411 Movies Interview: Director Eli Roth

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 01.06.2006

The "Hostel" director spills his guts to 411.

What European vacation would be complete without taking in the sights and the sounds? The museums, the parties, the being kidnapped and tortured by sadistic businessmen. Wait a minute, maybe that last one isn't exactly all that great. But it might just be on the mind of anyone who decides to spend a little time in Europe after this weekend, which is when writer/director Eli Roth's latest horror film, Hostel, opens in theaters nationwide.

The film tells the tale of two American college students (Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson) backpacking through Europe, who travel to an out-of-the-way Slovakian town to visit a hostel. Expecting to find a good time with local, exotic beauties, the two instead find themselves trapped in a hellish nightmare, as they become the unwilling victims of a brutal, underground torture ring.

I recently had the chance to chat with Roth, whose first feature, the gory horror-comedy Cabin Fever, was Lion's Gate Films' highest grosser (pun intended) of 2003. Here, Roth speaks of the real life events that inspired Hostel, his reputation as the potential savior of the horror genre, getting the chance to work with Takashi Miike, and the MPAA's surprising new attitude towards horror films.



Your first feature, Cabin Fever, was influenced by news accounts of the flesh-eating bacteria, and now with Hostel you're delving into the all-too-real world of torture and human trafficking. What is it about these real life scenarios that appeals to you more than the supernatural?

Well, it's not that it appeals more to me, it's that it scares me more. I love supernatural horror, I really do. But the stuff that always freaked me out the most was the stuff I felt could be real, or was real. After Cabin Fever I got offered a lot of studio movies, and they just were lame. They just weren't that scary. The stuff that I find that really fucks me up are things that are happening in the real world. I mean, look at these videos of these people that are taken captive by Al Qaeda, where you're in a room and somebody is going to cut off your head, and there's nothing you can do about it. No amount of money you offer them, nothing. No matter what you do, they're gonna cut your head off. And that's really freaky. I find that really, really genuinely disturbing.

So how exactly did this interest in real world horrors lead to the creation of Hostel?

Harry Knowles, from Aint-It-Cool-News, sent me this website about two or three years ago, where you could go to Thailand and for $10,000 you could walk into a room and shoot someone in the head. The site claimed that the person you were shooting had volunteered for it. Part of the money would go to their family; it was almost like a life insurance policy. And we sat there and talked about "is this bullshit? How could this be real?" Then I thought, "you know what, it doesn't matter if it's real or not." Because somebody thought of this, somebody conceptualized this. And if somebody thought of it, my guess is somebody else is doing something like this. You know, I wouldn't put anything past people. People are sick. They'll pay money to do anything. And so, somehow, I was just terrified that there was somebody out there who was tired of hookers, tired of drugs; just bored with all that and looking for the next level of excitement and thrills. It just struck me as very real.

So, then, I had been talking to [producers] Mike Fleiss and Chris Briggs, who did the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. Chris had had an idea to do a horror movie about kids backpacking to a hostel in Europe. And I thought, "God, that's really cool." I've been to Europe, I've traveled around. I thought that would be great. [Backpacking through Europe] is so transient, and there's no record. And you could shoot it in Europe, and get great locations. You know, it's cheaper to shoot a film in Europe, but you can make it look like a $30 million American studio movie. So suddenly it just hit me. I called them and was like "I figured it out, I know exactly what it's about." So it's sort of a combination of the two ideas.

Once you decided the move the idea from Thailand to Europe, how did you ultimately decide upon Slovakia as the film's setting?

The reason I picked Slovakia is because I wanted to pick a country that was close enough to a backpacking route that people would go. Like, where does everyone go? You go to Paris, or Barcelona. You go to Prague, or Amsterdam. But, Slovakia is not really on the list. Like, you don't go to Bratislava. That's just not where people go backpacking. But the thing about it is that it's close enough that you could go there. I wanted to pick a place that was close enough to the normal route that it was conceivable that the guys would go there for a day. You go there for a day, and if it sucks, well, what have you lost? You've lost a day traveling, and you get back on your route. The thing about Slovakia is that nobody knows anything about it. Americans generally don't know the difference between Slovakia and Czechoslovakia. It's this whole country that Americans really have no education on. So that's kinda why I picked it. In the movie, when the guys are being lured there, they're shown photos of beautiful girls and told "the girls of Slovakia are so beautiful, and love anyone foreign. They go crazy for foreign guys. Ever since the war, there are no guys in Slovakia." There was no war in Slovakia, but the guys don't even question it. They just don't know anything about the country. The movie kinda plays on Americans' ignorance of other cultures.

