by Stephen Milek
Well it’s been a long road for The Green Inferno. Scheduled to be released last year then suddenly pulled due to the studio’s financial difficulties. It was in limbo for a while but earlier this year it was backed by Blumhouse productions and got a release date. Finally Eli Roth’s cannibal film was unleashed on the world.
The film is about Justine (Lorenza Izzo Eli Roth’s wife) a virgin naïve college student who ends up fascinated by Alejandro (Ariel Levy) the leader of a student activist group. Enticed to joining the group by Jonah (Aaron Burns) a friendly member of the group she becomes sympathetic to their cause. They end up recruiting her for a trip to Peru to stop the destruction of a native tribe. Once in Peru Alejandro’s true plan for Justine is revealed and he turns out not to be such a nice guy. On their way back though their plane crashes and the ones that aren’t killed in the crash are captured by a native tribe that turn out to be cannibals. Then things turn ugly.
Eli Roth does it again and turns out another gory movie. Unfortunately the first hour which he spends trying to set up the characters is so completely boring that when you get to the parts that should be exciting you just don’t care anymore. We spend so much time with Justine in New York, meeting her roommate and her dad both of which has very little to do with the story. There is no suspense and the characters are just boring. When we finally get to Puru the characters all fall into stereotypical horror movie clichés. The leader has ulterior motives, there is the pot head, the slutty girl, the nice guy, and of course the virgin that is going to survive. There is absolutely no reason to spend an hour setting the story up. A better written script could have set up everything much more efficiently. And have a suspenseful movie.
But once we get past all the boring stuff (and I finally stopped looking at my watch to see how much time has passed) things quickly turn and we get into the gore. We see someone being pulled apart and eaten while they are still alive. I thought the person sitting next to me might puke, and I thought finally the good stuff. But then the movie turns into a comedy. There is an extended scene where a girl gets sick and has diarrhea while trapped in a cage with everyone. And it’s totally played for laughs. Then there is a scene where the villagers get high on weed and again totally played for laughs. Where was the horror? Where was the suspense? As we got closer to the end the suspense did start to amp up but again at that point I could care less about the characters because I found everyone boring.
Overall: D for disappointing. Eli Roth proves he has an eye for great scenery and gore but also proves he can’t write. I might have enjoyed it better if I thought I was going to see a comedy not a horror film. There is a scene at the end that supposedly sets up a sequel which if there is one it finds a better pace and hopefully gets a better writer.
Eli Roth does it again and turns out another gory movie. Unfortunately the first hour which he spends trying to set up the characters is so completely boring that when you get to the parts that should be exciting you just don’t care anymore. We spend so much time with Justine in New York, meeting her roommate and her dad both of which has very little to do with the story. There is no suspense and the characters are just boring. When we finally get to Puru the characters all fall into stereotypical horror movie clichés. The leader has ulterior motives, there is the pot head, the slutty girl, the nice guy, and of course the virgin that is going to survive. There is absolutely no reason to spend an hour setting the story up. A better written script could have set up everything much more efficiently. And have a suspenseful movie.
But once we get past all the boring stuff (and I finally stopped looking at my watch to see how much time has passed) things quickly turn and we get into the gore. We see someone being pulled apart and eaten while they are still alive. I thought the person sitting next to me might puke, and I thought finally the good stuff. But then the movie turns into a comedy. There is an extended scene where a girl gets sick and has diarrhea while trapped in a cage with everyone. And it’s totally played for laughs. Then there is a scene where the villagers get high on weed and again totally played for laughs. Where was the horror? Where was the suspense? As we got closer to the end the suspense did start to amp up but again at that point I could care less about the characters because I found everyone boring.
Overall: D for disappointing. Eli Roth proves he has an eye for great scenery and gore but also proves he can’t write. I might have enjoyed it better if I thought I was going to see a comedy not a horror film. There is a scene at the end that supposedly sets up a sequel which if there is one it finds a better pace and hopefully gets a better writer.
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