The Green Inferno may have been the highest profile film to premiere at this year’s Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival. They always have a good mix of highly anticipated films and unknowns, so this year Green Inferno, the long-awaited, long promoted return of Roth to directing (after several successful films as producer and actor, not to mention non-film projects like the Goratorium), was a bit of a known quantity. With that, Roth proceeded to shatter expectations.
Aftershock’s Lorenza Izzo stars as Justine, a college girl trying to get into an activist group led by Alejandro (Aftershock’s Ariel Levy). Alejandro takes students into Peru to chain themselves to bulldozers and stop the displacement of indigenous tribes. On the trip, their group gets captured by an indigenous tribe they were trying to save, who turn out to be violent cannibals.
Boy, Roth sure knows how to kill people. I mean, we knew that but it’s been four movies now and he’s coming up with innovative ways. Of course, he has a few new toys compared to the Hostel movies and Cabin Fever. I don’t want to spoil any of the good stuff but there are many new implements of death specific to the jungle. I wonder if I’ve seen a pre-MPAA version at the Toronto International Film Festival because there are a few kills that may not pass the American ratings board, even for an R.
The tribe has a well-oiled routine of how they handle “visitors.” They must get plenty of folks down the river. Since they don’t speak English, no one explains the ceremonies but we know what they’re doing. Or, if you don’t follow, too bad. Watch more tribal movies. Green Inferno goes sexual, as Roth is wont to do. It’s important, because if you tried to skirt around sexual issues in violent tribal cultures, it would feel phony. He’s classy enough to handle it right, and with a lot less nudity than his previous films, though there’s a little. I mean, he is still Eli Roth.
The group’s in fighting goes where I’ve never seen crisis in fighting go before. Only Roth probably has the combination of clout and desire to sell those story points on financiers. Alejandro becomes the D-bag you really enjoy seeing abused, and there were many characters I liked. Amy (Kirby Bliss Blanton) was the one I wanted to protect the most. I love Justine but I figured she could handle herself. Amy’s the most scared and acts the hell out of it without being the obnoxious troublemaker. I mean, they’re in some serious shit. Hang in there, girl. I found Daryl Sabara’s comic relief appealing in that he’s so resigned to the trouble they’re in, why not just give up and make jokes? Magda Apanowicz plays a really strong woman with good survival instinct too, and Jonah (Aaron Burns) is very sympathetic.
Green Inferno is also Roth’s best looking film, although that’s not hard when Hostel is set in a torture warehouse and Cabin Fever in a poisoned woods. His shots of the lush jungle contribute to the shocking juxtaposition of beauty and violence.
Since Roth already announced the sequel Beyond the Green Inferno, I can imagine where this series could go. There could always be a new group of activists, tourists or maybe even military running afoul of the jungle tribe. Of course I don’t want to spoil who, if any, make it out of The Green Inferno alive, but whether in Beyond or a future sequel I could see a survivor returning to Peru for revenge. Get on this, guys. You’ve started a franchise. Now make Franchise Fred proud.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
