We should do it for one night, show kung fu flicks and talk about the movies.
DRE: I read in the press notes that producers of Hostel had the title and the idea that backpackers just start getting killed and that set you off with this script. It reminds me when in the 80’s William Lustig and Larry Cohen would sit around coming up with taglines and that’s how they came up with Maniac Cop.
Roth: Yeah, I love Lustig. We actually did an Italian poster for Hostel that’s an homage to Maniac. But here’s what happened [producer] Chris [Briggs] had done a lot of backpacking and traveling and said that we should set a horror movie in that world. But we didn’t really know what the movie was. I’ve been to Europe and done backpacking and thought “God that is really a great universe.” It’s cheaper to shoot in Europe, to use a European cast but spread a couple of Americans around and make a good scary movie. Though we really had no idea what the movie was at that point. Then about three and a half years ago I was talking with Harry Knowles from Aint it Cool News about really disturbing stuff we had found on the Internet. Harry showed me a site where you could go to Thailand and for $10,000 walk into a room and shoot somebody in the head.
DRE: That’s just awful.
Roth: Yeah and what’s really awful is this site claimed that the person you were shooting willingly signed up for this. That they were so poor that part of the money would go to their family. We were thinking it would be a really cool documentary. But if it was real the people running it would kill us. So it laid dormant for a while until a year ago it hit him that that Hostel is about this system in Thailand. I thought, it doesn’t matter if this is real or not, what matters is that somebody built a website for it and somebody was trying to get credit cards and money advertising this. They were so in tune with this notion that out there, there is some businessman that’s so bored that nothing gets them off anymore. Drugs don’t do it, hookers don’t do it, so they want that next level of forbidden stimulation and excitement and this is it.
DRE: I really could see Quentin and Takashi Miike checking out a place like that [laughs].
Roth: It’s so funny because I credited Miike as himself. Also Quentin really wanted to play the part that Rick Hoffman did but I thought that it couldn’t be a place where only really violent movie directors go.
DRE: [laughs] I love Rick Hoffman; I’ll watch Cellular just to see his role in it.
Roth: Yeah.
DRE: Did he have to audition or did you just know he could do it?
Roth: I knew he could do it. It was also one of those things where we didn’t have the part cast. Chris Briggs is very close friends with Rick. I knew him from Cellular and I thought, “Jeez he’d be terrific.” Then he showed up and he just nailed it. We didn’t even have to audition him. He’s just such a superb actor. I think he’s just one of those guys that’s getting a cult following. People are like, “Oh I fucking love that guy!” They know him from The Bernie Mac Show and The Street and those kind of TV shows where he always played that fast talking smarmy, slimy Wall Street guy. But he is just a nice, sweet guy that’s really got that kind of role down to science.
DRE: I think this role is going to get him to that next level of doing something beyond that.
Roth: I hope so. We wanted an actor that would come in and kind of take you out of the movie but when the movie’s over feel like, “Oh my God that guy almost stole the movie.” Actually a lot of people are saying for all the violence inborn in the film; that moment tends to be the most disturbing for people.
DRE: That’s because most of the Elite Hunting’s customers are these weird European guys then all of sudden there’s that asshole you always bump into on the subway. It makes it much more real.
When the guy shows up on the train and starts talking about his hands and about food. I thought “this is Pancakes kid 2.”
Roth: I like the idea of this being this weird dude on the train that seems harmless but creepy. Then later you realize why he’s talking about with his hands. He likes to have a connection to these people he later gets. Whereas most people would want to do it anonymously he wants to experience the whole thing.
DRE: I thought that he was a crazy guy who ran the whole thing but no he’s just a businessman who goes there a lot.
Roth: Yes, exactly. That’s the whole thing, you’re slowly discovering along with Jay Hernandez what’s happening. You realize that guy’s just one customer and that hundreds of people go to this place.
DRE: When we last spoke about the DVD of Cabin Fever you mentioned all these projects you had coming up but not Hostel. Then like a year later pictures from the set of Hostel popped up on the internet. What happened?
