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Post by Marv on Mar 24, 2018 10:21:58 GMT
Honestly...not really. They all have certain strengths but I don’t find any of them all that enjoyable. They’re just splatterfests if gore.
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Post by moviebuffbrad on Mar 24, 2018 10:39:23 GMT
I think he's a decent horror director, but a TERRIBLE comedy director, and unfortunately he insists on ruining his movies with terrible comedy. Cabin Fever is a prime example. The premise is terrifying, and there's some grizzly scenes in there like the shaving scene. But then he throws in things like "pancakes!", Party Cop, the N word stuff, etc, that completely kill the atmosphere. Same with Green Inferno. The scene where Jonah gets butchered is insane for a mainstream movie, then Roth destroys that good will he built up with diarrhea, munchies, and masturbation gags. Don't get me started on Knock Knock. I think Hostel is his best movie because it's his most serious, at least once the horror starts (thankfully he got most of his dumb frat jokes out of the way in the first half). I felt tension from the moment Paxton is captured till the end, and I truly didn't know if he'd make it or not. Then Hostel II is largely back to dumb Roth comedy starting with said character's severed neck being licked by a cat.I liked the shift in tone of the first HOSTEL. It gave us a bit of insight into a few jerk-off, but likeable enough characters and knowing what the film was about, there was a still a dark tone running through these scenes. It made sense in the context of the story, to see how the victims were entrapped. If I hadn't know anything about the film and just took it a face value, the first part of the film still had a dramatic edge to it, as opposed to a sex frat comedy. I think instinctually, I would have known that it was leading to something perhaps sinister.
I was enthralled that Hostel II commenced where the first left off; but I also did feel it was a bit of cheap shot killing off Paxton and the manner of his death. His gf came across as an unlikeable b!tch, and I always felt it would have been interesting having Paxton delving deeper in the lodge and attempting and struggling to do something about it. Roth could have still incorporated him into the story with the girls somehow. As much as I like H2, it was just the same film gender reversed. I did find Lorna's death scene utterly compelling and very disturbing though.
Yeah, I like movies that practically switch genres midway through. Psycho and From Dusk Till Dawn are two other, more obvious examples. Although it wasn't a total shift in tone since it did open with a bloody room being hosed down, but for the most part it was pretty much a less funny Eurotrip at first. Yeah, there's a lot of things Roth could have done with Paxton in II. His instant death made the third act of the original pointless. |
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 24, 2018 16:37:14 GMT
I don't know... When that girl cuts off her dangling eye ball and cheese whiz starts squirting out, I thought that might have been played for laughs. I certainly thought it seemed silly. Bro. I thought that bit was pure cringe-inducing, even before watching the movie. Yeah? I could see that I guess, but the appliance looks so hokey and over the top, like a Sam Raimi effect or something. At least compared to some of the effects from earlier. |
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 24, 2018 16:39:22 GMT
Yeah, I like movies that practically switch genres midway through. Psycho and From Dusk Till Dawn are two other, more obvious examples. Although it wasn't a total shift in tone since it did open with a bloody room being hosed down, but for the most part it was pretty much a less funny Eurotrip at first. Yeah, there's a lot of things Roth could have done with Paxton in II. His instant death made the third act of the original pointless. Yeah, I forgot about the opening credit sequence. It does set the tone of things to come. Yes, Paxton went through all that s<>t and as a viewer, I wanted him to get away and I was scared for him. II then dangles a carrot in front of us by seeing him free and explaining to authorities what happened to him, and 5 mins later a cat is licking his bloody stump of a neck. WTF! Perhaps Jay Hernandez wasn't available to do the whole movie. I suppose if anything though, it shows us how utterly ruthless, dangerous, powerful and well controlled the lodge was. It's insidious tendrils reached so much further than we would have wanted to anticipate. I would have preferred if it didn't. The idea that it was so relatively easy to pull off this operation and that it was dingy and dirty and not necessarily well run was more interesting to me. |
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Post by xystophoros on Mar 24, 2018 21:10:31 GMT
