The Green Inferno (2015)

Green Inferno is Eli Roth's recent film, a throwback to the old cannibal/gore-splatter flicks of the 70s and also a “social commentary” on how kids act today, which is totally something he should never be entrusted with. It's like letting a kid handle a firearm. Just nothing but bad things can happen.

Director: Eli Roth

Starring: Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This is also a sort of homage to old 70s exploitation/gore flicks like Cannibal Holocaust, which I haven't seen. But that movie was famous for the fact that the filmmakers killed live animals on screen. This is sort of comparable. What Roth does here is kill dignity and good taste in filmmaking on screen, so it's sort of the same.

We start off this movie with a bunch of kids at college protesting in, I guess, the one spot on campus they're allowed to do that – right outside the dorm room of main character Justine. She and her roommate talk about how Justine wants to go join this activist group, how she is attracted to the main guy leading the group, Alejandro, and, a few scenes later, how she wants to go raise awareness of female genital mutilation after learning about it in class.

Her roommate, played by pop star Sky Ferreira, being the only smart kid in the movie, rightfully says the activist group is a bunch of phonies looking for attention, the activist guy is a weirdo and it'd be almost impossible to get anything done by just flying to places by herself with this group and trying basically on-the-fly, sensational type shit. But Justine, being an idealistic social-justice-obsessed college kid, ends up joining the group and going on a mission to stop this rainforest jungle area from being bulldozed.

Ferreira: "It's not too late to get out of the movie like me. You won't see me again for most of it!"

This is Roth's attempt at social commentary – college kids are dumb and don't really care about the issues they pretend to care about! They're just like babies going through phases. Which is pretty condescending and awful, really. I bet Roth hasn't talked to a college kid except for trying to sleazily hit on the 21 year old bartender after a movie premiere and she turns him down. I imagine he then gets very self righteous with her and makes HER feel like the bad guy. I mean he's basically right on the edge of being a red-pill MRA fuckwad in this movie anyway with how douchey and arrogant his message is in this.

Honestly, it just goes on like this for a while... this Alejandro guy talks up Justine about going to save that rainforest and all that, saying that the only way to get people to change their behavior is to put cameras on them, humiliating them. Uh, not sure it's that simple, but okay, I get that Roth can't really process more complex ideas.

Amazingly, they actually somehow get a plane out there. There are a bunch of boring, time-wasting scenes of them eating lunch and then using the bathroom in the woods. I don't know why these scenes were included as they really accomplish nothing at all except padding out the runtime! So hooray for that I guess. But if he's under the impression that any of these characters are likable or interesting, well – they're not.

"Hey, I really think this interaction we're having is substantial and totally not just window dressing for the fact that I'll be dead soon."

I guess their plan is to tie themselves to these trees wearing creepy rape masks and refusing to move until the company with the bulldozers totally, for real stops their mission. I'm sure they won't just go back to doing it after these kids leave! Public humiliation trumps EVERYTHING, remember?

Anyway, then for some reason one of the guys puts a gun to Justine's head, because I suppose he really thought he would get away with it... then after everyone else puts their cameras on him, goading him to shoot Justine (what great people!), he stops and lets them all go free.

"Well, this has gone according to plans so far. I feel like I'm definitely helping!"

They then celebrate with drinks and toasts because again, they totally can't just pick up operations again as soon as the kids left. Activism is fun and easy! Why aren't MORE people doing this?!

I guess God really hated what they just did, though, as their plane immediately crashes as they try to leave, and several characters you don't remember the names of die instantly. RIP to whatever the fuck their names were. But unfortunately, most of the main characters survive.

As it happens every time you go into the jungle, they then immediately get kidnapped by a tribe of red-painted Amazonian savages who eat people! Super realistic! I'm just glad Roth has learned from his previous mistakes in movies like Hostel where he offended entire countries by portraying them as cabals for serial killers and evil people. This time, he's turning his bigotry sights on indigenous peoples who will never see the movie. So that's a way to sidestep outrage and be as despicable as he wants! And oh boy does he ever want to be a despicable piece of shit in this movie.

I suppose stereotyping is just faster. Roth is a busy guy.

One of the main selling points of this movie was, apparently, that it made people throw up in the theater while watching it. I guess there are a few gross scenes, but it's hardly anything THAT fucking extreme overall... maybe Roth just poisoned everyone's drinks and food at those showings he said they threw up at.

I mean, this one scene where they hack apart this guy is kind of gross and bloody in an old vintage 70s-gore way. And it sucks for me because I had money that this guy, the fat black guy who is nice to the main character and is actually sympathetic, would survive this horror movie. And now I'm out $20, so THANKS A LOT, ROTH, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.

