Despite (or because of) its divisive reception, the film has found a cult following. For hardcore gorehounds, it is one of the last great "practical effects" epics. When the film was delayed by three years due to the bankruptcy of its original distributor (Open Road Films), fans launched aggressive online petitions to release the film unrated. This only heightened the mythos.
Director Eli Roth, who had made his name with the "Hostel" franchise, recruited a cast composed largely of emerging actors, many of whom had worked with Roth previously.
The Green Inferno (2013) is a polarizing modern horror film directed by Eli Roth. The movie serves as a direct homage to the controversial Italian cannibal exploitation cinema of the late 1970s and early 1980s, most notably Ruggero Deodato’s infamous 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust. Plot Overview and Narrative Structure
While the original Italian films focused on the corruption of Western media and journalists, Roth updates the subtext for the digital age. The Green Inferno serves as a scathing satire of "slacktivism" and performative virtue signaling.
Despite being filmed in 2012 and premiering to considerable hype at the Midnight Madness section of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), The Green Inferno was not seen by the public for another two years. Shortly after its successful TIFF premiere, the film was acquired by Open Road Films for a planned wide release in September 2014. However, just weeks before its intended debut, the film was abruptly pulled from the schedule. The reason was financial turmoil at Worldview Entertainment, the film's primary production and financing company, which left the movie in a state of limbo. The Green Inferno -2013-
Over a decade after its initial festival debut, The Green Inferno remains a fascinating artifact of 2010s horror. It represents the absolute peak of Eli Roth's "Splatterplatation" era, serving as a bridge between the shock cinema of the 20th century and the hyper-connected, social-media-driven culture of the 21st century. Whether viewed as a culturally insensitive misstep or a brilliant, pitch-black satire of modern guilt, it successfully achieved exactly what Eli Roth intended: it made audiences squirm, argue, and look away from the screen in absolute terror.
The Green Inferno faced a turbulent road to release. Though it premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, financial difficulties with its initial distributor delayed its wide theatrical release until September 2015.
One of the most impressive, albeit harrowing, aspects of The Green Inferno was Roth’s decision to film on location in the Amazon rainforest in Peru.
: The movie pokes fun at people who tweet about problems but do not understand real danger. Despite (or because of) its divisive reception, the
The survivors are quickly captured by the very tribe they sought to protect. Mistaken for the destructive invaders, the activists are caged and systematically slaughtered, cooked, and consumed. As the body count rises, Justine and her surviving peers realize that the jungle cares nothing for their politics, and their survival depends on shedding their idealized views of the world. The Roots of Cannibal Exploitation
Eventually, High Top Releasing, BH Tilt, and Universal Pictures stepped in to distribute the film. "The Green Inferno" finally received a wide theatrical release in the United States on September 25, 2015—two years after its TIFF premiere. The film was released in Filipino theaters two days earlier, with two versions available: an R-13 "sanitized" version with five minutes of gore removed, and the uncut R-18 version.
Highlights include:
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. Scholarly discussions explore themes of cannibalistic tropes and the brutal consequences of "do-good-ism," while academic work has analyzed the evolution of this subgenre, as seen in From Cruel to Cultured View of From Cruel to Cultured
The narrative follows Justine (Lorenza Izzo), a naive college freshman at Columbia University who becomes captivated by Alejandro (Ariel Levy), the charismatic leader of a student activist group. Alongside Alejandro's girlfriend Kara (Ignacia Allamand) and a ragtag group of fellow activists—including the comic-relief stoner Lars (Daryl Sabara), the vegan Amy (Kirby Bliss Blanton), and her roommate Kaycee (Sky Ferreira)—Justine joins a mission to the Amazon rainforest. Their goal is to halt deforestation and displacement of native tribes by a corrupt petrochemical company.
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on January 5, 2016, by Universal Home Entertainment. The release features a director's cut and an audio commentary by Roth, López, Izzo, Burns, and Blanton.
The Green Inferno received highly polarized reviews from critics and audiences alike. Standard mainstream critics dismissed it as a mean-spirited, overly gruesome exercise in shock value. However, legendary horror author Stephen King famously praised the film, calling it "a glorious throwback" to the drive-in movies of his youth, noting it was "juicy, gripping, [and] comic."