The Green Inferno -2013-

The Green Inferno (2013): Horror or Social Satire? Directed by Eli Roth, The Green Inferno is a brutal homage to the Italian cannibal films of the late '70s and early '80s, specifically referencing Cannibal Holocaust. Though it premiered at film festivals in 2013, it faced significant distribution delays, finally reaching a wider audience in late 2015. The Plot: "Slacktivism" Meets Survival

The story follows Justine, a naive college freshman who joins a group of student activists. Their mission: fly to the Peruvian Amazon to protest a petrochemical company that is destroying the rainforest and threatening indigenous tribes.

The irony is immediate. After a successful (and recorded-for-social-media) protest, their plane crash-lands in the jungle. The very tribe they were trying to save captures them, leading to a gore-soaked nightmare where the "protectors" become the prey. Key Themes & Controversy

Eli Roth's 'The Green Inferno' Gets Delayed Indefinitely - IMDb

1. The "Just the Facts" Section

The Plot: Justine, a freshman college student, joins a student activist group led by the charismatic Alejandro. The group travels to the Amazon rainforest to protest a petrochemical company that is destroying indigenous land. Their mission is to chain themselves to trees and livestream the destruction to stop the bulldozers. The mission succeeds, but on the flight home, their small plane crashes in the jungle. The survivors are captured by a tribe that has never made contact with the modern world—a tribe with a taste for human flesh. The Green Inferno -2013-

The Context: This film is a love letter to the Italian Cannibal Boom of the late 1970s and early 80s, specifically Ruggero Deodato’s controversial classic Cannibal Holocaust (1980). Roth aimed to recreate the visceral, gritty style of those films but with a modern production value and a satirical edge regarding "slacktivism."

Controversy and Reception

Upon its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2013, The Green Inferno sparked immediate walkouts and polarized critics. While Roth and star Lorenza Izzo (whom Roth married in 2014) defended the film as a social satire of "slacktivism"—critiquing privileged Westerners who protest for social media likes rather than genuine understanding—many critics found the message muddled by the violence.

Positive Reviews: Praised the film’s audacity, commitment to practical effects, and darkly comedic tone. Some saw it as a clever inversion of The Emerald Forest or The Mosquito Coast.
Negative Reviews: Derided the film as racist, misogynistic, and nihilistic. Critics accused Roth of exploiting indigenous stereotypes for cheap thrills, despite the tribe being played by actors and the film including a prologue about real deforestation.

Rotten Tomatoes scores reflect the divide: a low 35% approval rating from critics, but a slightly more forgiving 42% from audiences. It is a true "cult film" in the sense that its fans are passionate, and its detractors are vehement.

Themes and Subtext

Activism vs. Privilege: The protagonists arrive with simple, uncompromising moral certainty. The film pushes back: good intentions do not inoculate one from cultural blind spots, and performative activism can put others at risk. The students’ choice to film and broadcast suffering echoes real controversies about media ethics and the spectacle of humanitarian crisis.
Colonialism and Othering: Roth flips the typical colonial narrative—Westerners encountering “savage” natives—into a critique of the voyeuristic impulse behind such stories. Yet the film complicates itself: by depicting the tribe as savage in graphic detail, it risks reinforcing the very stereotypes it ostensibly critiques. This moral ambivalence is central to its impact.
Voyeurism and Cinema: “The Green Inferno” forces viewers to ask why they watch violent images. The protagonists’ cameras—used initially to document destruction—become instruments of their objectification and demise. The film functions as a meta-commentary on horror as a genre built on spectatorship and the ethics of representation.

Critical Reception: The Numbers

Upon its wide release in 2015, the film holds a 35% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 83 reviews) but a significantly higher 45% audience score. On Metacritic, it sits at 41/100. The Green Inferno (2013): Horror or Social Satire

Common criticism: "It wants to be a political satire and a cannibal movie, and it fails at both." Common praise: "No one directs visceral, tactile horror like Eli Roth. You feel every cut."

While critics were lukewarm, the film was a modest financial success. Made for approximately $5 million, it grossed over $12 million worldwide—by no means a blockbuster, but profitable enough for Roth to later produce a sequel (which remains in development hell as of 2025).

The "Cannibal Genre" Legacy

To understand The Green Inferno -2013-, you have to understand its DNA. Between 1977 and 1981, Italian directors like Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox) and Ruggero Deodato produced a string of films that blended mondo documentary realism with extreme gore. The crown jewel was Cannibal Holocaust, which was so realistic that Deodato was arrested and forced to prove in court that he hadn’t actually murdered his actors.

Roth has repeatedly cited Cannibal Holocaust as a major influence. He even named his film after the fictional location in Deodato’s masterpiece (the characters in Cannibal Holocaust travel to "The Green Inferno" to find the lost filmmakers). However, Roth made two critical changes for the 2013 version: Controversy and Reception Upon its premiere at the

Practical Effects: Deodato was forced to use real animal killings (which remain controversial). Roth swore off real animal cruelty, using state-of-the-art practical gore effects by the legendary Greg Nicotero (KNB EFX).
A Social Satire: Roth injected a sharp, satirical edge. The activists are not heroes; they are privileged, narcissistic Westerners who have no idea what the jungle actually entails.

Style and Influences: The "Grindhouse" Ethos

Roth has never been subtle about his influences. The title The Green Inferno is borrowed directly from the fictional film-within-a-film in Cannibal Holocaust (the documentary the crew is shooting). The movie is drenched in the aesthetic of 1970s Italian exploitation cinema: grainy textures, jarring zooms, and a relentless, amoral tone.

Where Hostel played on Eastern European urban decay, The Green Inferno exploits the primal fear of the untamed jungle. Roth trades torture-porn mechanics for something more anthropological, staging elaborate sequences of tribal rituals that feel simultaneously authentic and exaggerated for maximum shock value.

Legacy: Why Are We Still Searching for The Green Inferno -2013-?

Despite (or because of) its divisive reception, the film has found a cult following. For hardcore gorehounds, it is one of the last great "practical effects" epics. When the film was delayed by three years due to the bankruptcy of its original distributor (Open Road Films), fans launched aggressive online petitions to release the film unrated. This only heightened the mythos.

The Green Inferno -2013- is also a litmus test for modern horror viewers. If you can survive the first 30 minutes of whiny, privileged dialogue, you are rewarded (or punished) with 70 minutes of relentless, artisanal brutality.

It currently holds a 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, but a significantly higher audience score among hardline grindhouse fans. In many ways, it is the perfect Eli Roth movie: juvenile, brilliant, deeply offensive, and unforgettable.