The Green Inferno – Update
Eli Roth’s cannibal horror The Green Inferno was slated for release last September/October, it was pulled from distribution due to financial issues. Since then, it’s been in release limbo, or maybe even Hell for that matter.
In an interview with IGN, Roth got candid about the pic that sends Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Daryl Sabara and Kirby Bliss Blanton into the Amazon jungle to protect a dying tribe, but are taken hostage by the very natives they saved.
“No there’s not [any updates], but I will say this: All I hear on Twitter and Facebook – no matter what I Tweet now, people say ‘Yeah shut up, where’s Green Inferno?’ Trust me when I say there are no less than four lawyers from different companies on conference calls and email chains every single day trying to work this out,” Roth revealed. “I was hoping to have it resolved today or by Monday so we could do something to hopefully have it out this summer. That’s what everyone’s working towards. To have it out August or September. But I was 90 days out from a release, there was a trailer and posters in theatres, and it got pulled. So please don’t hold me to anything, but trust me when I say everybody is all over it working it out.”
The good news, adds Roth, is that it’s close to being resolved. “We’re at the one-yard line, but I’ve also been there before so I don’t want to say anything, but I just thank everyone for their patience and understanding. And it really helps when people Tweet ‘Please release it, please release it’ – it keeps the fire burning, but everyone is working to resolve it.”
South of Hell
The Eli Roth and Jason Blum horror series, South of Hell has added a few more fan favorites to the guest director roster: Ti West (House Of The Devil, The Sacrament), Rachel Talalay (Doctor Who, Tank Girl), Jennifer Lynch (The Walking Dead, Teen Wolf) and Jeremiah Chechik (Helix, Reigh) have been tapped to direct individual episodes of WE tv’s original scripted thriller South Of Hell.
Set in South Carolina, South Of Hell focuses on Maria Abascal (Mena Suvari), a stunning demon-hunter-for-hire whose power stems from within. Like those she hunts, Maria is divided within herself, struggling with her own demon, Abigail, who resides inside of her, feeding on the evil Maria exorcises from others. Zachary Booth and Bill Irwin also star. The show has an eight-episode straight-to-series order for a 2015 premiere. South Of Hell is produced by Sonar Entertainment and Blumhouse Television
Cabin Fever – Remake!
Really, it’s come to this… Cassian Elwes and Evan Astrowsky are producing a remake of Cabin Fever. Whether original creator and director Eli Roth is involved or not, and to what degree the remake/reboot/re-imagining will follow the original is up for debate. It all just seems a bit too soon…
The original film featured a handful of college graduates who vacation at a remote cabin in the woods, where they become infected with a voracious flesh-eating virus… gore aplenty. It was a great horror debut.
This news seems to be tied in with the upcoming relase of Cabin Fever: Patient Zero on June 26th, a prequel to Roth’s original film. The plot for Patient Zero is: A group of friends enjoy a bachelor cruise in the Caribbean and stumble upon a research facility on a remote island where a deadly virus is released.
The remake of Cabin Fever seems to be aimed as a follow up to this prequel…
Eli Roth is in for an incredibly busy year with the long awaited release of The Green Inferno, another horror flick Knock, Knock, about two girls who seduce a married man and make his life hell. He is also developing a sequel to Green Inferno as well as possibly directing the Dracula flick Harker.
On the production side he helped develop a film called Clown directed by Jon Watts who made a fake trailer last year in which he attached Roth’s name. Check out the fake trailer and the genuine one below.
The Last Exorcism II: The Beginning of the End
Ashley Bell will reprise her role as Nell in The Last Exorcism II: The Beginning of the End. This has been a while in the offing, first reported back in January HERE Check out its first official synopsis:
“Eli Roth & Strike Entertainment bring us an even more terrifying and bigger scale sequel to THE LAST EXORCISM that grossed $70 million worldwide. It looks like Nell Sweetzer’s last exorcism was not foolproof. She is back… and so are her demons.
