![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/last_exorcism-204x300.jpg\" "\\"last_exorcism\\"")
He\u2019s the man who killed Hitler. That\u2019s our first thought when we chat to Eli Roth, who starred in the 2009 Oscar-winning hit Inglourious Basterds as Donny \u2018The Bear Jew\u2019 Dorowitz, but, by trade, is known as the director who contemporised horror twice with 2004\u2019s Cabin Fever and 2006\u2019s Hostel.<\/p>\n
Roth isn\u2019t a man who forgets his early days in the movie business. \u201cI was that guy who was 28 and couldn\u2019t get arrested and nobody cared about my script,\u201d he tells us. \u201cThat was only ten years ago, so it\u2019s still very close to me. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of things I want to do, and I finally feel I\u2019m in this incredible position to do anything I want, help other people make movies and I have my own ideas I want to make.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following his role in Basterds and producing The Last Exorcism, Roth tells us that this is a very experimental point in his career. \u201cI was so singularly focused on directing for so long, and it all worked out. 30-35 was intense \u2013 everything finally came together.\u201d People know Roth\u2019s name thanks to the success of Cabin Fever and the Hostel franchise; as a producer, he can use that name recognition as leverage to get a project off the ground. \u201cI\u2019m in this position now where I can get them going \u2013 obviously, I don\u2019t want to do too much, to take away from my directing career, but while I\u2019m in this position I want to strike while the iron\u2019s hot. I want to be producing films for my entire life \u2013 my personality is as such that I want to get other people\u2019s movies made, I really love it. If you\u2019re making a film, it takes a year-and-a-half of your life, but if you\u2019re producing you can have six or seven ideas going at once. It\u2019s very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, The Last Exorcism only really got off the ground because Roth got on board. \u201cStudio Canal wanted to come in and help finance the film, and they would do so if I got involved. So Eric [Newman, producer] brought the project to me and that\u2019s when I wanted to come on as a producer. He told me what it was \u2013 it\u2019s this documentary of an exorcism that goes wrong. And I read the script, and I thought it was one of the best, most interesting scripts I\u2019d ever read. What I loved about was that, it wasn\u2019t The Exorcist. You think, how can you ever top The Exorcist? And this film isn\u2019t trying to. It\u2019s a psychological thriller about a girl who might be crazy or might be possessed, and every time I thought I had the movie figured out it took a new twist and a new turn. I got on board and I went with Studio Canal to all the different markets and we pre-sold the movie and put the financing together, found our director, Daniel Stamm, and we made it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Last Exorcism struck a chord with audiences, grossing close to $60 million worldwide, well over 30 times its budget, which itself was already covered by the pre-sales. We ask him why he believes the horror flick connected with moviegoers. \u201cI think that it was the timing,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople were ready. We were kind of on the heels of the first Paranormal Activity, because there hadn\u2019t been another docu-style horror film. We actually shot our movie before Paranormal came out. It was all edited by December, so I think timing-wise the marketplace was ready for it. But I think that people weren\u2019t expecting to see such strong performances in a horror film. People generally have low expectations for actors in horror, and I\u2019ve always had very high expectations because I think from the greatest performances ever \u2013 if you go back to Linda Blair in The Exorcist, of course Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Alien \u2013 many of my favourite horror movies have truly iconic performances.\u201d Indeed, the relatively little-known but excellent Patrick Fabian, in a star-making performance as cynical exorcist Reverend Cotton Marcus, fronts The Last Exorcism with real gusto, a perfect match for the documentary format of the movie.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I think [people] were so caught up in the documentary and drama of it, they really responded to the film,\u201d he continues. \u201cBut I think the subject of the film, exorcism and religion, is such a hot button subject in America. America is a very polarised country \u2013 there\u2019s two Americas. Half the country believes in the devil and creationism, and the other half believes in evolution and science or another type of faith. But the film, what I think people liked, was that it showed both sides very fairly and never took a position one way or another. It let the conflict naturally play itself out. And it twisted and turned. People are expecting the exorcist to turn up in the movie and have all the answers. In this one, it starts at the beginning and the guy goes, \u2018It\u2019s all nonsense, I don\u2019t believe any of it\u2019. He\u2019s using the film as a confessional. I think people like the idea that this reverend, who didn\u2019t believe in any of this and felt terribly about it, trying to repent for his sins but going about it the wrong way, and not really realising what he’s getting himself into.\u201d<\/p>\n
The producer role turned out to be a good fit for Roth, who enjoys collaborating with other directors, both in the projects he helms and those he oversees. \u201cFilmmaking is a collaborative medium. If you don\u2019t want to collaborate with anyone, be a painter \u2013 with directing Hostel, as much as it\u2019s my film and I\u2019m in control, I have great creative producers with me. Boaz Yakin had as many good ideas as Quentin Tarantino did about the script. Part of the trick as a director is that good producers always bring the best out of you and challenge you in the right ways. They don\u2019t let you slide on anything \u2013 that\u2019s what I could do with Daniel. If there was something where the logic didn\u2019t quite work 100 per cent, if something was a little bit off, I could really say, \u2018No, let\u2019s get this right\u2019. Eric Newman and Marc Abraham, the other producers did the same thing. It\u2019s fun \u2013 I\u2019m not there to impose my ideas, but I do have a certain amount of experience.
