Gore and blood, a big deal in cinema? If you look at 1960’s through 1980’s exploitation cinema there were plenty of films that were wall to wall with it. David Friedman, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Wes Craven, Sergio Martino, Pete Walker, Umberto Lenzi, Sean Cunningham, Ruggero Deodato, and Lucio Fulci are just some of many purveyors in such movies. But in 2002, the first film to bring back that type of movie was Cabin Fever by Eli Roth, beating out Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses by a year. Torture porn was born. Now, Eli Roth has released his latest film paying tribute to a subgenre of gore films, the cannibal film.
When Justine, a young naive college student, joins a progressive group for superficial reasons that wants to save a rain forest from demolition, she and her fellow protestors land up as captives of a local indigenous tribe. Soon they discover that they are looked upon as food and one by one they begin to become dinner for the tribe.
The cannibal subgenre was one of the most notorious horror genres to appear in the 1970’s and Eli Roth, a fan of old exploitation cinema, has helped promote and reignite interest in the films for newer generations. Filmed for only $5,000,000 USD and being saved from release hell by Blumhouse Productions, the movie has already made back its money back while generating buzz among both genre fans and mainstream folks alike. Dark Discussions takes a look at Eli Roth’s latest release and gives their opinion.