When talking about the new generation of horror directors Eli Roths name will invariably come up. He has directed two of the most exciting horror films for the new generation, Cabin Fever and Hostel, and is also one of the most visible having appeared in Bravos The 100 Scariest Movie Moments and even gotten Quentin Tarantino to present his new flick.
Hostel is certainly a big change from the disease horror of Cabin Fever. Hostel is about three backpackers in Amsterdam who are so damn horny they leave the sex capital of the world to travel to a small Slovakian city to find even looser, hotter women. They have some of the best times of their lives until they are kidnapped by a company that specializes in killing stupid backpackers.
Check out the official website for Hostel
Daniel Robert Epstein: Youve been promoting SuicideGirls a lot. When I met [Shaun of the Dead director] Edgar Wright, he knew of SuicideGirls from you.
Eli Roth: I tell every director, You got to do an interview on SuicideGirls because you get a password and he interviews the most incredible people [laughs].
DRE: Whats Quentin [Tarantino] say?
ER: Quentin said Thats really cool. I got to do that.
DRE: Tell him hes welcome to email me anytime he likes.
ER: I definitely will. Were supposed to go to Iceland for New Years.
DRE: Thats awesome!
ER: Yeah it should be really fun. We were just there like a month ago at the Icelandic Film Festival for the world premiere. It was the first time we had a finished print of the movie. I was also there for New Years last year. I met Eythor [Gudjonsson] when I was there with Cabin Fever and I wrote the part of Oli for him in Hostel. Quentin was telling me about a QT fest that he does in Austin and how we should do it in Iceland. We should do it for one night, show kung fu flicks and talk about the movies.
DRE: I read in the press notes that producers of Hostel had the title and the idea that backpackers just start getting killed and that set you off with this script. It reminds me when in the 80s William Lustig and Larry Cohen would sit around coming up with taglines and thats how they came up with Maniac Cop.
ER: Yeah, I love Lustig. We actually did an Italian poster for Hostel thats an homage to Maniac. But heres what happened [producer] Chris [Briggs] had done a lot of backpacking and traveling and said that we should set a horror movie in that world. But we didnt really know what the movie was. Ive been to Europe and done backpacking and thought God that is really a great universe. Its cheaper to shoot in Europe, to use a European cast but spread a couple of Americans around and make a good scary movie. Though we really had no idea what the movie was at that point. Then about three and a half years ago I was talking with Harry Knowles from Aint it Cool News about really disturbing stuff we had found on the Internet. Harry showed me a site where you could go to Thailand and for $10,000 walk into a room and shoot somebody in the head.
DRE: Thats just awful.
ER: Yeah and whats really awful is this site claimed that the person you were shooting willingly signed up for this. That they were so poor that part of the money would go to their family. We were thinking it would be a really cool documentary. But if it was real the people running it would kill us. So it laid dormant for a while until a year ago it hit him that that Hostel is about this system in Thailand. I thought, it doesnt matter if this is real or not, what matters is that somebody built a website for it and somebody was trying to get credit cards and money advertising this. They were so in tune with this notion that out there, there is some businessman thats so bored that nothing gets them off anymore. Drugs dont do it, hookers dont do it, so they want that next level of forbidden stimulation and excitement and this is it.
DRE: I really could see Quentin and Takashi Miike checking out a place like that [laughs].
ER: Its so funny because I credited Miike as himself. Also Quentin really wanted to play the part that Rick Hoffman did but I thought that it couldnt be a place where only really violent movie directors go.
DRE: [laughs] I love Rick Hoffman; Ill watch Cellular just to see his role in it.
ER: Yeah.
DRE: Did he have to audition or did you just know he could do it?
ER: I knew he could do it. It was also one of those things where we didnt have the part cast. Chris Briggs is very close friends with Rick. I knew him from Cellular and I thought, Jeez hed be terrific. Then he showed up and he just nailed it. We didnt even have to audition him. Hes just such a superb actor. I think hes just one of those guys thats getting a cult following. People are like, Oh I fucking love that guy! They know him from The Bernie Mac Show and The Street and those kind of TV shows where he always played that fast talking smarmy, slimy Wall Street guy. But he is just a nice, sweet guy thats really got that kind of role down to science.
DRE: I think this role is going to get him to that next level of doing something beyond that.
