The Green Inferno

Neither horrific nor scary, director Eli Roth's latest "The Green Inferno" likes to think it's shocking, but the most shocking thing about it is how tame it is.

Eli Roth has made a name for himself in the horror world. Which is odd, because he's only made four films in thirteen years. (A fifth -- "Knock, Knock" -- will be released in October.) So, aside from being friends with Quentin Tarantino, attaching his name to a bunch of already-produced projects, and acting in a few of his friends' films, it's baffling why he has become a "thing" in the horror genre. Don't get me wrong; as a person he's fairly charming and he's a damn good looking man, but as a horror director he doesn't really add much to the genre that hasn't been done before -- and better.

"Inferno" was actually made in 2013, and because of distributor problems hasn't been released until now. A throwback to the "Cannibal Holocaust" genre of films, "Inferno" concerns a group of student activists trying to stop a deforestation project in the Amazon that will wipe out an indigenous tribe. One of those activists is Justine (Lorenza Izzo -- Roth's real-life wife) whose greatest achievement in this reviewer's eyes is the fact that she has a "Betty Blue" movie poster behind her bed. At least she has good taste in film. You can't say the same about her taste in friends. Her roommate Kaycee is played by singer Sky Ferreira, who single-handedly wins the Razzie Award for "Worst Actress of the Year." And there begins the problems with "Inferno." There are thousands of willing and able actresses out there looking for work. Why choose the absolute worst of them, and then forget how to direct them?

It doesn't help that the script by Roth and Guillermo Amoedo ("Aftershock") includes dialogue that no human being would ever utter. Every conversation is awkward and stilted. Basically, it's a bunch of words to get the story going, but compelling characters and dialogue it is not.

Anyway, Justine is disturbed when her (awkward and stilted) professor talks about female genital mutilation in Africa, and she is suddenly horrified that no one will do anything to stop it. (Is she twelve years old?) "My daddy is a lawyer at the U.N." she exclaims, and then rushes off to ask if he can just stop the bad stuff from happening. How this moron got into college is a mystery, but clearly if her mentally impaired roommate can get in, then anyone can.

So off to a student rise-up group Justine goes, where she is swiftly convinced to go on a trip to the Amazon, where she will chain herself to a tree to stop bulldozers from tearing down a village. Of course, no generic horror movie would be complete without a cast of unlikeable and phenomenally stupid characters like the douche leader Alejandro (Ariel Levy), token lesbians Samantha (Magda Apanowicz) and Amy (Kirby Bliss Blanton), pot-head Lars (Daryl "Spy Kids" Sabara) and the one likeable guy Jonah (Aaron Burns) who is, unfortunately, the first to go.

After they try to stop the bulldozers they head back in their plane, only to have an engine go out; they crash into the jungle. Once they do, they get Ewok-ed by the indigenous tribe who man-handles them, much to the dismay of the girls, who scream bloody murder even though the villagers are just touching their hair.

Anyway, they get put into cages and then one of their own is eventually chopped up into pieces (while alive), cooked, and eaten. It sounds horrific and, for a few moments, it is, if only because he was the one character we liked. But, of course, he was overweight, so God forbid he lasts until the end of the film. What's shocking, though, is how not shocking this sequence is. We've seen grosser disembowelments at Universal Studio's Halloween Horror Nights or in any zombie movie of the last thirty-five years. We can marvel at the special effects by master Greg Nicotero, but is it shocking? (No.) Is it gross? (Yes and no.) Will it make audiences pass out, as the filmmakers like to claim? (Absolutely, not.)

That's the horrific thing about this whole mess of a movie. First of all, Roth can't figure out if he's telling a black comedy or a horror movie. As a result, too many jokes are cracked at the wrong time, making the movie more stupid-funny than scary. He even resorts to a diarrhea joke that goes on way too long for it to be even remotely realistic. It's just juvenile. (There's a whole marijuana sequence that is ridiculously unbelievable as well.) He also fails to set up any dread in the film. At one point, another likable character is tied to a stake and fed to some ants. But aside from Justine's professor (who just happened to randomly mention something about scary ants), we know nothing about what these ants are and what they do. So when they crawl all over this guy, we don't really know or care what will happen. (Quite honestly, I'm still not sure what actually did happen.)

Early on in the film, the group is paddling down the Amazon when they spot a small waterfall guarded over by a black spotted leopard. They comment on how he must be dangerous, and then he's swiftly forgotten about. Of course, in the end, as the heroine of the film is escaping, she suddenly she has to cross paths with the leopard. This is where the audience is supposed to get nervous. Yet... absolutely nothing happens. There's no moment of panic or dread. No close calls. Nothing. It's like Roth got bored with his own movie and just wanted to get to the end. Which is sort of how I felt. And when the end does come, it does so with a whimper.