Do you think shooting on location in Europe brought something to the movie that you wouldn't have been able to replicate with sets and soundstages?

Yeah, we shot everything in Prague. What's so great about shooting on location is you get the authentic flavor of the culture. We're making a movie about people traveling in another country; there's no way we're gonna shoot that in the United States. I love diving into other cultures. Working with the Czech crew was one of the coolest things ever. I had the same crew from Doom and Hellboy, and they just were so into it, worked so hard, and they were so friendly.

Obviously you also used a lot of Czech actors. How was it working with them? Were there any cultural differences or anything that made it difficult?

I loved working with the Czech actors. The Czech actors were great. We had translators; but a lot of them speak English. For me, working with the Czech actors was the most enjoyable part. Barbara Nedeljakova, who stars in the film, is an amazing actor. I mean, she walked in and had this kind of otherworldly beauty of someone like Monica Belluci, Maria Schneider, or Emmanuelle Beart; one of these classic European beauties. And even in the audition her performance was incredible. And Jan Vlasak, who plays "the Dutch businessman," was so scary. We called him Hannibal Czech-tor. But he's the best actor in the Czech Republic, and he mostly does theater. Getting to find incredible actors who American audiences haven't seen is really, really fun. And they just loved it. Most of the movies that are shot in Prague aren't set in Eastern Europe. Generally, if an actor is cast in an American movie it's as "waiter #3," and their voice is dubbed. So what they loved was that this was an American movie, that's in English, where they could act with their accents. They weren't pretending to be American. And they loved that.

Of course, you also have two American actors as the backpacking buddies, Paxton and Josh. How did you decide on Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson?

Everyone had very personal reasons for wanting to do this movie. Jay is an incredible actor, and in the last few movies he's done he's been in these ensemble movies where he's wearing a helmet, like Ladder 49 or Friday Night Lights. He started off in Crazy/Beautiful as this new star, but then he's just been slowly earning his chops, getting better as an actor, working with really good directors. But, you know, he wanted this movie. There are some hardcore torture scenes, and that's what these guys wanted. They wanted to dive in and do something just full-on balls-out, that was so different from the other horror movies being made. They knew about me, and about Cabin Fever, and knew that other directors were fans of mine. With Jay, I just had a meeting with him and really liked him. He was clearly the guy. And now he's one of the leads in Oliver Stone's 9/11 film, which is pretty awesome.

And Derek Richardson is also an incredible actor, and he's so fucking funny. And for some reason, he just hasn't gotten work. Just Dumb and Dumberer. And that movie sucked, but he's very funny. And you think, "how is it his fault? How is it possible that no one has cast this guy?" But sometimes people get blamed if they're in a bad movie, and it does poorly. And that was one of those unfortunate situations, where a lot of stuff got taken out on Derek, but it was totally not deserved. He's a great guy, and a great actor. And I think with the performance he's given in this film people are going to come out of the movie going, "who the fuck is Derek Richardson?"

The other main character is an Icelander named Oli whom Paxton and Josh befriend. How did you find Eythor Gudjonsson, the actor that plays Oli?

Eythor is a guy I met in Iceland while I was there promoting Cabin Fever, and he's one of the funniest, silliest, most ridiculous guys I've ever met. Full of life, and energy, and just really, really funny. He's one of these guys who just lights up the room. He's so charismatic that you think "this is a guy that should be starring in a movie." He had done television stuff in Iceland, but he's like a business guy in Iceland. He does real estate, he has, like, ten different businesses going. So I wrote this role for him, and asked him "hey Eythor, do you want to be a movie star?" And he was like, "yeah, of course I do. I know I can do it." And I had to tell the studio "don't worry, he's the Icelandic Jim Carrey. He's the Adam Sandler of Iceland." I threw out all this stuff like that and they said OK. But he's literally just my buddy and I wrote a role for him. And he's great. People watching the movie, they don't know him, and they're just like, "oh my God, this guy is a genius."

When talking about the Czech actors, you said it's great finding actors that American audiences aren't that familiar with. On that note, I think it's great that you have Rick Hoffman as the "American businessman" in this. Last time I saw Hoffman he was nearly stealing Cellular with just a couple scenes.

