“What we’re doing is building our own Marvel universe and ecosystem of characters”: Eli Roth on Horror & CryptTV at Tribeca Raise your hand if you’re trying to get a horror film made. I thought so. That’s a lot of us — myself included. It’s been a fantastic year for the genre, too, with Get Out breaking a number of records and becoming the third highest-grossing R-rated horror film of all time — and that’s behind The Exorcist and Hannibal. I was too terrified to finish either, and I saw Get Out twice (and alone) so it wins in my […]
by Meredith Alloway on May 2, 2017Eli Roth’s Knock Knock is to Fatal Attraction what that film was to Play Misty For Me: an homage that expands upon its source and intersects with the zeitgeist in immensely entertaining, provocative ways. Like both Attraction and Misty, Knock Knock is a cautionary tale and a male fantasy turned nightmare: Keanu Reeves plays a husband and father who, when left alone on Father’s Day, answers the door to find two gorgeous young women (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) stranded in the rain and looking for help. He invites them in and eventually succumbs to their erotic overtures, quickly […]
by Jim Hemphill on Oct 8, 2015What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I swore I would never do this again, but we began production of Knock Knock with no money in the bank. The last time I did this was on my first film, Cabin Fever, when an investor backed out 3 days before shooting and we made the first two weeks on credit cards, making phone calls to investors to beg for money between takes. This time, with no commitments, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 29, 2015A few months ago I went to the Los Angeles premiere of a horror film, Aftershock, directed by Nicolás Lopéz and produced by Eli Roth. Roth stars as an American who travels to Chile to visit local friends, but what starts as a romantic comedy about a trio of losers trying to get laid shifts dramatically and horrifically when a massive earthquake hits. Roth, in a khaki suit, plaid shirt and blue tie, looked more the producer than director of horror films such as Hostel and the upcoming The Green Inferno. He introduced Lopéz with generous praise. Roth had known […]
by Ben Odell on Jul 18, 2013