ER: I hope so. We wanted an actor that would come in and kind of take you out of the movie but when the movies over feel like, Oh my God that guy almost stole the movie. Actually a lot of people are saying for all the violence inborn in the film; that moment tends to be the most disturbing for people.
DRE: Thats because most of the Elite Huntings customers are these weird European guys then all of sudden theres that asshole you always bump into on the subway. It makes it much more real.
When the guy shows up on the train and starts talking about his hands and about food. I thought this is Pancakes kid 2.
ER: I like the idea of this being this weird dude on the train that seems harmless but creepy. Then later you realize why hes talking about with his hands. He likes to have a connection to these people he later gets. Whereas most people would want to do it anonymously he wants to experience the whole thing.
DRE: I thought that he was a crazy guy who ran the whole thing but no hes just a businessman who goes there a lot.
ER: Yes, exactly. Thats the whole thing, youre slowly discovering along with Jay Hernandez whats happening. You realize that guys just one customer and that hundreds of people go to this place.
DRE: When we last spoke about the DVD of Cabin Fever you mentioned all these projects you had coming up but not Hostel. Then like a year later pictures from the set of Hostel popped up on the internet. What happened?
ER: I realize that anytime you go in with somebody for a single conversation then somebody finds out about it and its all over the Internet. It is normal for people to develop multiple projects but on the Internet theres just infinite information. Some people are good with fact checking, but a lot of times they dont even fact check with me. They just put it up there. So I thought that I would do this movie differently. Im just going to go to Prague and quietly do my thing and be like, here are the photos from my set, were cutting it now. The whole movie was done in a 12 month period. I finished the script and I went right to Prague. Normally it takes three years to get going. Hell Cabin Fever took six years to get done. I realized that the Internet is great but Elis just starting to get the reputation of this guy who keeps attaching himself to different projects and not doing anything.
DRE: Recently I got to speak to Greg McLean, the director of Wolf Creek.
ER: Yeah, I enjoyed Wolf Creek.
DRE: I loved it.
ER: Yeah, Im really excited for him.
DRE: I had to call him out a bit because the movie is so based in reality then John Jarrett character does a supernatural thing where hes in the car that the girl randomly picked. So I got to do a little bit the same thing for you. Even though I loved Hostel and Ive been recommending up and down. The ending is a bit convenient.
ER: The ending was re-shot. We originally had a different ending where Jay Hernandez keeps following this guy and he was going to kill him and the guy is there with his daughter. Jay was going to take his daughter to fuck with the guy. But audiences just couldnt handle it. So we went back and I just shot a much more straightforward super violent ending and people loved it. I realized that it was the right ending because sometimes you got to make the movie for audiences. I dont want to be the only one that likes the movie. If youre in the room with 300 people and 290 of them are completely confused as to why you did a psychological twist, they go, Huh? Wheres the blood? We want blood.
DRE: Besides that there is another part right before it that seems a bit convenient. But as you said you made it a bit more commercial, which isnt necessarily a bad thing.
ER: Were not making Schindlers List. Were not making a movie thats bleak and has no fun in it. Were making a movie for audiences and its a horror movie and its dark and its going to be realistic and violent but its not Munich or Syriana. Ive had numerous experiences when youre in a small town in Europe and you meet some weird person then you run into them two days later at a totally different place and youre like, Oh, my God thats that fucking guy.
I was in Prague and they say not to change your money in the street. Derek Richardson goes and changes his money on the street and the guy rips him off for $200. Three weeks later, Derek and Jay Hernandez are walking along and theres that fucking guy that took Dereks money. Fucking Jay grabs him and says Give my friend his fucking money back you motherfucker. The guy gave him like all his money and more. So Prague is five times the size of this little village in Slovakia so you can say its convenient but Ive had that experience. I remember I was in Iceland I was living on this farm in Reykjavik when I was 19 and some American girl was a total bitch to me. I was just having a conversation saying oh its just cold in Iceland and she was mad because she thought I was trying to pick her up. Fucking four days later that girl showed up at another place I was at an hour outside of Reykjavik with her fianc to buy a horse. I was like, Oh, look whos here and we just fucked with her. Ive had that experience every time Ive traveled, in every single European country. It seems like crazy coincidences but to me thats my experience.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Hostel is certainly a big change from the disease horror of Cabin Fever. Hostel is about three backpackers in Amsterdam who are so damn horny they leave the sex capital of the world to travel to a small Slovakian city to find even looser, hotter women. They have some of the best times of their lives until they are kidnapped by a company that specializes in killing stupid backpackers.