But then there's no other scene like this in the movie. What happens in the rest of it? Endless scenes of them sitting in a cage bitching at each other? There's one scene where the savages give them some meat to eat and one girl says she's a vegetarian. Oh the hilarity! When will these apt, cutting social satirical scenes from Eli Roth ever lose their timeliness? Aren't college students pieces of shit?

Oh, and also, they find out that the whole 'Amazon save the rainforest' plot they came down for was just a PR stunt so they could film a video, and they didn't actually help the forest at all. Because in Eli Roth land, there's no actual idealism – anything that seems selfless and genuine is really just the opposite, a soulless marketing ploy. Just more of that awesome, pointed social commentary that rings true (if you're a dumb edgy teenager.)

In between all of this, there are several scenes of Justine being groomed, apparently, for genital mutilation – because isn't it ironic that what she was learning about in the beginning is what she's going through for real now?!? Life is just funny like that.

I guess Justine and this one other guy try to escape, which leads to a long ass scene of them running through the woods and what not. But then they get captured again, which made the whole thing pointless I guess. Justine is almost mutilated by these savages, but one random little boy saves her... why? Because the writers wrote themselves into a hole and had no idea how to save their story! Who cares if he has no reason to do it and we never get a real explanation? DEUS EX MACHINA TIME!

But hey, at least Justine gets to cosplay as a sexy version of the Pilsbury Dough Boy...

Which I'm sure is an actual fetish I am not going to look up at all...

Then she leaves Alejandro there to die, as he was a shitty person and deserved it I guess... in a better movie, there may have been some conflict over this, or character development. But in terrible horror movies, it's just hollow meaningless revenge because the audience didn't like the guy either. Even when she gets home, she just lies and says everyone died. I guess she has a dream about him coming back and she's a cannibal now and bites him?

And here we come to the movie's true message - if you're an activist but don't really believe in your cause, you'll end up in a cage in the jungle left to die. So relatable, so timely.

But that doesn't really make sense anyway.

Michelle also pointed out how weird it is that Justine defends the tribe at the end, claiming the cannibals were actually nice to her and protected her. Odd choice, being that it doesn't make a difference – they all get killed in the end, so who is she protecting here? It's like Roth is trying to have this statement about how she wants to stick to the cause even though it's a lie, just so she can feel better about herself or something. Which is just more lameness really.

The movie then has a short end-credits scene where Alejandro's sister calls Justine and says satellite images found Alejandro living out in the jungle himself now, I guess... which is weird that the cameras picked that up and nobody has saved him yet, but who am I to say? It's cute that the movie thinks we give a shit about any of these terrible characters.

There's like one half decent scene of gore in this, and it's early on and there isn't anything else like it again. The characters in this are unlikable and the social commentary attempts are so bad that it's almost satirical – like I really don't know how anyone thought this was clever, the tip of the iceberg being the asinine dialogue that turns every character into a mouthpiece for Roth's message - it's super transparent and shitty writing. The message is a lot of sneering douche-bro condescension at some kind of strawman idea of what college kids and activists are like. Everything is very negative – as if being this cynical is a substitute for actual intelligent discourse. I don't think it is.

Got to love Roth's defense of the movie against those offended by his portrayal of indigenous cultures... you can read the whole thing here, but these are the parts I found funny:

“My film, however, is about bandwagon activism, or "slacktivism," which is people jumping in on social media and retweeting causes they actually know nothing about (something these activists seem ready to do with my film). The whole idea of the kids saving the rainforest only to be eaten by the tribe they saved is a metaphor for how people are shamelessly consumed by their vanity and need for validation on social media. These kids in the movie care, but they care more about getting recognized for caring.

The people who seem to publicly care how these people are portrayed are people who want to be portrayed as caring people.

If everyone stopped their ideas because they were worried about offending people or sparking discussion then there would be no stories to tell. In short, take your cause seriously, but take my film for what it is — a movie.”

I'll translate for you: “My film is a serious thing with a real message and anyone who doesn't like it is part of the problem! But really, it's just a silly movie, why are you taking it so seriously?!”

What a load... this is just a dumb, poorly written film. It's crass and ordinary and doesn't have anything intelligent to say, nor anything of value entertainment-wise. Just awful. Avoid this.

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The Green Inferno, online petitions and freedom of speech

Oh boy. Here we go again. It's time for another round of "freedom of speech" suppression when talking about a provocative film - this time, Eli Roth's upcoming The Green Inferno. There's a petition now to ban the film altogether for its portrayal of indigenous native tribes in the forest, and I'll get to that in a second. Here's a trailer:



The film is about a bunch of kids who want to save the rainforests getting eaten by cannibals, or some shit like that. Roth himself has said it's supposed to be a critique of the Internet's social justice warriors and slacktivist movements - i.e. people who take up these causes but don't do anything except post online about it - and a throwback to old 70s-style gore flicks like Cannibal Holocaust. And, I guess he really just wanted another excuse to show how much gore he can fit into a movie. He doesn't really have much else, but hey, be nice to him, he doesn't realize how much he sucks.

