Eh, if he just did this and didn't make movies, fine. Banished to being a talking head on DVD special features. Kinda like John Landis without the manslaughter.
Hostel not classic horror because the victim wins and gets retribution in the end; true horror such as King or Lovecraft posits a cosmic order in which victory is impossible long term
That’s….not the read I get on King basically at all, outside of maybe Revival and the short stories where he writes in imitation of Lovecraft. Victory always costs, sometimes it costs more than the protagonists win, but it almost always comes, on the small scale and the cosmic one
-The Stand: cosmic horror that can be beaten but apparently not destroyed *even by God*
-Every novel that turns out to be an alien crash landing: aliens so powerful their abilities are like magic exist throughout the universe
-the short stories
Doesn’t have to be irrational. He’s frothing at the mouth to exterminate Palestinians. He’s awful. Give yourself credit and say you could see his terrible inhumanity in his eyes.
Not going to dig it up but he wrote/said something about loving to film in Eastern Europe because you can side-step unions and exploit the locals…so not irrational
He has the general demeanor of a guy who turns up at your house party, doesn't bring any booze with him and immediately starts drinking the nicest stuff he can find
Eli Roths great crime may or may not be his doing, but the crime is, he somehow got into the generally-accepted media position of being a/the go-to guy who is smart about the genre. He's not the premier guy, but he's like, the horror authority guy.
Which his body of work absolutely does not support.
To be fair, it's not ENTIRELY his fault. It was a R-rated movie when production started, but the producers decided to cut the film to get a kid friendly PG-13 rating. I don't think Roth did ANY promotion for the film.
Apparently not--that first film budget that was modest $55-58 million, and a script that leaned heavily into what people like from the character wound up being one of the highest grossing R rated films ever. $782 mil.
I feel like there is a vocal contingent who really want to make him the Tarantino of horror, but forget that there’s a reason we tolerate Tarantino (his movies are actually watchable).
Comments
-Every novel that turns out to be an alien crash landing: aliens so powerful their abilities are like magic exist throughout the universe
-the short stories
Which his body of work absolutely does not support.
Instead, execs go "make it kid-friendly!"
I blame Roth for that.