Continuing where the first film left off, teenage Nell Sweetzer is found dirty and terrified in the woods having just escaped a demon ritual in which a cult helped her give birth to a demon baby. Confused and scared, Nell is examined by doctors but she doesn’t remember much about the previous few months except that as a result of everything, her family is now dead. She is moved into Davreaux – a girls’ halfway house in New Orleans, where she will try to put her life back together with the help of the therapist, Frank Merle. She even begins to date a boy named Chris and starts a job at a local hotel.
But something doesn’t feel right to Nell. She is being sought after by the demon who possessed her in the first LAST EXORCISM. It wants Nell, but in a different way than before…”
The Last Exorcism… wasn’t, there’s more!
Production is set to begin on the sequel to horror hit The Last Exorcism next month in New Orleans. Ed Gass-Donnelly, whose credits include This Beautiful City and Small Town Murder Songs, will direct the R-rated follow-up to the 2010 PG-13 pic that grossed $70 million worldwide on a budget of $1.5 million. Star Ashley Bell is returning to reprise her role as Nell Sweetzer for the Damien Chazelle-penned film. As with the original, Eli Roth is producing with Eric Newman, Marc Abraham and Tom Bliss.
The original picture centered on a charlatan exorcist facing a crisis of conscience who invites a documentary crew on his final exorcism where he comes across the possessed Nell. I’ve been told the sequel will pick up three months after that film left off, although further story details are being kept under wraps. Delivery is expected for late 2012.
Roth says he’s “very, very excited to continue to this story. Obviously with the title of the first one we had not planned on a sequel, but we love the story and subject matter and had what we feel is an inspired idea to continue it. As you can see from other recent films, fans around the world are fascinated by this subject matter, and we want to go deeper and darker this time. The first film worked great as a PG-13 psychological film, but now we want to go R-rated and show the true horror of what this subject matter offers. The biggest creative challenge will be coming up with the right title!” Newman says, “On behalf of the producing team, we are excited to put the next installment of Nell’s story in the capable hands of Ed Gass-Donnelly. His naturalistic style and performance-based filmmaking make him the perfect choice.” Studiocanal EVP of international distribution, Harold Van Lier, adds, “We are horrified to bring to the marketplace the eagerly awaited sequel to our 2010 worldwide hit. This much bigger scale movie will unravel a profoundly scarier chapter to Nell’s battle between good and evil. God have mercy.” Courtesy of DEADLINE
The Last Exorcism ***
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, second generation evangelical Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) has had a crisis of faith. He has invited documentary camera crew, Iris Reisen (Iris Bahr) and Daniel Moskowitz (Adam Grimes) to record his last days as a minister. Cotton explains that the exorcisms he and his father before him have performed are all fraudulent and he will expose his secrets for the cameras. He takes the crew on his final exorcism, to a farm in rural Louisiana where Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum) has requested help for his possessed daughter Nell (Ashley Bell).
They meet with resistance in the form Nell’s brother Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones) who clearly doesn’t want them there. Nevertheless, Cotton performs the fake exorcism and ‘cures’ Nell. He takes his fee from Louis and leaves the farm, however things are worse than anyone could have imagined…
Produced by Eli Roth and well directed by Daniel Stamm who focuses the film on the characters and mood rather than cheap shocks or gore. The mockumentary style has been used with increasing regularity in the horror genre since the breakout success of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ in 1999. This is better than the ‘Diary of the Dead’, ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’ and its sequel, but is nowhere near as good as ‘Rec’. That’s not a huge criticism as ‘Rec’ is an outstanding addition to the genre.
The main reason the movie works, at least for the most part, is that the actors are all excellent, individually and as a collective they are really believable and manage to sell the documentary feel of the movie. Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell are real standouts, they both show incredible range. Ashley Bell is a star in the making; there is one particular moment where Cotton opens Nell’s bedroom door and asks who she’s talking too, deadpan she answers “No one”, as Cotton closes the door, Nell gives a disturbingly sweet smile straight to camera.
The Last Exorcism is a good suspenseful drama with a different and original take on the possession/exorcism sub-genre. That’s what it is, what it isn’t, is a good horror film. There aren’t any real scares, it’s a refreshingly realistic approach to exorcism and if you buy into the characters on concept is genuinely disturbing in parts.
