INT: Eli Roth

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

The
Arrow interviews Eli Roth

I was a huge fan of Eli Roth’s
debut

CABIN FEVER and have been
anticipating his next move for what feels like ages. Lots of Roth
related projects were announced since, so I was surprised when
HOSTEL,
a totally left field title wound up being “the one”. With that said
the film does look mucho promising and I’m looking forward to it!
Roth dropped by the Arrow Pub to talk about his latest baby and
here’s what went down.

All Photos are C. 2005 Sony Screen
Gems, taken by Rico Torres

What was the spark
that ignited the HOSTEL storyline in your twisted noggin?

It started with a
conversation I had with Harry Knowles about 3 years ago.  We were
talking about the sickest thing you could find on the internet.  He
found a horrible, horrible site and sent me the link, and it scared
me so bad I couldn’t sleep thinking about it.  (The link has since
expired…) A few months later, producer Mike Fleiss, fresh off the
“Chainsaw” remake he produced with Michael Bay, pitched me an idea
about backpackers that he and his partner Chris Briggs had come up
with. 

They had the title,
“Hostel,” and the idea to set it in the world of backpacking, but no
story or idea of what kind of horror movie it was.  I loved the
title, and have done a lot of traveling and backpacking, so I was
immediately into it, but wasn’t quite sure what it was about. Then
suddenly, one day about a year later, I thought about that web site
Harry Knowles found and I saw the entire story. 

When, where did you
write this particular screenplay and what was your process?

Once I  saw the idea, I
just started writing. It was right after the Red Sox won the world
series, and since I’m a lifelong member of Red Sox Nation, when they
finally won I guess some space in my brain freed up.  I had been
getting sent scripts for movies to direct – movies that have come
and gone in theaters already – and I just kept turning them down
because I didn’t think the ideas were scary at all.  I know your 2^nd
film can make or break you, because you’re either a bona fide
director or a one hit wonder.  I

 felt like I had
been taking so many meetings about things, and developing projects,
and I just needed to sit down and write.  I told Quentin Tarantino
the story, and he said “You have to write this.  Fuck all these
other projects – you have to write this idea now!!!!”  So I
unplugged my phone, cleared my schedule, and banged the draft out in
three weeks.  It just started pouring out of me.  It was a great
feeling.  I am very lucky to have good people around me to bounce
ideas off of.  They bring out the best in you.

“I guess
somebody won’t be having kids anytime soon…”
 

The flick was shot in
the Czech Republic; what kind of barriers did you encounter in terms
of shooting in a foreign country?

Well, the language
barrier obviously, because there’s a large portion of the Czech
Republic that speaks nominal English at best.  But otherwise, it’s
much, much easier to shoot in the Czech Republic than in the U.S.  I
would shoot in the Czech Republic over the States any day.  There’s
no unions here, so the dollar goes a lot farther.  You can film with
kids without the same kind of strict regulations and hassles you get
in the U.S. 

I shot one scene where a
gang of little kids go crazy with lead pipes, and we just set up
three cameras and let them go nuts.  Their parents were right there,
watching at the monitor, totally cool with it.  It was awesome.  
The most difficult part about shooting in Prague is the nightlife. 
The clubs are open every night, all night, and then there are after
hours clubs that open at 6:30.  The girls are so beautiful there, if
you’re not careful you’ll kill yourself by going out every night.  I
had strep throat five times in a 7 week shoot because I never slept.

Visit any strip clubs
down there, if so, how are they? I heard good things!

Nope.  I was going to
film in a brothel, so the closest I got to a strip club was on our
location scout.  I never had time.  And truthfully, in Prague it’s
kind of a last resort thing to do. You usually go to a strip club
when you strike out everywhere else, and in the Czech Republic the
girls outnumber the guys.

You’ve been fairly
secretive about the “what” within Hostel. So I’ll ask: “what” evil
do these back packers encounter on their journey? Are we talking
supernatural here?

“Hostel” is about the
kind of evil that terrifies me the most.  You can go to
aintitcoolnews and read reviews that will spoil the entire movie
blow by blow, but that would ruin all the scares and fun when you
saw it.  Try to avoid reading those if you can, and keep it a
mystery.  It’s much more fun that way, trust me.

