Spotlight – Eli Roth

Here are a handful of Eli Roth movies that I think are more notable, which movies would you choose?

05.Hostel (2005)

Director/ American Stoner

Roth managed to breath some life into the torture subgenre of horror with his breakthrough Hostel, the initial part of a trilogy which is best watched at a duo, the third installment is just terrible and so detached. The film follows three friends travelling around Europe who encounter a man (who likes to eat meat) on a train, he persuades them to check into a hostel in a secluded Slovakian village with the promise of encountering lots of hot lusty women. The guys scarper to the Hostel, only to find themselves drawn into a deadly game.

The films selling point is the buckets of guts and blood, with the attempt to make a nouveau video nasty Roth was content to add in as much material which was both questionable and a potential to get the film banned in a few countries, cut and uncut versions flew off the shelves as the wildly thrilling movie filed with real belly laughs and splattered kill scenes gained a lot of fan thumbs up.

04.Hostel II (2007)

Director 

This is a pretty successful sequel, linking and completing the story of the first movie, eager audiences basically get the same story but with three female students, what’s not to love about this!? The girls are also roaming around Europe when they encounter a stunning model who entices them to the same hostel in Slovakia and the girls also walk into the same deadly game but are they more savvy than the guys?? Roth maximises on the gore and actually delivers what fans asked for, why won’t more directors do that? This outrageous story with a touch of Grand Guignol is all tooled up to match and at times beat the original. There’s a particularly popular scene featuring an actual blood bath and it became a total mood in the horror scene.

03.Green Inferno (2013)

Director  

A remake of  Natura Contro/Green Inferno/Cannibal Holocaust 2 (1988), this bold homage to the older video nasty really hit the spot, if airplane tumble dryer vomit, public masturbation, cannabalism and tribal torture techniques are your cup of tea?

The film tracks a group of environmental activists who are captured by a headhunter tribe and their antics to free themselves while deep inside the Amazon jungle. While the film was picked up and loved by few, it had that selling point of what sick madness Eli had managed to get past the censors this time? let’s run to see. But socially and crititually the film was panned for being hateful and full of bad taste.. but that’s what 80’s cannibal and splatter films were supposed to be!

02.Cabin Fever (2002)

Director / Justin- Grim

Roth’s attention to the body horrors movement was pivotal to this gut churning horror comedy that takes a random virus outbreak to the extreme. A group of friends intend to kick back in a cabin, deep in woods, after having met some questionable locals they settle in but when a bleeding homeless guy  starts showing up asking for help they soon realise that whenever he’s infected he can spread easily and the disease is disgusting.

This back-to-the-woods comedy horror was definitely a step in the right direction for Roth and started a trend with making a decent horror movie with healthy levels of comedy without ruining the effect. The film surred on sequels and remakes but none really captured that initial kick of energy that this film gave.

01.Clown (2014)

Director / Frowny The Clown

This movie, for me, is a stroke of genius, it’s not the best horror but it’s one which really touched a note with me, as there’s a lot of  lore and folklore about clowns and harlequins which a lotta people aren’t aware of. We all know of scary clowns and the strange phenomena that sparked up a few yeas ago where people were dressing in clown suits and terrorising neighborhoods. This film fed into the build up to the paranoia.

Clown is darkly comedic, as it follows a man who is forced to find a clown outfit to perform at his child’s birthday party  but on trying to remove the costume he finds it impossible and the suit begins to absorb into him, slowly turning him into a Clown a strange creature that lusts after the blood and flesh of children.  Peter Stormare plays a desperate man who was trying to protect the public but keeping the suit locked up, but on realising that it’s out and has turned someone he rushes to the rescue to kill the man. 

With an engrossing story following the multi personality clown kiddy killer/father who’s constantly doding death from an crazed Stormare, Roth manages to throw in some gore and gut wrenching scenes, our fated hero tries to cut the suit of with an eclectic saw, slicing around his neck trying to get  a break in the fabric, and we learn what happens when you shoot a clown, rainbows come out.. Bloody messy rainbows..