The petition... well, it's basically just more of what you expect. It talks about how the film is offensive because indigenous native tribal peoples are often portrayed as the villains on screen. Which, yeah, is pretty obvious. I don't think anyone is going to dispute that.

Where it goes wrong is the same way anything like this goes wrong, namely by trying to ban it. That's become our first instinct now, all the time - don't like something, try to get it banned completely. We know it's offensive. That much isn't news to us. But trying to ban it won't work, especially not with a stupid online petition. Nothing has ever really been accomplished with an online petition. You're just throwing more words into the void that will evaporate like an early morning mist. Nothing will come of this - you won't change a thing, not if you're just trying to get the movie banned.

Why not write some new stories yourself and get those published, or just talk about how shitty the movie is without wasting your effort on a Change.org petition? Both of those things would be more positive and better overall then beating the dead horse of an online petition, which is basically an early grave for any potential thing getting done. It's frustrating because your efforts are in the right place - trying to fight for movies that better represent your culture. But you're wasting your time with the petition thing!

But really, what always pisses me off is the kinds of people who keep trotting out the "freedom of speech" bullshit every time something like this happens. They're taking our freedom of speech! Censorship! Come on, nobody cares about censoring you. Maybe you should get over yourself, deflate that ego balloon you're so intent on stroking.

Why is it that every time this happens, it's inevitably because of something that was worthless in the first place? People sure love to talk about freedom of speech these days, but only when defending the most lowbrow, sexist, racist trash. But I guess you need your freedom of speech to be as much of a hateful douchebag as possible, right? Or is it not my freedom of speech to say that you suck as a person for perpetuating these ideas? The train just keeps going, does it not?

The funniest thing about this is that all these "freedom of speech" rallying cries have no idea what they're talking about. Freedom of speech in the United States means you can say whatever you want and the government can't send you to jail for it. It doesn't mean we can't call you assholes for what you say, or that nobody can criticize you. Just because you have freedom of speech, doesn't mean everything you say is worth listening to or deserving of praise.

And fuck off with this whole "I may not like what you say, but I will defend your right to say it" thing. That's pussy, half-measure shit. Have some conviction, and just say what you think. Freedom of speech is best left to the actual lawyers and courtrooms, and we don't have to clutter up our own arguments with misappropriations of what we think the law is.

The Green Inferno is probably gonna suck ass anyway. The trailer looks shitty and the movie is probably just an excuse for gore. But at least you'll get to see us review it here at Cinema Freaks!

ADDENDUM

A few things...

I really think it's worth saying that the efforts of these people to ban the movie is no different from the efforts of super hardcore Christians to ban books in schools. You're just taking what you don't want to see and trying to make sure no one else has to look at it. While I'm more sympathetic by far to your cause, it's still not a good idea. Going too hardline in any direction is bad. Instead, just try talking about why it sucks and why it's offensive without this whole petition angle. That's all you need.

The efforts of those who hate censorship are misguided too. If you think "censorship" is bad now because some individuals don't like racist or sexist messages in media...well, you'd better be glad you're not living in the time when the Comics Code Authority was a thing, when comic books were so censored that Batman turned into what the Adam West show ended up being - the Joker was so censored, he didn't show up in comics for years! If you pissants today who bitch about censors lived in THAT time...well you'd probably kill yourselves. But hey, fuck historical context, right?

I also love the blogs I've seen saying that they defend Roth's "right" as an artist to make movies about whatever he wants. Claiming Roth is an artist is a pretty laughable statement. He's more like that guy who used to draw pictures of giant pulsating penises in art class to shock people. Plus he's said his insulting depictions of foreign people in movies, which have made entire countries angry, are meant to depict "Americans' ignorance of the world around them."

Which makes sense to me! I'm going to go make a movie set in the 60s that has black people as possessed serial killing aliens from the future who are intent on destroying straight white American culture. But it's not racist, because it depicts the white Americans' fear of the unknown. Fuck Eli Roth, fuck his movies, fuck anyone who defends his movies. He's trash, plain and simple.

Really, it's just clear - if your "freedom of speech" is all about being able to watch an Eli Roth movie that depicts other cultures as serial killers and savages, well, maybe you have other fucking problems.

So I guess I'm kind of saying that everyone is wrong. OK. I'll go with it!