 

From what I’ve read,
Hostel looks like it will be a brutal affair. Will its violence be
implied, graphic or a little bit of both?

The violence is very
realistic in the film.  Some scenes are extremely graphic, and
others are done off camera.  It’s a delicate balance to know when to
show it and when to just use sound, because if it’s overdone it
becomes all about the gore you run the risk of no longer being
terrifying.

Is there any female
nudity in the picture? I ask because, yes, WE CARE!

I’m in Europe with a
movie camera.  You think I’m not going to film any naked chicks?  I
held a casting session where we saw 66 strippers and porn stars in 2
days, and it wasn’t just for one role…

Any lesbian fun stuff
in the film? I ask because I CARE!

No lesbo action.  This
ain’t Skinemax, sorry…

“Did I just see the Kaufbird flying about?”

I heard that the film
is more serious in tone than Cabin Fever, taking into account your
wild sense of humor, did you have to hold yourself back at times
from slapping in some humor?

I made a very conscious
decision to make a film that was more serious in tone than “Cabin
Fever.”  It starts out fun, but once the fun stops, the humor dies
along with it, and it’s just straightforward scary.  There are
moments of sick humor where people may laugh, but it doesn’t get
goofy the way “Cabin Fever” did.  I feel like I’ve done that
already, and I know that as much as people liked it, the mixed tone
of “Cabin Fever” was the number one complaint about the film. 
“Hostel” is a very different story, so it requires a different
tone.  It’s a much darker scary movie.

The great Takashi
Miike has a small role in the film. Please tell me that he performs
at least one act of violence!

Miike’s the coolest.  I
was so honored he did that cameo for me.  He’s great in the movie.

Hostel has already
garnered some hype online (a fake poster already surfaced). Being
that you also went through the hype ringer with Cabin Fever, I’d be
curious to know your standpoint on it. Good? Bad? Scary?

Hype can be the best
thing in the world, but too much of it can kill you.  There’s this
weird balance between getting people excited to see the film, and
not wanting to overhype it to the point where they can’t enjoy it
because they’ve been told it’s so great.  “Cabin Fever” was
definitely a victim of that, and people got really angry if it
didn’t live up to their expectations that they read on the
internet.  The truth is, with movies like “Hostel” and “Cabin
Fever,” the internet’s our only shot.  They don’t have the big stars
like “War of the Worlds,” and they don’t have the advertising
dollars that these films do.  Studios can spend $30-$40 million
marketing a movie.  How do you compete with that?  You have to find
a way to get fans to support your movie, and the internet’s the only
way to reach them directly without a huge budget. 

However, the danger is
that if you catch that hype wave and people are excited, you have
crazy expectations to live up to.  People’s enjoyment of a movie is
directly related to what their expectations of that movie are.  If
they heard “Cabin Fever” was some weirdo low budget scary/funny
indie movie that got a distribution deal at a festival, they tended
to like it much more than people who heard it was the second
coming.  (Not that it was, I’m just using this to illustrate a
point.)  The other danger is that people get sick of you – fast, and
I know people out there are tired of reading about me.   Believe me,
I’m flattered the reviews up on the internet are so good, but in a
way it’s scary because some people are already saying “Here we go
again, another overhyped piece of shit from that self-promoting hack
Eli Roth…” 

People know I’m friends
with Harry Knowles, so they think the reviews are fake.  People
wrote those in after a test screening, and Harry would put them up
if they were good or bad.  What can I do?  You just have to make the
best film you can, do the appropriate amount of press, and hope
people like it.  But overall I definitely think it helps more than
it hurts, especially with the type of films that I make.

Any ideas as to what’s next up for you?
Are Scavenger Hunt,
The Bad Seed and The Box still on the hit list or did they
fall on the wayside. 

They are all in
very active development, believe me.  I just can’t think of anything
beyond “Hostel” until the film’s finished.  I’ve been working
nonstop 7 days a week on this movie since last November, so once
it’s done I’ll take short a vacation and decide what’s next.

What was the
first drink that you consumed at the HOSTEL wrap party?

I don’t really remember
much about the HOSTEL wrap party.  But I still have the bite marks
to prove I was there.