Roth: I realize that anytime you go in with somebody for a single conversation then somebody finds out about it and it’s all over the Internet. It is normal for people to develop multiple projects but on the Internet there’s just infinite information. Some people are good with fact checking, but a lot of times they don’t even fact check with me. They just put it up there. So I thought that I would do this movie differently. I’m just going to go to Prague and quietly do my thing and be like, “here are the photos from my set, we’re cutting it now.” The whole movie was done in a 12 month period. I finished the script and I went right to Prague. Normally it takes three years to get going. Hell Cabin Fever took six years to get done. I realized that the Internet is great but Eli’s just starting to get the reputation of this guy who keeps attaching himself to different projects and not doing anything.
DRE: Recently I got to speak to Greg McLean, the director of Wolf Creek.
Roth: Yeah, I enjoyed Wolf Creek.
DRE: I loved it.
Roth: Yeah, I’m really excited for him.
DRE: I had to call him out a bit because the movie is so based in reality then John Jarrett character does a supernatural thing where he’s in the car that the girl randomly picked. So I got to do a little bit the same thing for you. Even though I loved Hostel and I’ve been recommending up and down. The ending is a bit convenient.
Roth: The ending was re-shot. We originally had a different ending where Jay Hernandez keeps following this guy and he was going to kill him and the guy is there with his daughter. Jay was going to take his daughter to fuck with the guy. But audiences just couldn’t handle it. So we went back and I just shot a much more straightforward super violent ending and people loved it. I realized that it was the right ending because sometimes you got to make the movie for audiences. I don’t want to be the only one that likes the movie. If you’re in the room with 300 people and 290 of them are completely confused as to why you did a psychological twist, they go, “Huh? Where’s the blood? We want blood.”
DRE: Besides that there is another part right before it that seems a bit convenient. But as you said you made it a bit more commercial, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Roth: We’re not making Schindler’s List. We’re not making a movie that’s bleak and has no fun in it. We’re making a movie for audiences and it’s a horror movie and it’s dark and it’s going to be realistic and violent but it’s not Munich or Syriana. I’ve had numerous experiences when you’re in a small town in Europe and you meet some weird person then you run into them two days later at a totally different place and you’re like, “Oh, my God that’s that fucking guy.”
I was in Prague and they say not to change your money in the street. Derek Richardson goes and changes his money on the street and the guy rips him off for $200. Three weeks later, Derek and Jay Hernandez are walking along and there’s that fucking guy that took Derek’s money. Fucking Jay grabs him and says “Give my friend his fucking money back you motherfucker.” The guy gave him like all his money and more. So Prague is five times the size of this little village in Slovakia so you can say it’s convenient but I’ve had that experience. I remember I was in Iceland I was living on this farm in Reykjavik when I was 19 and some American girl was a total bitch to me. I was just having a conversation saying “oh it’s just cold in Iceland” and she was mad because she thought I was trying to pick her up. Fucking four days later that girl showed up at another place I was at an hour outside of Reykjavik with her fiancé to buy a horse. I was like, “Oh, look who’s here” and we just fucked with her. I’ve had that experience every time I’ve traveled, in every single European country. It seems like crazy coincidences but to me that’s my experience.
overall, I was diappointed with Hostel, but I still enjoyed it.
possible spoilers
The first act or so is just a huge letdown. It is poorly written, not funny and tiring. After that, the film does get much better. The torture room scenes are great, I just wish there would have been more of them. I also like how the plot slowly unveils, leaving the viewer with more responses. Finally, I liked the whole vengeance third act. So, in the end this landed about in the middle between Saw and my expectations.
FEATURE - Eli Roth's Evil Excursions
By any measure, including the fact that he used three times more fake blood on the $4.5 million Hostel than he did on the $1.5 million Cabin Fever, writer-director Eli Roth is on a horror roll. By Fred Topel, FilmStew.com
Given the $19.5 million first weekend box office take of Hostel, it would appear that executive producer Quentin Tarantino's first reactions to the project were entirely justified. Following the success of Cabin Fever, filmmaker Eli Roth had come to the pulp fiction guru for advice and after a geek fest of horror movies including War of the Gargantuas, Hell Night, Blood and Black Lace and Zombi, the pair got down to business.
"I told him the idea for Hostel," Roth recalls during a recent interview with FilmStew. "He was like, 'Are you f*cking kidding me? That's the sickest f*cking idea I have ever heard. Eli, you've got to do that. F*ck it, do it low budget.'"
