The Green Inferno -2013- -
What follows is 100 minutes of unflinching survival horror. The students must escape a village where dismemberment is a ceremony, where their modern morals mean nothing, and where "The Green Inferno" (the tribe’s name for the eating of human flesh) is simply a part of life. 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.
When audiences think of the "torture porn" boom of the mid-2000s, Eli Roth’s name sits near the top of the list. With Hostel (2005) and its sequel, Roth redefined American horror for the post-9/11 era—gritty, realistic, and relentlessly cruel. But for nearly a decade, Roth had been nurturing a different kind of nightmare: a return to the gritty, documentary-style shockers of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Here is everything you need to know about the production, plot, controversy, and lasting legacy of . The Plot: Activism Gone Horribly Wrong The film follows Justine (Lorenza Izzo), a naive college freshman from New York City. Eager to impress Alejandro (Ariel Levy), a charismatic but manipulative activist, she joins a student protest that successfully disrupts a court case for a corrupt corporation. The Green Inferno -2013-
Emboldened by their viral victory, the group—calling themselves "ACT" (Action Against Tragedy)—decides to take their mission to the Amazon rainforest. Their goal: to chain themselves to bulldozers and halt the construction of a pipeline that will destroy a remote indigenous village.
Just don’t watch it while you are eating dinner. ★★★☆☆ (3/5 – Recommended for extreme horror aficionados only) What follows is 100 minutes of unflinching survival horror
That passion project finally materialized in . Released initially at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2013 (before a delayed theatrical run in 2015 due to distribution issues), the film is Roth’s love letter—and modern update—to the infamous Italian "cannibal boom" subgenre, most notably Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980).
However, their plane crashes deep in the jungle. The surviving students, including Justine, wake up inside a cage. They quickly discover that the very tribe they sought to save is not a gentle, noble collective. They are starving. They are ruthless. And they have a longstanding tradition of ritualistic cannibalism. Between 1977 and 1981, Italian directors like Umberto
During that two-year delay, The Green Inferno became a legend in horror forums. Fans circulated stories about audience members fainting at screenings. The MPAA slapped the film with an NC-17 rating for "aberrant violence and cannibalism." Roth famously had to cut less than 20 seconds of footage (primarily a genital torture scene involving a razor blade) to secure an R-rating.