Check out the official website for Hostel
Daniel Robert Epstein: Youve been promoting SuicideGirls a lot. When I met [Shaun of the Dead director] Edgar Wright, he knew of SuicideGirls from you.
Eli Roth: I tell every director, You got to do an interview on SuicideGirls because you get a password and he interviews the most incredible people [laughs].
DRE: Whats Quentin [Tarantino] say?
ER: Quentin said Thats really cool. I got to do that.
DRE: Tell him hes welcome to email me anytime he likes.
ER: I definitely will. Were supposed to go to Iceland for New Years.
DRE: Thats awesome!
ER: Yeah it should be really fun. We were just there like a month ago at the Icelandic Film Festival for the world premiere. It was the first time we had a finished print of the movie. I was also there for New Years last year. I met Eythor [Gudjonsson] when I was there with Cabin Fever and I wrote the part of Oli for him in Hostel. Quentin was telling me about a QT fest that he does in Austin and how we should do it in Iceland. We should do it for one night, show kung fu flicks and talk about the movies.
DRE: I read in the press notes that producers of Hostel had the title and the idea that backpackers just start getting killed and that set you off with this script. It reminds me when in the 80s William Lustig and Larry Cohen would sit around coming up with taglines and thats how they came up with Maniac Cop.
ER: Yeah, I love Lustig. We actually did an Italian poster for Hostel thats an homage to Maniac. But heres what happened [producer] Chris [Briggs] had done a lot of backpacking and traveling and said that we should set a horror movie in that world. But we didnt really know what the movie was. Ive been to Europe and done backpacking and thought God that is really a great universe. Its cheaper to shoot in Europe, to use a European cast but spread a couple of Americans around and make a good scary movie. Though we really had no idea what the movie was at that point. Then about three and a half years ago I was talking with Harry Knowles from Aint it Cool News about really disturbing stuff we had found on the Internet. Harry showed me a site where you could go to Thailand and for $10,000 walk into a room and shoot somebody in the head.
DRE: Thats just awful.
ER: Yeah and whats really awful is this site claimed that the person you were shooting willingly signed up for this. That they were so poor that part of the money would go to their family. We were thinking it would be a really cool documentary. But if it was real the people running it would kill us. So it laid dormant for a while until a year ago it hit him that that Hostel is about this system in Thailand. I thought, it doesnt matter if this is real or not, what matters is that somebody built a website for it and somebody was trying to get credit cards and money advertising this. They were so in tune with this notion that out there, there is some businessman thats so bored that nothing gets them off anymore. Drugs dont do it, hookers dont do it, so they want that next level of forbidden stimulation and excitement and this is it.
DRE: I really could see Quentin and Takashi Miike checking out a place like that [laughs].
ER: Its so funny because I credited Miike as himself. Also Quentin really wanted to play the part that Rick Hoffman did but I thought that it couldnt be a place where only really violent movie directors go.
DRE: [laughs] I love Rick Hoffman; Ill watch Cellular just to see his role in it.
ER: Yeah.
DRE: Did he have to audition or did you just know he could do it?
ER: I knew he could do it. It was also one of those things where we didnt have the part cast. Chris Briggs is very close friends with Rick. I knew him from Cellular and I thought, Jeez hed be terrific. Then he showed up and he just nailed it. We didnt even have to audition him. Hes just such a superb actor. I think hes just one of those guys thats getting a cult following. People are like, Oh I fucking love that guy! They know him from The Bernie Mac Show and The Street and those kind of TV shows where he always played that fast talking smarmy, slimy Wall Street guy. But he is just a nice, sweet guy thats really got that kind of role down to science.
DRE: I think this role is going to get him to that next level of doing something beyond that.
ER: I hope so. We wanted an actor that would come in and kind of take you out of the movie but when the movies over feel like, Oh my God that guy almost stole the movie. Actually a lot of people are saying for all the violence inborn in the film; that moment tends to be the most disturbing for people.