Oh, yeah. He kinda steals this movie, he's that good. I'm really glad you like Rick. Rick is amazing, he's an incredible actor. That was a situation where he was a friend of my producer, Chris Briggs, and Chris had suggested Rick for the role. So Rick flew over for this cameo, and it sort of becomes this seminal scene that a lot of people remember from the movie. I mean, you try to do all the violence, all the gore, and all the scary stuff, and everyone is like, "you know what freaked me out the most is that scene with Rick Hoffman." So he's really, really terrific. I think he's gonna be one of those character actors that just blows up. He's done enough of these roles in movies where he's gonna just get a real cult following of people that just fucking love him. Sort of in the way that everyone was kinda onto Steve Buscemi and Christopher Walken before they blew up, I feel like Rick Hoffman has the potential to be one of those guys.

Your friend Quentin Tarantino is attached to this project as an executive producer, and decided to make it his latest "Quentin Tarantino Presents" project. How important was his involvement in the film?

It was huge having him involved. It was amazing. And the thing that's so cool about Quentin is that he was just so helpful. He's a great guy to have on your side. If I was stuck on a story point, I would just call Quentin. And we could just sit down and talk through things. But I also had that same luxury with Boaz Yakin and Scott Spiegel, who were my other executive producers, and are great writers. Scott wrote Evil Dead II, and Boaz wrote Fresh, and directed Remember the Titans. I just had incredible resources on this film, to help me problem-solve. Quentin and I went through the whole script and did what we called the "bullshit pass." He was like, "I'm gonna call bullshit on anything that feels too convenient, or could only happen in a movie. Because what's gonna make this movie work is if we're watching it and are like ‘that's exactly what we would do at every moment.'" And it was really, really helpful. He had great idea, and story input. "Oh, I know you're trying to do this, but what if you did it this way?" And that's what a really good executive producer does. They get the most out of you as a writer.

You've said that Asian and South Korean horror films were a big influence on Hostel. What about those films were you drawn to, and what elements did you want to bring to your own work?

Well, I love the fact that there's nowhere they won't go. I saw Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance at a film festival three years ago, and it just got darker and darker. They just get so dark and fucked up. They're fearless. And I love that. That's really fun for me.

It must have been really cool, then, to have Takashi Miike film a cameo in Hostel.

Yeah, I mean, Miike was obviously a huge influence. Audition is a masterpiece. I met him when he was in Los Angeles doing press for his movie Gozu, and I wrote this part and asked him do it, and he said "yes." He flew nine hours from Japan to Prague. And he was totally blown away that people in the crew brought in their Audition DVDs for him to sign. It was pretty awesome.

He didn't seem to know that he was the popular around the world?

You know, he kinda doesn't. I think he has a sense of it now, but it's so not important to him. I mean, I think he appreciates it, but he's so humble. He just couldn't believe that some American filmmaker was so influenced by him that they wrote a part for him. He was like "it's an honor to be here." I told him, "it's an honor just to be on set with you."

Some people might feel the same way about you. Peter Jackson publicly raved about how much he loved Cabin Fever, and Tarantino has called you "the future of horror." Do you worry about trying to live up to that kind of hype with Hostel?

You know, hype works both ways. It can be very helpful for your movie, but it can also kill you. When Quentin called me "the future of horror," it was an incredible honor. It was amazing. I love Quentin, he's one of my heroes, so for him to do that was pretty awesome. But, at the same time, there was all this backlash from people who were like, "oh, this asshole thinks he's the future of horror." And I'm like, "no, I never said that." Immediately, people want to hate you. There's a certain group of people who want to hate you when they hear things like that.

But, look, I know that it's not up to me to be the future of horror. It's up to a number of people. The future of horror is many people. It's me, it's Rob Zombie, it's James Wan and Darren Bousman, who did Saw and Saw II. It's Edgar Wright, Richard Kelley, Lucky McKee. There's a whole kind of wave of young filmmakers. That's the future of horror. And the thing that's cool is that everyone is friends. We all like each others' movies, are friendly, and will help each other out.

Yeah. Speaking of that close knit horror community, have you been contacted at all about helming an installment of Mick Garris' Masters of Horror for its second season?