I think he's a decent horror director, but a TERRIBLE comedy director, and unfortunately he insists on ruining his movies with terrible comedy. Cabin Fever is a prime example. The premise is terrifying, and there's some grizzly scenes in there like the shaving scene. But then he throws in things like "pancakes!", Party Cop, the N word stuff, etc, that completely kill the atmosphere. Same with Green Inferno. The scene where Jonah gets butchered is insane for a mainstream movie, then Roth destroys that good will he built up with diarrhea, munchies, and masturbation gags. Don't get me started on Knock Knock. I think Hostel is his best movie because it's his most serious, at least once the horror starts (thankfully he got most of his dumb frat jokes out of the way in the first half). I felt tension from the moment Paxton is captured till the end, and I truly didn't know if he'd make it or not. Then Hostel II is largely back to dumb Roth comedy starting with said character's severed neck being licked by a cat. That masturbation scene was so off the wall insane and the character was such a massive twat that I could definitely see someone doing that. He was all “Look at me, Mr. Perfect Worldly Activist with a foreign accent, I know everything” and he turned out to be the biggest weasel and wimp of the bunch. |
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Post by xystophoros on Mar 24, 2018 21:17:43 GMT
I'm not sure how I feel about it exactly, but that was the first time I was even slightly interested in it after the end of the first act. I guess spoilers be damned... I might have to watch it again to see of there was some actual statement here, but it started with these annoying college know it all hippy activists who give a lot of lip service to their cause and are all sort of punished for not really knowing what they're talking about. Kind of a shallow, sort of conservative anti-liberal story starting point. At the end though, when she has the chance to turn on the native and tell her story, she chooses not to. That's certainly a surprise, but it does, to me, add another element to her. She has lost and sacrificed an insane amount at this point and she actually proves that she believes in the cause enough to stick to defending these people on spite of everything she's been through. She's actually come a long way from just holding a picket sign on campus, and it's not the outcome I expected since the movie treated the activists with such disdain in the beginning, and it ultimately seems to respect her in the end for having the courage of her convictions... Even if it's not in her best interest. I thought that was a unique angle, and not the hippy hating conservative view point that it seemed like it was going for at first, and that would have had a certain built in support base. Actually taking the time to write that out I realize how similar this story is to that early South Park episode when the kids go to the rainforest. It ends rather differently though. Hmm. That makes sense. Although from what I recall, she didn't even really care about the cause in the beginning and mainly went along because she had a crush on the leader. That made it extra inane for me when she turns around to defend the natives after, as you said, everything she'd been through. If she were a true blue SJW and it was meant to be satirical that she'd still defend them after all that, I could maybe get behind it. Bare in mind I'm a fairly liberal guy myself, but my sympathy doesn't extend to cannibals and genital mutilators. It really didn’t make any sense, unless Roth thought people would be so enamored with Green Inferno that he’d make a sequel with Justine hell-bent on getting revenge and returning to the jungle. That’s the only reason to lie like she did, after what she experienced — to come back and slaughter them in even more disgusting ways. For a guy who likes to talk about the psychological aspects of his movies, Roth also seems strangely uninterested in ever exploring why his psychotic characters behave the way they do, and what happened to their humanity. What kind of person pays $25k to torture a college student or a backpacker, and how does an entire town set itself up around this kind of mass murder tourism? Why do the honey trap girls bother fucking their victims when they can just drug them the first night and be done with them? All of those questions are more interesting than some guy yelling “So tell me bro, it’s a thrill, isn’t it? They said it was a thrill! You paid $25k for an American? I love it! Big spender! I got a Japanese girl lined up and we’re gonna do something with a tentacle porn theme!” |
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Post by petrolino on Mar 25, 2018 1:06:21 GMT
I like watching his movies. I have a few on dvd.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 25, 2018 12:36:43 GMT
Anything as corrupt and vile as the lodge operation was bound to have leaks and holes in it's system. However, the fact that it would have also been monied people that were members, many of these would have also held influential positions and could also protect their own corrupt interests and agendas. Money talks, bulls<>t walks and those Slovakian authorities would just turn a blind eye. Fictional here I know, but the theme and premise was food for thought and also disturbing.
I wonder if Roth made Hostel, based on something that was a genuine club\lodge, or if it was just made up on a whim and why Slovakia?
