The Green Inferno (R) 2015
One time I was in Giant Eagle shopping for duct tape and chocolate pudding when I got so completely turned around that I had to drop a trail of pumpkin cookies in order to find my way back to the check out lane. So yeah, I think I know a little bit about being abducted by an ancient tribe of cannibals in a Peruvian jungle.
Which is why I can say with authority that Eli Roth's gore-riddled, rain forest freakout, The Green Inferno, is a fairly realistic portrait of why I hate college kids.
The story begins thusly.
A group of Che worshiping "slacktivists" gets all angsty up in this joint. At a local coffee house (of course), their charismatic and hunky-in-a-pasty-way leader gathers them all together and talks them into taking a weekend off from their incessant whining about "the Man" on Facebook to fly to Peru in order to save Mother Earth, or at least a tiny spec of her located in some out of the way mosquito farm that even Starbucks hasn't heard of. Convinced for pretty much no good reason that they can make a difference, the group agrees. They immediately pack up their iPhones and bulimia and head jubilantly to their deaths the jungle.
Once there, a lot of time is spent "fleshing out" (no pun intended) the characters. All this exposition feels a little sluggish in spots and takes up too much screen time, but as evidenced in his other films (Hostel, Cabin Fever) Roth obviously believes that horror is more horrible when the audience can empathize with whom the horror is, uh...horroring.
Once there, a lot of time is spent "fleshing out" (no pun intended) the characters. All this exposition feels a little sluggish in spots and takes up too much screen time, but as evidenced in his other films (Hostel, Cabin Fever) Roth obviously believes that horror is more horrible when the audience can empathize with whom the horror is, uh...horroring.
And believe me, the horroring is not nice.
The bloodletting, once begun, never lets up. Roth does a fantastic job of methodically ratcheting up the tension with each scene. Unlike his film Hostel, in which he blanketed the screen with so many shots of amputated limbs and smoking chainsaws that viewers became desensitized to them, The Green Inferno slowly pulls its audience deeper and deeper into an abyss of terror and hopelessness. It is a dark place that so many other films hint at but never quite plumb.
Although I'm not sure it was intentional, the film also plays with the premise that idealism is a virtue of the naive. It is both ironic and believable when one of the main characters lectures the others on how the "real world" works. The good guys and the bad guys are the same, he says, and choosing sides is pointless.
There are a few scenes that are frenetic and blurry, probably filmed on a hand held camera, that only last a few seconds and really convey the chaos and fear that the characters are experiencing. But other than that the movie is lovingly and carefully shot. There are several panoramas of the jungle that are jaw-droppingly beautiful. The lush greenery is a character in itself. Inferno would be a much different film without this juxtaposition of nature's magnificence against man's cruelty.
The ending was ambiguous but something tells me this was intentional. Each person in the small group I was with had a different idea about what they saw and each scenario was interesting and plausible. It made for a good discussion on the ride home.
There is also an Easter egg tucked into the credits (don't leave too soon!) that could hint at a Greener Inferno sequel. Since most of Roth's films have become mini-franchises, this wouldn't be a surprise at all.
All in all, I liked The Green Inferno. It's a tense, unapologetic horror movie with a blockbuster look and a grindhouse feel. It probably won't leave a lasting impression or slide into anyone's upper echelon of favorite fright-fests, but it was the best scare I've had at the theater in a long time.
And that's something you can sink your teeth into.
There are a few scenes that are frenetic and blurry, probably filmed on a hand held camera, that only last a few seconds and really convey the chaos and fear that the characters are experiencing. But other than that the movie is lovingly and carefully shot. There are several panoramas of the jungle that are jaw-droppingly beautiful. The lush greenery is a character in itself. Inferno would be a much different film without this juxtaposition of nature's magnificence against man's cruelty.
The ending was ambiguous but something tells me this was intentional. Each person in the small group I was with had a different idea about what they saw and each scenario was interesting and plausible. It made for a good discussion on the ride home.
There is also an Easter egg tucked into the credits (don't leave too soon!) that could hint at a Greener Inferno sequel. Since most of Roth's films have become mini-franchises, this wouldn't be a surprise at all.
All in all, I liked The Green Inferno. It's a tense, unapologetic horror movie with a blockbuster look and a grindhouse feel. It probably won't leave a lasting impression or slide into anyone's upper echelon of favorite fright-fests, but it was the best scare I've had at the theater in a long time.
And that's something you can sink your teeth into.
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