\n\u201cI could see where he was using too much music in the editing, where he was trying to force the scare and give away the scare two scenes earlier. In the same way, Tarantino could come in and look at my cut of Hostel and in two edits take out seven minutes. \u2018He\u2019s like, you should cut here and here, and take out this seven minutes.\u2019 I went, \u2018What? No way!\u2019 And he said just try it, and he was right. So that\u2019s the fun of having a producer who\u2019s also a director.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of what drew Roth towards The Last Exorcism was that he saw some of his own sensibilities within the script, written by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland \u2013 that is, it has the grounded and recognisable scares of Hostel or Cabin Fever. \u201cI think that part of the fun of the movie is that it\u2019s not found footage \u2013 it\u2019s not Cloverfield where they found the camera, put on the tape and this is what they\u2019re watching. It\u2019s edited, it\u2019s scored like a documentary, and I want people to think, \u2018Who put this together and why?\u2019 And part of the fun of it is the crew loses control of the subject matter until they themselves become the subject of the film in a way they never expected.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe nice thing about producing is I can have my pace and inference in there at times, but really stand back. It\u2019s truly Daniel Stamm\u2019s film \u2013 he did such a good job directing and making it his own, and he\u2019s such a performance-based director. We knew the film would live or die on the performances, so at the end when things go out of control, you feel bad, you feel this loss of control and you feel bad for these people.\u201d
\nAlmost overnight, the release of the movie has seen Roth inundated with scripts. \u201cOnce The Last Exorcism released and was a big hit, it was interesting to see the kind of non-horror projects that were brought to me to produce. I\u2019m now getting scripts that say, \u2018Would Eli like to produce this? Maybe he wants to direct it, maybe he wants to be in it. Maybe he wants to do all three.\u2019 Which is wonderful, because on all of my films \u2013 even Cabin Fever, I was writer, the director and I made a cameo, so now I feel like these are all different things that I love.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the impact of his movies being built upon by other directors, Roth is satisfied by the state of mainstream horror \u2013 particularly as international interpretations of the subject are so different to his own and are increasingly experimental. \u201cOh, I think it\u2019s in a great place. Every two or three years I think the horror genre needs reinventing and right now, I think Paranormal Activity did it brilliantly. I saw the Sundance cut, and I watched the tape and gave the DVD to Quentin. He was like, \u2018This is the scariest movie I\u2019ve seen in years!\u2019 We knew it was going to be a phenomenon. We were already about to start prep on The Last Exorcism, we already had the film put together. It\u2019s so exciting when someone like Oren Peli comes along and breathes new life into the genre, or this film Monsters which is coming out\u2026 it\u2019s exciting to see how the violence transfers from country to country.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s so exciting to watch each country claim it\u2019s the most violent, disgusting country,\u201d Roth continues, \u201cbut at the same time\u2026 because you can shoot hi-def video on your iPhone now, it has really levelled the playing field. The tough part is the distribution and getting it out there, so people really have to step up their game and make movies that are worthy of being in theatres, but it is great that technology is at a place where you can have Paranormal Activity and Monsters, both of which were made for [small budgets] and are playing in movie theatres all over the world. I also think that horror movies have made so much money for the studios that everyone\u2019s always looking for one. Nobody cares who\u2019s in it, they just want to know if it\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the movies that they\u2019re producing, either, but the way they\u2019re being promoted. Few genres lend themselves better to word-of-mouth than horror. \u201cWith Facebook and Twitter and all these things, we\u2019re able to organise the fans and give them a collective voice, in the same way that ten years ago Comic-Con gave that voice to the comic fans. They were there, but they didn\u2019t have a way to communicate. That brought them together. I think that the horror fans, globally, are bonding and that you can help reach your audience directly through social networking when you make a film like this. It\u2019s a very, very exciting time.\u201d<\/p>\n
With such a democratic environment for budding filmmakers, we have to ask Roth if he\u2019d have preferred trying to break into Hollywood during a time when tools like Facebook and Twitter are available. \u201cWell, I am so happy with how things worked out,\u201d he declares. \u201cI didn\u2019t always understand it at the time, but you know I feel very, very lucky. When Cabin Fever came out, it was considered a very violent, bloody film and people were wondering if it was too violent for mainstream audiences, which is so silly now. It\u2019s fun to be the guy who helped bring back blood and nudity to cinemas. I mean, that was missing. When Cabin Fever came out in cinemas, horror was considered a dead genre. So I feel very proud to be part of a group of filmmakers like Rob Zombie, Alex Aja, Neil Marshall and James Wan\u2026 these guys who helped bring back truly horrific horror to cinemas. I feel very, very lucky that that was my moment, that was what launched my career and made my name. I wouldn\u2019t change that for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Last Exorcism is out now on Blu-ray and DVD.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We chat to the Hostel director about The Last Exorcism and finding new voices in horror. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":13360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[7,140],"tags":[342,20,1692],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/last_exorcism.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}