popular thinking

ELI ROTH TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW MOVIE, HOSTEL

Strong stomach a must to check into ‘Hostel’ (Boston Herald)
The latest TV ads for Hostel boast that the film’s torture scenes are so graphic, they’ve already resulted in multiple calls for paramedics at screenings in Toronto.
That’s not to say Canadian audiences are especially squeamish.
Rather, Hostel (opening Friday) gets down and dirty, literally going for the viewer’s Achilles’ heel - slicing, dicing and clipping appendages; menacing medical tools used for nonsurgical purposes; guns to the head; the now-obligatory chain saw.
Eli Roth, the Newton native who wrote and directed Hostel, got giddy after a recent Boston screening, describing his movie’s “eyegasm” shocker.
But Sony and Screen Gems, which partner with Lions Gate Films on distribution, initially balked.
“They didn’t know what to do when they saw the scenes with the tortures,” Roth said.
But producers who knew Roth’s background - his 2003 homage to gore, Cabin Fever, was Lions Gate’s top grosser that year - defended him. Roth’s box-office credibility also is enhanced by having the words “Quentin Tarantino presents” attached to the marketing campaign.
Still, Roth acknowledged that Cabin Fever is “a Disney movie compared to” the violence in Hostel.
He showed his appreciation for Japanese horror by having Audition director Takashi Miike make an acting cameo in Hostel.
“You feel like you’re in the hands of a dangerous filmmaker,” Roth said about Miike. “Anyone could die at any moment.”
Roth wished Hollywood could support those kinds of films.
“American horror is like the (weak) wimp bastard cousin of Japanese horror,” he said. “That’s like putting a Smurf up against King Kong.”
Roth said the recent spate of remakes seemed promising with the new versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead but have since gotten soft.
“The studios are so afraid to offend anybody. We get boring, safe movies like The Fog,” he said. “Horror movies cannot be afraid to piss people off!”
Roth said the profitable “Saw” franchise - Saw II cost $4 million to make and has earned $87 million and counting - helps him and other filmmakers get their ideas greenlighted.
A discussion with Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News (www.aintitcool.com) about a few of the sickening sites on the Internet turned into Roth’s idea for Hostel.
“I figured, if somebody else thought of it, somebody is doing it,” Roth said of the premise, which takes the stolen kidney urban legend to a sicker level.
The story ultimately frightens because it has at its root some plausibility, said Barbara Nedeljakova, who plays the villainous vixen Natalya in Hostel.
“Scary to think this might happen,” she said, “because it might happen to any of us.”

Sidebar: Why is torture the theme du jour in cinema?
Related: Watch the trailer here