The Green Inferno
By Jeffrey Anderson,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Vile, insulting, incompetent, hateful cannibal movie.
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The Green Inferno
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Based on 14 parent reviews
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What's the Story?
College freshman Justine (Lorenza Izzo), whose father is a UN lawyer, decides to become an activist to help stop female genital mutilation in other countries. She joins the charismatic Alejandro (Ariel Levy) on a trip to the Amazon to demonstrate against big companies bulldozing the rainforest. On the way back, their plane crashes, and a group of survivors is captured by a strange tribe of cannibals. If they can hold on, they might be rescued -- or they could try to escape. But infighting and an unexpected betrayal complicate matters, and none of them may ever make it out of the jungle.
Is It Any Good?
Director Eli Roth returns to the director's chair with this vile, incompetent, dumb, hateful cannibal torture film. The movie goes wrong in so many ways, it's hard to know where to start. First, there's the atrocious acting, which isn't helped by sub-par writing or a collection of blatantly stolen movie cliches. The clumsy directing is either overly staged or consists of bad shaky-cam work. And the gore is strong, but it's freak show stuff, with no specific purpose other than to shock.
The movie's take on non-Western cultures (i.e., if it's different it must be wrong, and/or scary) is insulting; this comes from Roth's decades-old source material, the controversial Cannibal Holocaust (1980), whose working title was THE GREEN INFERNO. Finally, there's Roth's questionable treatment of his now-wife, star Izzo, whose character is tortured, bloodied, and nearly drowned. This isn't a healthy movie. Hopefully Roth's fan club will finally draw the line here.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about The Green Inferno's incredible violence and gore. What is its purpose? Did it make you squirm? Scream? Did it make you feel sick? Why do some people seek out this kind of content? Does exposure to violent media desensitize kids to violence?
Is the movie scary? How does it compare to other kinds of horror films about victims?
How does the movie treat its female characters?
How does the movie view other cultures?
Movie Details
- In theaters: September 25, 2015
- On DVD or streaming: January 5, 2016
- Cast: Daryl Sabara, Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy
- Director: Eli Roth
- Inclusion Information: Latinx actors
- Studios: Universal Pictures, High Top Releasing
- Genre: Horror
- Run time: 100 minutes
- MPAA rating: R
- MPAA explanation: aberrant violence and torture, grisly disturbing images, brief graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use
- Last updated: November 19, 2022
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