31 Nights of Horror V, Night 16: The Green Inferno
Longer than three sentence review:
Look, I watch a lot of Troma films so maybe my expectations are pretty low, but I really don’t understand the abysmal reviews for Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno. Yes, the criticism about bad acting and the lack of story and character development is accurate. But sometimes all we need to care about in a mindless horror movie is what happens to the final survivor, the asshole, and the villain(s). The gore is effective and very disturbing but not nearly on the same level as Hostel or Cabin Fever.
The main problem with this movie is the morality of exploiting a real native village from the Peruvian jungle. Indeed, they agreed to be in the film but what are the consequences of depicting some of the worlds most voiceless people as pure savages? It’s a question of informed consent. Maybe they don’t even care. It’s not my place to tell them whether or not it’s wrong and they should feel wrong about it. Still, it’s worth noting that Roth caught a lot of flack from indigenous advocacy organizations. On the other hand, in horror the concept of morality is already pretty muddy. I did enjoy how Roth poked fun at white college activists who mainly care about appearing to care for causes.
My opinion is that The Green Inferno took too long to be released and suffered from a lot of expectations and hype. It is a scary movie though and you won’t convince me that it’s not. Step back for a second and imagine yourself kidnapped and trapped by cannibals who don’t understand your language and who want to eat you. It’s pretty damn horrifying. I just didn’t understand the ending. *Spoiler alert in the next sentence* Why did she deny everything that happened and change the story? I didn’t get that. I don’t think I’ll be watching this one again but it’s not as atrocious as everyone says. I’m excited there will be a sequel.
NERDCROPOLIS 