Someone then asked Eli about Roger Ebert’s famous quote that horror movies don’t need a star actor because “the scare is the star,” and also what Eli thinks makes a horror movie a classic:
Eli Roth: Oh I definitely agree, I mean you have The Shining, but more often than not, Paranormal Activity is the latest example, or Evil Dead. You don’t need stars, you need good actors, or good victims. A lot of times people are very forgiving if it’s a low budget movie as long as it’s scary. If you can deliver on the scare, then nobody gives a fuck. The best example are those videos when “the Internet thing” first started and people watched a room and all of a sudden something pops up, but then you couldn’t wait to show it to someone. “Come here, you’ve got to see this freaky thing,” and you sent it to everybody just waiting for that reaction, it’s just so much fun.
Look, I still see people fighting about Hostel years later, and Hostel I and Hostel II run non-stop on IFC. It’s great that I made a movie that shocked people at the time, and people can still argue years later about whether or not it sucked. When you put something out there it’s totally 100% up to the public to decide whether or not it becomes a classic. It’s totally out of control.
“What rules do you want to break?”
Eli Roth:Â It depends what story you’re telling. You don’t just make a movie to break rules, but as you’re telling the story you want to stay one step ahead of the audience.
In Aftershock we really build up the characters, and build up the minor problems they’re going through. We all think like “OK, I want an iPhone 5,” or “Is this girl texting me back,” or “I really like this guy, why won’t he follow me on Twitter,” it’s all modern ways of communicating. We really wanted to build up the minor problems that seemed hugely important, and that was the fun.
To us, the idea that we basically stop the movie and suddenly start, you can feel the audience fighting against it. That’s what Gringo is going through. You feel the fighting, but all of a sudden the earthquake happens and all that matters is surviving, and that’s the point. It takes an event like that to put into perspective all the things we think are such big deals.
But breaking rules, if this was a Hollywood movie, it would have been a minute and twenty in and you’ve got to have the earthquake happen. But I wanted every decision that these characters make, I want you to know why. Pollo, as obnoxious as he is, he really loves his friends, so every decision is based on him wanting to help his friends. My character really loves his daughter, so everything he does from the moment the earthquake hits is 100% driven by the fact that I don’t want to leave my daughter without a father – you understand it. When horrible things happen people do selfish things and selfless things. The movie is really about moral choices, and we could break the rules by having characters do things that we can understand and see them doing, but you’re cringing in pain that they’re making that choice. You get it, you get why they do it, it’s a human choice.
I think that’s what makes the movie so fucking upsetting, is that we all love to be the hero in situations, but in reality you’re not. Talking to Nicolás López, all that stuff that happens in the movie all really happened to different people that he knew – we just strung it all together in one fictional event. Down to the underground tunnels where the priests and nuns would meet to have sex, and the nuns would have kids, kill them, and bury them there. Those tunnels really exist, that’s in Chile, some of the Spanish crew members told me…
Eli Roth: [Laughs]Â Oh, see that? You make me look like such a pussy. A fucking cappuccino. I’m talking all tough about horror movies, and now if you don’t mind me I’m going to put a little brown sugar in my cappuccino…
[Getting back to the above question]In terms of breaking rules, the way you can break the rules is you can tell the most interesting story. You can tell the story that shocks people, that disturbs them, that’s going to leave some people not feeling really good. Some people appreciate that.
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