Yeah, they've asked me about doing it, and I'd love to do it. It's just that, honestly, I can't think of anything beyond Hostel right now. If it works with my schedule…I mean, I want to make a priority of trying to do it, but it's all gotta work with my schedule.

Going back to the wave of new horror films and filmmakers, it seems that with Saw II, Wolf Creek, and now Hostel, we're finally seeing the return of legitimate R-rated horror after being bombarded with more studio-friendly PG-13 fare. Would you agree, and do you think that's a good thing?

You know, I think Saw II really helped. It's great. Saw II really helped get R-rated horror back on track. You can see it. Movies like Wolf Creek are coming out, which is really cool. It's really grisly, it's violent, it's hardcore.

I think that studios just play follow the leader. After The Exorcism of Emily Rose they think "oh, people only want to see PG-13." And that's not true, you know? That has nothing to do with it. People just want to watch a movie that's scary. As long as it's scary, people will go see it. And I think that the rating doesn't matter. Let's not forget that [Robert Wise's] The Haunting is one of the scariest movies ever made, and it's rated G. The rating should be whatever is appropriate for the film. The Ring didn't need to be rated R. It was rated PG-13 and it was fine. But Saw II does need to be R. As long as people are making movies that are scary that audiences are responding to, that's fine by me. I have nothing against PG-13 horror, I really don't.

So you could see yourself doing a PG-13 horror down the line?

If the story was right, sure. I don't choose movies by rating. Honestly, I don't choose movies by genre. I look at the stories that I'm really interested in. Things that fascinate me, things I find disturbing, things that I find provocative. I've done two horror movies, and I love horror, but I'm not just gonna restrict myself to one genre. I think you get in trouble when you do that.

Well, since you are currently most known for horror, what's your current assessment of the state of the genre? Are you excited with where it seems to be heading?

I'm very excited about it. I think that we're in a much better place than we were even two years ago. We did have that great breakthrough year with all those R-rated movies. I'm talking about 28 Days Later, House of 1000 Corpses, Freddy vs. Jason, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I was lucky to be a part of that wave. And I think that right now we're in a really good position. Horror is really no longer a dirty word. This fall, before Harry Potter and Chicken Little, the only really big breakout hits of the fall were Exorcism of Emily Rose and Saw II. And the total budget of both of them combined was like $25 million dollars, and they made so much money. So, I think that horror is a legitimate thing now. Whereas before, if you wanted to make a horror film, it was kind of a joke.

I'm sure a large part of the genre's continued success are the horror fans, who remain one of the most vocal and supportive groups of fans out there.

Yeah, but you know, the horror fans love to complain about shit. The horror fans are awesome, but, like…we had test screenings of Hostel, and you'd always see one or two guys in Gates of Hell T-shirts that were complaining about the fact that there wasn't as much gore as they thought there was going to be. Well, that's not my fault.

Still, that doesn't mean you pulled any punches with this film. Did you ever worry about going too far, or do you think there's no such thing when it comes to a movie like Hostel?

For me, there is going too far, if you feel like it takes you out of the story. We weren't trying to make the most shocking, disgusting movie ever. I wanted to make a movie where people were into the story the whole time, were scared, and cared about the characters. There was one thing in the script where a lead character slit a five-year-old girl's throat, and it was too much. And so I took it out of the script. I felt like I was trying to be shocking. And that sorta became the motto for the film. I wanted to make something that was sick and fucked up, but I was never trying to be shocking for shocking's sake, because I think that's just exploitation. I'd like to think this is a film about exploitation, and the way people exploit each other, but it's not an exploitation film.

So you took that scene out before you even shot. Was there anything you had to remove from the final product to get the R?

Barely anything. In fact, the studio was upset. [Laughs] They were like, "well, now we have no unrated DVD." Honestly, the ratings board was really cool.

Yeah, I know I was surprised earlier this year with what Romero and Zombie were able to get away with in their R-rated theatrical cuts of Land of the Dead and Devil's Rejects. It seems that lately the MPAA is becoming more lenient with horror films.

They are. They're really starting to get more hip to horror movies, and realize that if people are going to see a horror movie they want a certain amount of gore. And that was my whole point. If you go to a horror movie with my name on it and Quentin Tarantino's name on it, do you honestly think anybody is going to be surprised by the gore in the movie? Are there any parents who are going to take their kids to see this movie and then be shocked that there's blood, guts, and torture? That's what people want from us. And they get it. They get it.