Eli Roth has it rough
I’m not an Eli Roth fanboy but I do appreciate his work, and the amount of blind hatred for the guy makes me wanna jump in to defend him.
No, he’s not perfect, far from it. Roth has made some real stinkers like Hostel 2 and Green Inferno (which was kinda supposed to be bad, as it’s a very accurate tribute to bad jungle exploitation movies from the 70’s, but it’s still a bad movie). Hell, Knock Knock was in my bottom 5 of that year…
…but do people forget that The House with a Clock in Its Walls had overwhelmingly positive reviews? And Thanksgiving was probably the best horror film of 2023 and alot of fun in general. Hostel is a tightly made auteur horror film with a great visual style and top notch suspense, albeit with a flawed screenplay. Cabin Fever has always been funny and it’s just now getting its deserved recognition. Death Wish wasn’t bad either. So he’s got a great auteur style and he focuses on flawed characters who are conflicted with right and wrong, like real people. Unfortunately i think he’s mostly at the mercy of the screenplays he’s given.
So he’s made bad stuff, but so have other horror icons like Carpenter, Craven, Romero, and especially Tobe Hooper. Imagine if Carpenter announced his next movie and people responded with “the Ghosts Of Mars and Memoirs of an Invisible Man guy??? Pass!” And I love Carpenter, he’s more talented than Roth, but I feel Roth has a lot of unjustified blind hatred. Especially from that Channel Awesome internet crowd, because hey, Nostalgia Critic and Cinema Snob both hate Cabin Fever so I should too!
Borderlands looks like a complete mess, but it’s obvious issues extend pass Eli Roth. You got a movie that was shelved for two years and delayed for SEVEN. They hired Tim Miller, a vastly different director than Roth, to do extensive reshoots for major rewrites, likely to change the style and tone of the film at the last minute. His version was R-rated and it’s now PG-13. OG screenwriter Craig Mazin demanded his name be removed, but there’s still 8 different writers on this film.
So even if Roth is to blame for some, it sucks that people will be ready to dump it all on him. Even if some problems are his fault, this clearly wasn’t the film he signed up to make. Maybe one day he’ll have a big project that caters to his strengths. This aint it.