The Green Inferno
Fear will eat you alive.
Budget
$5 000 000
Revenue
$12 931 420
Director
Scenario
Composer
Manuel Riveiro
Producer
Actors
Lorenza Izzo
Justine
Ariel Levy
Alejandro
Sky Ferreira
Kaycee
Ramón Llao
The Bald Headhunter
Daryl Sabara
Stoner
Richard Burgi
Charles
Paz Bascuñan
Sister (voice)
Magda Apanowicz
Samantha
Short description
A group of young activists from New York travel to the Peruvian Amazon to stop logging that threatens an Indigenous tribe. Led by Alejandro, the group includes Justine, the sheltered daughter of a prominent United Nations figure, and they intend to chain themselves to trees and record their action on phones. Their flight home goes wrong and they crash in the very jungle they set out to defend, where they fall into the hands of a tribe that proves far from grateful for their help.
Eli Roth directed and co-wrote the film with Guillermo Amoedo, and produced it with Nicolás López and Molly Conners. It followed Cabin Fever, both Hostel films, his Grindhouse segment and Thanksgiving in his directing career, and came before Knock Knock, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, Death Wish, Thanksgiving, Borderlands and Ice Cream Man. Lorenza Izzo plays Justine, with Ariel Levy, Sky Ferreira, Daryl Sabara, Ramón Llao and Richard Burgi among the credited cast of 22.
Made for about 5 million dollars, the film took roughly 13 million worldwide. Reception was mixed: on IMDb it holds 5.4 out of 10 from around 54,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.7 out of 10 from over 1,600 votes, while a critics' score of 5 out of 10 from 99 reviews sits below both audience figures.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the very end of the closing credits, you can hear pig squeals.
- The closing credits state that in some scenes, director Eli Roth stood in for Daryl Sabara.
- Eli Roth said that in gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the filming, the villagers offered the production designer a two-year-old child. He politely declined.
- In reality, cannibal tribes in the Amazon no longer exist.
- Eli Roth stated that the film being released is exactly the one he shot. He didn’t have to cut a single scene at the request of the American Film Association.
- As they approached the village in boats, the missionaries sang religious hymns. Completely unaware that a film was being shot, they saw the sets and props – skeletons and bodies impaled on stakes. The missionaries were horrified and sang even louder. They came to their senses only when they were explained that a film crew was present in the village and that everything was the set design for an upcoming film.
- Virtually all the villagers participated in the extras casting. Some even helped the film crew with the equipment.
- During the screening of the film at the American Film Festival in Deauville (France), one viewer fainted.
- When casting actors for the film, Eli Roth considered only candidates who agreed to get vaccinated against yellow fever and then go to the Amazon rainforest, where there are no toilets, but plenty of tarantulas, snakes, and poisonous frogs. After filming was completed, the cast and crew underwent a thorough medical examination.
- The air temperature during filming reached 32 degrees Celsius. The Peruvian members of the camera crew quit on the very first day.
- Some village children had the idea that it would be a good idea to throw real pythons at the actors during the filming of the corresponding scene. Believing that pythons do not bite, the film crew gave their permission. It turned out later that pythons of this species are actually capable of biting. Fortunately, no unpleasant incidents occurred.
- The film crew and actors suffered from insect bites. Everyone got bitten, but only Kirby Bliss Blanton ended up in the hospital because of it.
- Despite the active advertising campaign launched at the end of 2013, and promises that singer and model Sky Ferreira would play one of the main roles, she ultimately received a minor part. Ferreira played Justine's friend, who did not go on the expedition to the Amazon. Photos from the set that appeared online sparked a lively discussion. Some mistook Ferreira for Amy, the character played by Kirby Bliss Blanton. Others decided that Ferreira was Cara, who was actually played by Ignacia Allamand.
- Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Ignacia Allamand, Nicolas Martinez, Matias Lopez, and Ramon Llavao starred in "Aftershock" (2012). Eli Roth played the main role in it and also participated in writing the screenplay.
- The end credits are interrupted approximately 20 seconds in by a scene in which Alejandro's sister, Lucile, calls Justine and tells her that she has found a satellite image of her brother, who is still alive.
- The scene of Samantha and Daniel's escape was filmed many times. Leading actress Lorenza Izzo nearly drowned when her character, Justine, jumped into the river hoping to escape, but was caught again. Lorenza was pulled out of the water only when someone on the crew realized she was about to actually go under. Some footage from that take made it into the film.
- The characters reach the cannibal settlement on the Amazon only at the 46th minute of the film.
- In the end credits, between the songwriter/performer and the individuals and organizations to whom the filmmakers express special thanks, there is given a "brief history of cannibalism in Italian cinema and the names of directors who worked in this genre."
- The end credits list the names of the main cast members, along with their Twitter usernames (this also applies to some members of the film crew and director Eli Roth).
- The film is dedicated to Italian director Ruggero Deodato, known for his horror films. The inscription “Dedicated to Ruggero” appears on the screen.
- The filmmakers express special gratitude to Brad Pitt (a motorcycle taxi with his name and the Oscar-nominated actor himself).
- Eli Roth, with his assistants, approached the villagers with a request to act as extras, but soon realized that they had never seen a movie and had no idea what it was. Eli had to bring in a television and organize a screening of 'Cannibal Holocaust' (1979) for the locals. They were delighted and happily agreed to help the filmmakers.
- As stated in the trailer for the film, the inhabitants of the Peruvian jungle shown in 'Green Inferno' had never been photographed or filmed by representatives of Western civilization before.
- The villagers had never seen a movie before. After watching Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" (1979), they decided it was a comedy.
- The film "Green Inferno" contains numerous parallels with "Cannibal Holocaust" (1979). Eli Roth calls the latter one of his favorite horror films and openly admits that "Cannibal Holocaust" had a huge impact on his development as a director. Moreover, the working title of "Cannibal Holocaust" during filming was actually "Green Inferno." Ruggero Deodato later changed the title to what he thought was more shocking.
- Children from the village came to Eli Roth with an idea they found interesting: what if they used a real python in the scene where the heroine is sitting in a cage? They had just caught a small specimen. Roth liked the idea and allowed the children to "scare" the actors in the cage with the snake. The children got carried away and hit the actress in the face with the snake several times. According to Roth's story, she had no idea how dangerous it was.
- The morality and aesthetics of the film are rooted in Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" (1979), and the scenes of violence it depicts bear a certain resemblance to Umberto Lenzi's less scandalous film "Cannibals" (1981).
- The roles of the bald hunter and the female chief were actually played by members of a Chilean tribe that Eli Roth had once met while traveling through the Amazon jungle. Ramon Llao, who played the bald hunter, starred alongside Roth in the dramatic thriller "Aftershock" (2012) directed by Nicolas Lopez. Antonieta Pari played the female chief. Interestingly, with the exception of Kirby Bliss Blanton, Magda Apanovich, and Daryl Sabara, all the other victims of the cannibal tribe in "Green Inferno" also appeared in "Aftershock."
- A-Film Benelux MSD scheduled the premiere of the film “Green Hell” in the Netherlands for October 29, 2015, but went bankrupt in September, forcing the film’s release date to be postponed. A distribution agreement was signed with Remain In Light, and the film finally saw the light of day in November 2015.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