As I remember it he said that there was some hoax site on the earlier days of the internet, among the rotten dot com type of stuff, that said you could pay 10,000 bucks to shoot a guy in the head in Thailand or Taiwan or something. Naturally, it wasn't real, but the idea was pretty provocative. I couldn't really guess why Slovakia though. I wish the movie was up to the level of this premise though. It's a fascinating idea. |
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 26, 2018 13:16:01 GMT
Hmm. That makes sense. Although from what I recall, she didn't even really care about the cause in the beginning and mainly went along because she had a crush on the leader. That made it extra inane for me when she turns around to defend the natives after, as you said, everything she'd been through. If she were a true blue SJW and it was meant to be satirical that she'd still defend them after all that, I could maybe get behind it. Bare in mind I'm a fairly liberal guy myself, but my sympathy doesn't extend to cannibals and genital mutilators. I don't mind that it was a bit of a conservative stance. It was something a little different. But it was a pretty shallow approach, I thought, until the end when she earned her stance. But I agree that it's nearly impossible to defend these cannibal natives, and I think that's the point. She's gone through the absolute worst thing imaginable, and these people are indefensible, but that's the only way she can really earn her stance when she started off caring for such superficial reasons and it didn't cost her anything. By the end it costs her everything, and standing up for the people is an actual sacrifice. It's extreme and a little absurd, but it's the first thing since the beginning of the film that qualifies as even slightly interesting writing. Roth seemed to treat the activists with almost complete disdain in the beginning, but at the end when it actually, really counts he allows her to prove that she cares about the plight of people despite her own best interests, and sticks up for native people at large to just be left alone... even though selfishly she should want them all wiped out. Again, if this was a better movie the ideas would have been explored more clearly, or more ambiguously, as that better movie may see fit. But Roth is mostly in it for tons of gore and stupid gross out moments, and like all of his films the few provocative and thoughtful elements are just barely touched upon in the background. |
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Post by moviebuffbrad on Mar 26, 2018 13:41:11 GMT
Yeah, I forgot about the opening credit sequence. It does set the tone of things to come. Yes, Paxton went through all that s<>t and as a viewer, I wanted him to get away and I was scared for him. II then dangles a carrot in front of us by seeing him free and explaining to authorities what happened to him, and 5 mins later a cat is licking his bloody stump of a neck. WTF! Perhaps Jay Hernandez wasn't available to do the whole movie. I suppose if anything though, it shows us how utterly ruthless, dangerous, powerful and well controlled the lodge was. It's insidious tendrils reached so much further than we would have wanted to anticipate. I would have preferred if it didn't. The idea that it was so relatively easy to pull off this operation and that it was dingy and dirty and not necessarily well run was more interesting to me. I thought I was the only person who had that problem with Part II. Yeah, it was definitely creepier in the original when it was just this gritty, underground thing. Then in Part II it's like run by Spectre or something. |
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Post by xystophoros on Mar 30, 2018 5:46:10 GMT
Anything as corrupt and vile as the lodge operation was bound to have leaks and holes in it's system. However, the fact that it would have also been monied people that were members, many of these would have also held influential positions and could also protect their own corrupt interests and agendas. Money talks, bulls<>t walks and those Slovakian authorities would just turn a blind eye. Fictional here I know, but the theme and premise was food for thought and also disturbing.
I wonder if Roth made Hostel, based on something that was a genuine club\lodge, or if it was just made up on a whim and why Slovakia?
As I remember it he said that there was some hoax site on the earlier days of the internet, among the rotten dot com type of stuff, that said you could pay 10,000 bucks to shoot a guy in the head in Thailand or Taiwan or something. Naturally, it wasn't real, but the idea was pretty provocative. I couldn't really guess why Slovakia though. I wish the movie was up to the level of this premise though. It's a fascinating idea. The Slovakians were not happy about Hostel and remain unhappy about it, which is kind of funny. But this is also another annoying Eli Roth thing -- he's got his characters talking about a nonexistent war in Slovakia, but the movie was filmed somewhere else entirely and doesn't even look like Slovakia. |
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Flynn
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Post by Flynn on Mar 31, 2018 3:50:21 GMT
I'm not a connoseuer of his movies, and I'm not particularly fond of the ones I've seen, but I do think he's a decent director. While he's not an artist on the level of Hitchcock, he's a competent workman.
I think everyone who likes movies should listen to his solo commentary for Cabin Fever. He doesn't talk about the film as much as he does his experience making and selling a movie, and he's complimentary to film schools. One of the things he says is that it's important to fail in supportive environments, and he's right. Learn your craft in an environment where people will be forgiving of your mistakes. In other commentaries for Cabin Feber (I think there are five total), he calls his film professor up during the commentary and expresses appreciation. That's cool.
Maybe it's because Cabin Fever was the first encounter I had with Roth, but I tend to think of him as a person rather than a name. I think he's earnest about his filmmaking, and I like that.
In his commentaries, he talks about why he loves horror, and it's pretty clear that gross things impressed upon him at an early age. He talks about scenes in movies making him vomit, and so I think this is why he gets enamoured a bit too much with gross-out events.
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Trigonomics
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Post by Trigonomics on Apr 4, 2018 14:37:51 GMT
Cabin Fever is top notch horror comedy. Green Inferno and Death Wish were okay too.
