Eli Roth Explains “The Green Inferno”—His New Cannibalistic Horror Film

It's a school trip, dad, I'll be fine.

It's not like I'm going anywhere dangerous.

The Green Inferno is the third film

in what I would call my travel trilogy

with Cabin Fever and Hostile.

The kids in Green Inferno are these really smart

New York City students.

They're clicktivists, they're on social media,

they're social justice warriors,

they're gonna change the world with their phones,

and they go into the Amazon

to save the last uncontacted tribe.

They're gonna protect them.

It's time to make a difference.

The moment in the movie where these kids are happiest

isn't where they do a protest

and shut down the construction,

it's when they're trending on Twitter.

That's the end game for these kids.

And I think it's all BS.

They crash in the jungle and the tribes people

are oh, they're the ones that are ripping up our land,

they're invaders and we're gonna treat them as such.

(speaks in foreign language)

Shooting in the Amazon was one

of the craziest experiences of my life.

We're filming in a village

that had never seen cameras before.

It's dangerous as hell.

(screaming)

When you see Lorenza Izzo in the movie,

screaming and clinging to a rock,

she really almost drowned.

Even when we filmed the plane crash,

we put the cast in a drum and spun them 720 degrees.

I wanted a little to know CG in the movie,

I wanted to all look and feel real.

That's what makes the movie special.

(chaotic screaming)

I feel that Hollywood movies have gotten so safe

and so stale and they're all in a house and room,

but I miss those films of the 70s.

I miss the film making of Vernon Herzog,

the way he did Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre the Wrath of God,

I miss Apocalypse Now, when you go, oh my God,

the people that made these movies,

they went in the jungle and they lost their mind.

Why are they doing this?

The film came about from what I saw in this trend

of this lazy form of activism, this slacktivism.

Everyone's like, if you don't tweet free pussy riot,

what's wrong with you?

Don't you care about these girls?

Oh, you must be against freedom of speech.

People getting so self righteous and so angry

over this thing that they knew nothing about

24 hours earlier.

I wanted to make a movie about these types of kids.

These kids that aren't really interested in the cause.

They want the shortcut.

I'm so sick of all of them.

So I'm taking these people and I am baking them,

and I am chopping them up and then eating them

and I'm laughing at them.

(screaming)