DRE: Thats because most of the Elite Huntings customers are these weird European guys then all of sudden theres that asshole you always bump into on the subway. It makes it much more real.
When the guy shows up on the train and starts talking about his hands and about food. I thought this is Pancakes kid 2.
ER: I like the idea of this being this weird dude on the train that seems harmless but creepy. Then later you realize why hes talking about with his hands. He likes to have a connection to these people he later gets. Whereas most people would want to do it anonymously he wants to experience the whole thing.
DRE: I thought that he was a crazy guy who ran the whole thing but no hes just a businessman who goes there a lot.
ER: Yes, exactly. Thats the whole thing, youre slowly discovering along with Jay Hernandez whats happening. You realize that guys just one customer and that hundreds of people go to this place.
DRE: When we last spoke about the DVD of Cabin Fever you mentioned all these projects you had coming up but not Hostel. Then like a year later pictures from the set of Hostel popped up on the internet. What happened?
ER: I realize that anytime you go in with somebody for a single conversation then somebody finds out about it and its all over the Internet. It is normal for people to develop multiple projects but on the Internet theres just infinite information. Some people are good with fact checking, but a lot of times they dont even fact check with me. They just put it up there. So I thought that I would do this movie differently. Im just going to go to Prague and quietly do my thing and be like, here are the photos from my set, were cutting it now. The whole movie was done in a 12 month period. I finished the script and I went right to Prague. Normally it takes three years to get going. Hell Cabin Fever took six years to get done. I realized that the Internet is great but Elis just starting to get the reputation of this guy who keeps attaching himself to different projects and not doing anything.
DRE: Recently I got to speak to Greg McLean, the director of Wolf Creek.
ER: Yeah, I enjoyed Wolf Creek.
DRE: I loved it.
ER: Yeah, Im really excited for him.
DRE: I had to call him out a bit because the movie is so based in reality then John Jarrett character does a supernatural thing where hes in the car that the girl randomly picked. So I got to do a little bit the same thing for you. Even though I loved Hostel and Ive been recommending up and down. The ending is a bit convenient.
ER: The ending was re-shot. We originally had a different ending where Jay Hernandez keeps following this guy and he was going to kill him and the guy is there with his daughter. Jay was going to take his daughter to fuck with the guy. But audiences just couldnt handle it. So we went back and I just shot a much more straightforward super violent ending and people loved it. I realized that it was the right ending because sometimes you got to make the movie for audiences. I dont want to be the only one that likes the movie. If youre in the room with 300 people and 290 of them are completely confused as to why you did a psychological twist, they go, Huh? Wheres the blood? We want blood.
DRE: Besides that there is another part right before it that seems a bit convenient. But as you said you made it a bit more commercial, which isnt necessarily a bad thing.
ER: Were not making Schindlers List. Were not making a movie thats bleak and has no fun in it. Were making a movie for audiences and its a horror movie and its dark and its going to be realistic and violent but its not Munich or Syriana. Ive had numerous experiences when youre in a small town in Europe and you meet some weird person then you run into them two days later at a totally different place and youre like, Oh, my God thats that fucking guy.
I was in Prague and they say not to change your money in the street. Derek Richardson goes and changes his money on the street and the guy rips him off for $200. Three weeks later, Derek and Jay Hernandez are walking along and theres that fucking guy that took Dereks money. Fucking Jay grabs him and says Give my friend his fucking money back you motherfucker. The guy gave him like all his money and more. So Prague is five times the size of this little village in Slovakia so you can say its convenient but Ive had that experience. I remember I was in Iceland I was living on this farm in Reykjavik when I was 19 and some American girl was a total bitch to me. I was just having a conversation saying oh its just cold in Iceland and she was mad because she thought I was trying to pick her up. Fucking four days later that girl showed up at another place I was at an hour outside of Reykjavik with her fianc to buy a horse. I was like, Oh, look whos here and we just fucked with her. Ive had that experience every time Ive traveled, in every single European country. It seems like crazy coincidences but to me thats my experience.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 19 of 19 COMMENTS
courtneyriot said:
When talking about the new generation of horror directors Eli Roths name will invariably come up. He has directed two of the most exciting horror films for the new generation, Cabin Fever and Hostel, and is also one of the most visible having appeared in Bravos The 100 Scariest Movie Moments and...