There has been a fair bit of criticism of the ending and fair enough as it takes a huge turn from the preceding 80 minutes; it’s a clear homage to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and feels added-on. If the movie had ended 10 minutes earlier I would have been much happier; however as with most of these things if you choose to go with it you’ll enjoy the movie.
Quality: 3 out of 5 stars (4 without that ending)
Any good: 3 out of 5 stars (4 without that ending)
Hostel part 2 *½
The Hostel sequel was always going to happen after the first one inexplicably made $80m..!
So the second hostel features 3 girls instead of 3 lads; see what he did there, totally different approach. They are the apparently as-rich-as-Bill Gates Beth (Lauren German), her feisty friend Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and tag along nerd Lorna (Heather Matarazzo – who deserves better material than this and is given nothing to do).
The movie opens with Paxton from the first movie waking from a ‘oh no it was a dream’ shot, it wasn’t he’s decapitated. The girls head to the hostel in Slovakia and are drugged, kidnapped and we’ve been here before.
The major difference this time around is we get to spend some time with a couple of rich American business men who bid to kill the girls.
The killings this time around include an Elizabeth Bathory style bathing in a bath of blood, a guy torn apart by the facility guard dogs and a circular saw to the face, well, hair but the face comes off with it…
SPOILER ALERT. Beth turns the tables on her torturer and makes a deal with the mafia types to escape. To do so though, she must kill as apparently that’s house rules. So she cuts off her would-be-torturers genitals and throws them to a guard dog!
Worse than the first one; it repeats the same structure without improving on it which shouldn’t have been too difficult. There are a few scenes that you know are added to set-up another possible sequel… please God NO.
A disappointing effort from Eli Roth who’s really enjoyed the limelight he’s been thrust into over the last few years since. ‘Cabin Fever’ was a great debut; it promised so much and won him so many fans as he spoke like a fan of the genre. He seems to be coasting along when he really should be pushing to make something great, he probably has the ability we’re just waiting to see it.
Quality: Averagely well made 2 out of 5 stars
Any good: Not really 1 out of 5 stars
Hostel **½
Three backpackers in Amsterdam are locked out of their hostel. They trawl through the red light district, get drunk and are given information about a hostel in Slovakia where the girls are beautiful and love American men. The hostel is ‘To die for’
These opening scenes are supposed to give us some time to get to know our lead characters and therefore have some empathy for them when they’re inevitably tortured and killed.
Anyway the guys, Americans Paxton (Jay Hernandez), Josh (Derek Richardson) and Icelander Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) head off to Slovakia and check-in to the hostel. On first impression it seems like the hostel is as they were led to believe. Not at all a front for a rich man’s club where they pay small fortunes to torture and kill backpackers with impunity… Or is it..?
Soon enough, they’re drugged, kidnapped and strapped into chairs in murky rooms… Torture ensues: tendons cut, fingers and toes severed etc, the usual stuff… then it’s a blow torch to an eye.
This is Eli Roth’s second feature after his fun debut ‘Cabin Fever’. Despite the bigger budget, higher production values and Quentin Tarantino as executive producer it’s not as good as his debut. Sure it’s a good idea for a horror film; it’s just not that good an idea. We’ve seen similar themes before and I’m sure Roth and Tarantino have seen the same movies being fans of horror and Grind house.
It’s well shot and the leads are okay. The gore when it arrives is suitably gruesome and it would seem that Roth has spent some time thinking how to hurt people.
I just don’t buy it. The whole premise of a hostel where these kids disappear from was like an ‘anti-The Beach’ and pointless.
SPOILER ALERT. Paxton’s escape and revenge is a little too contrived and totally unbelievable. The car chase killing of the bastards who led him to the hostel is a bad joke and the train station revenge feels like an add-on idea.
Not as bad as I’ve described it. But if you like this sort of thing, seeing people tortured then you’re sick and fortunately for you there are better movies out there. The horrific ‘The Girl Next Door’ was made on a fraction of the budget and has realistic, empathetic characters. Also ‘Martyrs’ leaves this in its wake for creepy chills and disturbing scenes of torture. If you can handle it ‘Salo: 120 Days of Sodom’ will disturb, horrify and scare the shit out of you in equal measures.
Quality: Well made 3 out of 5 stars
Any good: Not really, 2 out of 5 stars
