What’s the point of watching horror movies? An often argued reason is catharsis. Horror movies have a unique way of dredging up cultural anxieties and playing them to their worst ends on screen, so when the lights come up, we can say, “it’s only a movie,” and dismiss those fears away. Eli Roth has managed to do this in artful, cheeky ways with his films “Cabin Fever” (flesh-eating viruses!) and “Hostel” and “Hostel Part Two” (commercialized torture!). In his latest effort, “The Green Inferno,” he works out that oh-so-scary fear of … #activism? Coupled with a throwback, retro cannibalism storyline that is groan-worthy, Roth’s “The Green Inferno” is a flop of a horror film that overestimates gore for actual scares.
You have to wonder if Roth completely forgot or just abandoned traditional horror filmmaking, where screams and suspense are meted out over the course of a film in order to keep the tension flowing. The first half of “The Green Inferno” is a dull, half-baked eco drama where Columbia University freshman Justine (Lorenza Izzo) links up with a group of activists headed to the Amazon rainforest to livestream and shame developers who are threatening the land of an ancient tribe.
Though the protest appears to be a success, when the students’ plane crashes in the jungle — with them outfitted in “BioGas” jumpsuits to infiltrate the worksite — it’s time for the horror to begin. The indigenous Amazonian tribe, mistaking them for developers, hauls them back to their village for a barbecue, in which they are the main course.
What follows isn’t so much as scary as it just is unwatchable. You’re either going to be able to watch bodies torn limb from limb, roasted, and happily feasted on or you’re not, that’s for you to decide. Regardless, the proceedings are a grim drudgery without an ounce of suspense.
