#SDCC15: Eli Roth Talks Social Commentary in The Green Inferno
Many of the best horror films are packed with social commentary, from George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead to John Carpenter’s They Live. And Eli Roth says that his latest is no exception, as The Green Inferno was heavily inspired by his view on modern society.
In an interview with The LA Times, Roth spoke about his aversion to social media activism, stating that he’s tired of the way people talk about making the world a better place, but don’t actually get off their asses and do anything about it.
“I see that a lot of people want to care and want to help, but in general I feel like people don’t really want to inconvenience their own lives,” said Roth. “And I saw a lot of people just reacting to things on social media. These social justice warriors. ‘This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.’ And they’re just tweeting and retweeting. They’re not actually doing anything. Or you see people get involved in a cause that they don’t really know a lot about and they go crazy about it.”
“I wanted to make a movie about kids like that,” he continued. “I think there’s a lot great things, obviously, about activism: people commit their lives to it. But I wanted to make a story about kids who don’t really know what they’re getting into. Get in way over their heads, and it actually works. And then the irony is on their way home their plane crashes and the very people they saved think that they’re invaders, and just dart them and eat them.”
The Green Inferno Release Details:
BH Tilt, Blumhouse Productions’ label dedicated to creating tailored distribution strategies for genre films, will release Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno on September 25, 2015, in collaboration with Universal Pictures and High Top Releasing, a label dedicated to servicing high quality movies using Focus Features’ distribution capabilities. The companies will debut The Green Inferno on approximately 1,000 screens and promote the film by employing a targeted digital campaign focused on creating awareness and engagement among genre fans.
In The Green Inferno, 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. Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, and Sky Ferreira star.
Synopsis:
From acclaimed horror director Eli Roth, THE GREEN INFERNO follows a group of student activists who travel from New York City to the Amazon to save the rain forest. However, once they arrive in this vast green landscape, they soon discover that they are not alone… and that no good deed goes unpunished.
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