Eli Roth returns to write and direct his latest offering of torture porn, in “The Green Inferno”. The film follows a group of student activists who travel from New York City to the Amazon to save the rainforest. However, once they arrive in this vast green landscape, they soon discover that they are not alone, as an cannibal tribe has taken them prisoner. What follows is proof that no good deed goes unpunished. To anyone who follows behind the scenes events, “The Green Inferno is a 2013 film that was shelved for over two years because the studios lost interest in a film about such a forbidden subject. What i find amazing is how the film was developed. Roth spent over three months filming in the Amazon. When Eli Roth and his crew approached villagers to be extras in the film, he soon realized that they had never seen a movie and had no concept of what one was. To demonstrate what a movie was, Eli brought a TV and a copy of Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and had a screening for everyone. The villagers loved it and gladly acted in the film. I say this because the villagers are one of the very few things that Roth gets right about the film. Their look and their actions feel very authentic. One of the things i loved about the film is that there are no subtitles. We experience what goes on a lot like the prisoners do, and i think that is brilliant. However, i wish the film had more to offer for horror buffs like me who have been waiting over two years to see it. The biggest problem with this film and any Roth project for that matter is that he doesn’t know when enough is enough. His usual tropes are all over the place in this film. The subject of cannibalism by itself warrants enough intrigue, and certainly holds the capability for some brutal scenes to be remembered for generations. What i didn’t enjoy was scenes on top of this for the idea of shock value. A woman having a bowel movement complete with sounds, and a male masturbating in the cage in front of village children is utterly disgusting and not needed to drive the point home for this movie. Roth also always loves to write roles for the youth of America as snobby, arrogant, and pushy to other cultures. It’s up to anyone’s opinion whether this is true or not, but one thing it doesn’t do for a film is compel the audience to pick a side and stand behind them. The cannibal tribe are monsters and are presented as such. There is no debate on that fact. But the college students are cast under the most unlikeable of traits that it’s so hard to find anything interesting about them. A couple of them are presented almost cartoonish, and i couldn’t help but hold back my laughter for some grit of the teeth awful dialogue. How does this hurt the film? Simple, death is everywhere in this film. You are grossed out by what is going on, but do you ever truly feel like this is a tragedy? I certainly didn’t, and that is all entirely based on the screenplay of the film in which some of these characters are hiding more and more worse sides of themselves behind every turn. The gore and prosthetic work is very well done. For anyone who is a big fan of the genre, Roth is a student of horror cinema, and will ruin plenty of meals with his most grizzly macabre of scenes. While it is gruesome and satisfying for me as a lover of horror films, i liken it to the term “Shock Porn”. The reason for the second word in that title is because if you have ever watched one pornographic film, you have watched them all. That’s the biggest problem with the gore in “The Green Inferno”. It all feels repetitive, even losing the chance to top the last scene because the worst death (In my opinion) is the very first one when the kids reach the island. The ending is entirely one of the very worst that i have seen this year. It’s so angry and frustrating to see the big picture from a whole when it’s all over. I know where Roth was going from a political stance, but it just reminded me that “The Green Inferno” was 95 minutes better spent on the shelves where it was since 2013. Overall, i think this film had the ability to open people’s eyes to real horror for a new generation. Films like “Cannibal Holocaust” and “Eaten Alive” are more than proof that the genre can accomodate cannibalism. It just needs more than shock moments to create real genuine horror. Send the audience home scared, not grossed out.

4/10