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Post by pimpinainteasy on Apr 4, 2018 15:38:03 GMT
THE GREEN INFERNO was great.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Apr 4, 2018 16:22:27 GMT
I'm not a connoseuer of his movies, and I'm not particularly fond of the ones I've seen, but I do think he's a decent director. While he's not an artist on the level of Hitchcock, he's a competent workman. I think everyone who likes movies should listen to his solo commentary for Cabin Fever. He doesn't talk about the film as much as he does his experience making and selling a movie, and he's complimentary to film schools. One of the things he says is that it's important to fail in supportive environments, and he's right. Learn your craft in an environment where people will be forgiving of your mistakes. In other commentaries for Cabin Feber (I think there are five total), he calls his film professor up during the commentary and expresses appreciation. That's cool. Maybe it's because Cabin Fever was the first encounter I had with Roth, but I tend to think of him as a person rather than a name. I think he's earnest about his filmmaking, and I like that. In his commentaries, he talks about why he loves horror, and it's pretty clear that gross things impressed upon him at an early age. He talks about scenes in movies making him vomit, and so I think this is why he gets enamoured a bit too much with gross-out events. I don't think one can be a connoseur of his movies, as there aren't enough of them, and his shit is just too low brow and trashy for that term. I also don't think he can really be considered a 'workman' since he almost exclusively (until recently) wrote his own material and attempts to really be an auteur and have a personal thread through his work. A workman is some studio employee who makes his days, manages the schedule, stays on budget and does what he's told, more or less. As much as I don't really like his stuff, I do respect that he's been able to make his bullshit his own. They all have the hallmarks of his taste and style. I do agree that he can be interesting to listen to and sounds earnest about his passion for filmmaking, but he also comes off as highly self indulgent and self important about his shitty movies, and that can really be a turnoff at the same time. |
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Flynn
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Post by Flynn on Apr 5, 2018 3:14:10 GMT
I'm not a connoseuer of his movies, and I'm not particularly fond of the ones I've seen, but I do think he's a decent director. While he's not an artist on the level of Hitchcock, he's a competent workman. I think everyone who likes movies should listen to his solo commentary for Cabin Fever. He doesn't talk about the film as much as he does his experience making and selling a movie, and he's complimentary to film schools. One of the things he says is that it's important to fail in supportive environments, and he's right. Learn your craft in an environment where people will be forgiving of your mistakes. In other commentaries for Cabin Feber (I think there are five total), he calls his film professor up during the commentary and expresses appreciation. That's cool. Maybe it's because Cabin Fever was the first encounter I had with Roth, but I tend to think of him as a person rather than a name. I think he's earnest about his filmmaking, and I like that. In his commentaries, he talks about why he loves horror, and it's pretty clear that gross things impressed upon him at an early age. He talks about scenes in movies making him vomit, and so I think this is why he gets enamoured a bit too much with gross-out events. I don't think one can be a connoseur of his movies, as there aren't enough of them, and his shit is just too low brow and trashy for that term. I also don't think he can really be considered a 'workman' since he almost exclusively (until recently) wrote his own material and attempts to really be an auteur and have a personal thread through his work. A workman is some studio employee who makes his days, manages the schedule, stays on budget and does what he's told, more or less. As much as I don't really like his stuff, I do respect that he's been able to make his bullshit his own. They all have the hallmarks of his taste and style. I do agree that he can be interesting to listen to and sounds earnest about his passion for filmmaking, but he also comes off as highly self indulgent and self important about his shitty movies, and that can really be a turnoff at the same time. By "connoseuer" I just meant that I don't seek out his movies and haven't seen all or even most of them. It was just a caveat. I wasn't trying to say anything about the quality of his movies by using that word. By "workman" I just meant that he is competent in his skills as a writer/director. I was using the term to contrast Roth's level of filmmaking to that of a highly skilled director like Hitchcock, Welles, or Bergman. He's someone who makes movies that are competent but that lack the artistry of a masterpiece. From what I've seen, he's a perfectly fine director. As for whether he comes across as self-indulgent, I guess I just don't give a shit. He's making movies, he has a name that people know, and he has a style that some people like (which includes Tarantino). He has every right to be proud of himself and proud of his work and to express that pride to whomever will listen. Maybe he is a narcissist. I don't really care enough to go find out, but I've been around enough talented people to know that a degree of narcissism tends to come with talent, and Roth is certainly talented, no matter what one thinks of his films. |
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Oct 27, 2018 13:22:32 GMT
He's not the savior of horror cinema or anything, but I do enjoy his twisted and disgusting movies, like Green Inferno and Hostel.
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Post by Anonymous Andy on Oct 27, 2018 16:08:49 GMT
I still have a lot of affection for Cabin Fever, but not much else.
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