Inspired by the brutal films of Asian masters like Takashi Miike, Roth wanted to include torture the likes of which American Audiences hadn't seen. But he didn't want to just remake a Miike movie. "I think that Miike makes the greatest Miike movies ever, and there's one Miike and there's no need to try to be Miike," he enthuses. "I just want to be the best me, not the best Miike. Sorry, that was lame."
While some of the tortures in Hostel feel like they're straight out of Asia, its overall influences are hard to pin down. "I didn't want to imitate shots like in Cabin Fever, where I was like 'This is my Texas Chainsaw Massacre shot and this is my shot from The Thing,'" Roth admits. To wit, Roth begins the film with a 20-minute adventure in debauchery.
"I made a conscious decision not to make it a scary horror movie from minute one," he explains. "We had the creepy title sequence, but I wanted the audience to go on a trip with the guys. I wanted them to be there in Amsterdam having fun. And then they get lured in and kind of seduced into going to Slovakia the way the guys do. Then, they f*cking pay the price for it."
"I felt like, if you start off the movie with people's fingers getting cut off and eyes getting cut out, then 45 minutes into it, you're changing the channel already," he adds. "You're just bored. So I really wanted to have something that would keep people guessing, that would keep them off guard, where they would really not know where it was going."
Casual audiences may not even notice the technical transitions Roth makes during the film's tonal shifts. "It starts off colorful, and light, with controlled camera work," he observes. "Once Oli [Eythor Dugjonsson] disappears, then the color starts to drain away, and by the end it's like very rough, hand-held camera work and it's basically black, ashen, and just the color of blood."
If it sounds like a lifetime of thought went into Roth's craft of scaring people, that's because it did. Having seen The Exorcist at age six, by the time he saw Alien two years later, he was practically reading the trades. "I said, 'I wanna be a producer,' because it said, 'Produced by David Giler.' And my dad said, 'You know, the producers have to raise all the money.' Then it said, 'Directed by Ridley Scott.' I said, 'Well, what does the director do?' He says, 'The director gets to spend the money and tell everybody what to do.' I was like, 'Ok, I wanna be a director.'"
Now that he is a successful filmmaker, there is more than horror inside Eli Roth. "The directors I love are like Spielberg, and Peter Jackson, and obviously Quentin and Sam Raimi," he reveals. "They started out making amazing horror films, but they love movies and they just look at great stories. I now am at the point where I want to tell stories."
"I just love, like, when you're sitting around with friends, at a sleepover, telling ghost stories," Roth continues. "It's just so much fun to be scared like that. I can't watch real violence. I don't like real blood in real life, but I can watch movie violence endlessly."
With two indie films under his belt, Roth insists he will be even more selective with regards to any upcoming studio offers. "Obviously, if someone came up to me and said, 'We want you to do Indiana Jones 4' or even Porky's 4, I'd be like all right, great," he says. "But now, I'm spoiled. I have done two movies in a row that I got to write, produce, direct, completely control, and was involved in the marketing of the movies and the poster ideas."
Perhaps the best path for Roth would be to continue doing his own indie films until he has his own studio, so he can stay independent. "Maybe, if I keep going on this path, I could eventually wind up like Quentin or Robert Rodriguez, who get to make movies for 40-50 million dollars budget level, [but] they're completely controlled and they do it their own way, and you know, make'em in their backyard. That's how I'd like to do it."
"After this movie I am spoiled. It's making me think twice about how I want to do everything in the future."
Newly announced by Sony for release on 4/18 is Eli Roth's Hostel (SLP $28.95). The DVD will include anamorphic widescreen video, 4 audio commentary tracks (one with Roth, a second with Roth and executive producer Quentin Tarantino, Boaz Yakin and Scott Spiegel, a third with Roth, producer Chris Briggs and documentarian Gabriel Roth, and a fourth with Roth and Harry Knowles), the Hostel Dissected featurette and the Kill the Car multi-angle featurette. A UMD version will also be available the same day.
Quote from: MacGuffin on February 06, 2006, 08:49:23 PM
Newly announced by Sony for release on 4/18 is Eli Roth's Hostel (SLP $28.95). The DVD will include anamorphic widescreen video, 4 audio commentary tracks (one with Roth, a second with Roth and executive producer Quentin Tarantino, Boaz Yakin and Scott Spiegel, a third with Roth, producer Chris Briggs and documentarian Gabriel Roth, and a fourth with Roth and Harry Knowles), the Hostel Dissected featurette and the Kill the Car multi-angle featurette. A UMD version will also be available the same day.
so wait wait, roth did 4 commentary tracks on the same movie? isn't that a tad narcissistic, like a 4-hour long car waxing festival?
speaking of...
