The Green Inferno (2015) Review!!

Synopsis – A group of student activists travels to the Amazon to save the rain forest and soon discover that they are not alone, and that no good deed goes unpunished.

My Take – As I had mentioned in my review of Knock Knock (2015), Eli Roth is a director whose fame certainly goes before him. If he is known for one thing, it is the amount of violence shown in his films! The one thing I admire most about his films, despite the fact his movies are pretty terrible, is that unlike other directors in the horror genre, he always manages to push the envelope of the concepts he uses. This film is no exception! Stuck in cans for the last two years due to production & distribution troubles, this film is easily the most graphic film released in recent years. An ultimate throwback to 70s-80s Italian cannibal films, particularly the universally banned Cannibal Holocaust (despite not being a gore fan this is weirdly one of my favorite films), this film seemed like a perfect vehicle for Eli Roth to expand his skills while sticking to his usual mix of gore & humor. And as I had expected, the film is decent enough but at the same time it doesn’t quite live up to all the hype people have created for it the past couple of years. Despite establishing a decent lurid nature of its environment, it takes too long to get to the creature feature, and when it does get there, the supposed shock value isn’t compelling enough to become a satisfying film. Yes! Just like Knock Knock, Eli Roth adds social commentary into the mix, which ends up feeling odd & underwhelming. Why couldn’t it have been just a straightforward exploitation film, something which Eli Roth has specialized in displaying in films like Cabin Fever & The Hostel films (not that those two are great). The social commentary in the movie, mostly pokes fun at today’s society and how everyone wants to ‘appear’ to be fighting for a cause when in fact, they are doing very little. And yes, he has a point here, but it isn’t as thought provoking as he wants it to be, especially once the carnage starts and those ideas fly out the window. Only for those ideas to awkwardly return at the end of the movie. The story follows follows Justine (Loranna Izzo), a freshman in college who joins a student activist group that plans to save the Amazon rain forest by orchestrating a scandal for online awareness. But these guys aren’t just all talk: they are going to go directly to a village in Peru to rescue it from impending bulldozers before the village is destroyed, and their mission is successful.

They rejoice on the plane ride back home, but their celebration is short lived as the plane crashes somewhere in the vast sea of green. Soon enough, they are taken hostage by a cannibalistic tribe and must escape before they are turned into someone’s next meal. Like Roth‘s previous films, the film takes its time before unleashing hell on the victims. The crew doesn’t actually encounter the cannibal tribe until about 45 minutes into the plot, so when the violence comes, it really packs a punch. The first body count, well from the point of the main antagonists specifically, is honestly pretty bizarre, by how effectively grounded this slaughter is depicted. I’m no expert for realistic violence, the amount of blood surely is ultimate, but you can really feel the horror within the images and tone of this scene. And the horror didn’t stop at the aftermath by just keep showing how they feast this body until they feed leftovers to the animals and such. But everything else just goes ridiculous. Sure, there are still more guts and blood all over the body counts, but they fall short of credibility of horror in cannibalism compared to the first kill. It’s basically silly gore for the sake of earning more “shock.” You’ll definitely want to finish your popcorn early. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t have much of a plot after the group gets captured, so a lot of it is focused on the gruesome death scenes. I have to give credit where it’s due, though. There are some really hard to watch scenes in this, and that’s exactly what this movie wants. However, what makes the film not just your average torture porn flick is how stylish it is due some darkly funny writing. The humor does sometimes get a little unnecessary at times, but there are many times where I had a laugh with the movie. So how does it work simply as a horror movie? Well, it certainly has its fair share of gory violence. But it has less impact than it should because of the silly jokey tone that permeates it, even once the students have been captured. Because they aren’t taking their situation seriously enough, it’s hard for us in the audience to either unfortunately. The on-location photography certainly adds a fair bit it has to be said and the cannibals themselves are quite distinctive too, in particular the more prominent members of the tribe were somewhat creepy. The main problem Roth has is with the villagers. He clearly doesn’t know what he wants them to be and he doesn’t take a side. The villagers are shown as victims and just in their actions in some scenes and then barbaric, erratic & just vicious for vicious sake in others.While I understand they are cannibals, Roth doesn’t give the audience any clue he knows who they are. They seem to have principles & traditions, then seem to ignore them. They seem to be extremely well organized one moment, and then the 3 Stooges the next.

They are expert sharpshooters hitting people 50 yards away through heavy foliage one scene, and the next won’t/can’t hit a character in the wide open. Why were some humans sedated at the plane crash & why were others bow & arrowed to the head? The almost female circumcision scene. This scene served no purpose, it was completely an “attempted shock” for an “attempted shock” purpose and not for anything that in any way made sense. I say “attempted” shock, because nothing happens. It was supposed to make you squirm, but this scene just ended up being bland. Everything else just kind of bogs down the suspense, letting the silliness take over until the film itself becomes a joke. To be fair, the movie’s strange sense of humor does make these scenes entertaining, but in the end, these people are just not so engaging. Complaining at the over-the-top moments can be missing the point of the director’s flavor at his own work, but it kind of really does underwhelm the whole ingenuity of this horror. But even if we’re just judging by the amount of blood in the entirety, it still doesn’t feel that much. Again, one bizarre death scene doesn’t hold up any satisfaction of bloodlust within the entire movie. I think another disappointing thing is that the jungle settings really aren’t used. The reason why Cannibal Holocaust worked (according to me) so well because you could enjoy it as an adventure story gone wrong but that’s not the case here. The acting is alright, with Lorenza Izzo competent enough to make a good and likable lead, while the rest of the cast is forgettable. On the whole, ‘The Green Inferno‘ is a decent watch with little effectiveness & high humor, yet it still cant be recommended to a general audience as it is the nastiest & most violent movie of the year but Eli Roth fans should be satisfied with a suitably nasty descent into hell. I can’t help feeling though that if Roth had reigned in the silly stuff and went full-on with this material with a more disciplined approach then it would have made for a far better film. It feels slightly like a missed opportunity and I am sad to say this as I was really on this one’s side and had quite a bit of optimism for it.