Quote from: ©brad on February 07, 2006, 08:32:29 AM
so wait wait, roth did 4 commentary tracks on the same movie?
He did five for Cabin Fever.
its a bit crazy that theres 4 commentaries and its not LORD OF THE RINGS or something. but whats even crazier is that Roth is on ALL OF THEM! how can he have THAT MUCH to say he couldnt give anyone else their own track or have their bits be edited down to a featurette or something? mac, did you listen to the cabin fever 5?
Quote from: modage on February 07, 2006, 05:44:26 PMmac, did you listen to the cabin fever 5?
I listened to his solo, him with the actresses, and some of the guys.
how were they?
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I was dissapointed by the theatrical release a tiny bit too, I was hoping for more gore (as advertised), or maybe more of a connection to the characters so I would care? Who knows, but I'm planning to pick this up on April 18th for the unrated version the dvd includes.
http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_7374.html
Quote from: modage on February 08, 2006, 12:45:50 AM
how were they?
Quote from: MacGuffin on January 20, 2004, 09:21:44 PM
Eli Roth's solo track on the DVD is already one of my favorite commentary tracks ever! It was so jam packed with great ancedotes and useful information; I swear the guy never stopped to take a breath. It was a lot like Rodriguez's track on "El Mariachi" with information overload. The guy knows his horror films and gives you a timeline about the rise and fall of the genre, even calling out the bullshit about if it's a Oscar worthy film or makes over $100 million (like "Silence of the Lambs" or "Sixth Sense") then it's a thriller. It's all horror to him. Great stuff.
The actresses track focused on how the ladies got the roles, dealing with nudity and sex scenes and the day-to-day conditions of working on the set.
I don't remember too much about the guys track, but Banky said:
Quote from: Banky on January 22, 2004, 06:40:59 PM
Im on my third the "Guys" one and James Debello is fucking hilarious and he talks with no regard for anything respectful. He talks about his co-stars tits and how he thinks they are fake, he talks about parts in the movie he did not like, he talks about strippers in NC he tried to fuck. It is some funny shit. This DVD is really worth the money.
I kinda liked this, but was ultimately disappointed.
i found it pointlessly gratuitous by the end, there is only so much hacked off flesh you can see before you just stop squinting!!
Some parts of it didn't seem to fit together quite right...... I think I need to watch it again.
I'm a fan of anything dark and gory so I walked out happy!
Quote from: penfold0101 on March 29, 2006, 08:37:17 AM
I kinda liked this, but was ultimately disappointed.
i found it pointlessly gratuitous by the end, there is only so much hacked off flesh you can see before you just stop squinting!!
then one line later..
Quote from: penfold0101 on March 29, 2006, 08:37:17 AM
I'm a fan of anything dark and gory so I walked out happy!
wtf? are you two people?
no just mixed views on this film. and still quite undecided, probably. but i know i liked it a lot. :saywhat:
I LOVED this movie. Like mod said, it had a very original premise. It builds up the characters, getting you into their shoes, and that helps the subjective nature... before everything turns for the worse. While I didn't find it overly gory, that also helped at certain times making you believe you are seeing more than you actually are. And I loved how the last act is basically without dialogue.
EDIT: For those interested, on his solo commentary track during the end credits, Eli Roth gives a thanks to all the supportive fimmakers he met after Cabin Fever, and included was PT Anderson, saying that he was "encouraging."
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.
Quote from: polkablues on April 20, 2006, 05:39:20 PM
Barbara Nedeljakova should play every role in every movie made from now on.
She's no Imbruglia.
Quote from: polkablues on April 20, 2006, 05:39:20 PMIt 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.
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.
Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on April 23, 2006, 09:23:49 PM
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.
Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on April 23, 2006, 09:23:49 PM
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.
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).
Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on April 24, 2006, 07:21:34 AM
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.
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.
spoils
Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on April 24, 2006, 10:05:44 PMI 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.
Quote from: polkablues on April 20, 2006, 05:39:20 PMI'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.
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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.
yes, absolutely
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.
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.
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.
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.