Welcome to the Jungle (Please Lower Your Expectations)
If The Green Inferno were a meal, it would be an undercooked burger made entirely out of pretension and human flesh. Eli Roth, horror’s self-appointed king of shock and the man who once made torture tourism seem profitable (Hostel), decided to take a sabbatical from subtlety and instead serve us a full-course disaster of cultural insensitivity and cinematic indigestion.
Roth called this film an homage to the Italian cannibal movies of the 1970s and 80s — but homage is a generous word here. “Homage” implies love and respect for the source material. What The Green Inferno delivers feels less like tribute and more like a frat boy remake of Cannibal Holocaust after a bong hit and a BuzzFeed article on activism.
It’s an experience so muddled that halfway through you start rooting for the cannibals, because at least they seem to know what movie they’re in.
Activism: Now With Extra Stupidity
The film follows Justine (Lorenza Izzo), a college freshman with a conscience and the common sense of a potato. She joins a group of campus activists led by Alejandro (Ariel Levy), a smug wannabe revolutionary who radiates the kind of charisma you’d expect from a TED Talk given by a traffic cone.
Their mission? To save the Amazon rainforest from an evil petrochemical company. Their plan? Chain themselves to bulldozers, film it on iPhones, and live-stream it to raise awareness. Their execution? Let’s just say Darwin would have considered this movie a documentary.
Roth’s portrayal of activism is about as nuanced as a YouTube comments section. Every protester is either a stereotype, a snack, or both. The group includes:
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The Stoner: Who thinks weed solves cannibalism.
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The Vegan: Who learns too late that ethical eating ends at human stew.
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The Loudmouth Girlfriend: Who exists solely to scream at the wrong moments.
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The Douchebag Leader: Who stages protests for clout and sponsors them through drug cartels (ah, the modern non-profit model).
These characters are so insufferably dumb that when their plane crashes into the jungle, you almost feel relieved. Finally — the plot gets to chew on something.
The Crash: Where the Movie Also Dies
The plane crash is arguably the movie’s high point, which is tragic because it happens less than halfway through. It’s chaotic, gory, and well-shot — a brief reminder that Eli Roth actually can direct suspense when he’s not busy turning it into an eating contest.
But once the survivors stumble out of the wreckage, The Green Inferno hits turbulence of its own. Enter the indigenous tribe: painted red, nearly mute, and written with all the cultural sensitivity of a 19th-century anthropology textbook.
Roth insists he meant to critique Western saviorism — but the execution plays like a colonial horror show where “brown people scary” is the main theme. The tribe’s introduction is meant to shock, but it lands somewhere between uncomfortable and cartoonish. It’s hard to feel terror when you’re too busy wondering if everyone involved should be attending a diversity seminar instead.
The Cannibals: Hungry for Meaning (and Everyone Else)
The cannibals themselves are the most consistent characters in the film — they’re hungry, efficient, and blissfully unaware of Twitter. They kill and eat the survivors with gusto, which, honestly, is the most understandable motivation in the movie. If a bunch of camera-toting college activists landed in my backyard yelling about corporate greed, I’d probably boil a few too.
Unfortunately, Roth mistakes “gross” for “scary.” There’s no real suspense, just a series of grotesque buffet scenes where limbs are gnawed, eyeballs squished, and stomachs churned — both onscreen and off.
The special effects are impressive in a “that’s going to ruin my appetite for days” kind of way. The first major death — Jonah being butchered and served like a rotisserie chicken — is actually effective, but it’s downhill from there. Once you’ve seen one guy’s intestines used as garnish, you’ve seen them all.
The Politics of Cannibalism
Roth clearly thinks he’s making a statement about Western hypocrisy and performative activism. “See?” he seems to say, “These kids thought they were saving the rainforest, but now they’re the ones being consumed! Irony!”
Yes, Eli, we get it. It’s ironic. But irony doesn’t count if your script reads like it was written on a cocktail napkin soaked in blood and Monster Energy.
The satire fails because there’s no empathy — not for the activists, not for the tribe, not for the audience. Everyone’s a caricature, and every “point” the film tries to make is devoured by its own self-importance.
If this movie had a moral, it would be: “Don’t try to save the world, kids, or brown people will eat you.” Which, in case it’s unclear, is not the message anyone was asking for in 2013 — or ever.
The Virgin and the Machete
The film’s most egregious misstep arrives with a subplot involving female genital mutilation — because nothing says respectful social commentary like tossing in one of the world’s worst real-life atrocities as a third-act scare tactic.
Justine, the only virgin, is selected for a ritual mutilation ceremony that is treated with the same tone Roth uses for decapitations and weed jokes. It’s tasteless, gratuitous, and manages to be both exploitative and lazy — quite an accomplishment, really.
Lorenza Izzo does her best to salvage dignity from this mess, but her character’s only purpose seems to be to scream, run, and occasionally lie about genocide on camera.
Stupidity Levels: A Study
It’s difficult to express how dumb this movie’s characters are, but let’s try:
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After being captured by cannibals, the group’s first plan is to wait for corporate bulldozers to show up and “save them.”
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When one of their own dies, they feed her corpse marijuana, hoping to “get the tribe high.” (It works. For five minutes. Then everyone dies again.)
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At one point, a survivor escapes only to row in circles for no reason.
These people make the cast of Jurassic Park look like NASA engineers. By the time Justine escapes, it’s not triumph — it’s natural selection finally cleaning house.
Eli Roth’s Jungle Fever
Eli Roth has always thrived on shock value, but here, he’s less provocateur and more prankster with a film budget. The Green Inferno feels like it was made by a 13-year-old who just learned about cannibalism and irony in the same day.
Roth’s direction vacillates between art-house pretension and grindhouse chaos. The cinematography, lush and beautiful, is wasted on a script that treats South America like a travel brochure for colonial nightmares. The tone swerves from activism satire to torture porn so often it’s like watching National Geographic directed by the Joker.
And yet, Roth defends it as a critique of “white savior activism.” Sure, Eli. And Sharknado is a warning about climate change.
The Ending: Bon Appétit, Hypocrisy
Justine eventually escapes, lies about the tribe being peaceful, and becomes a minor celebrity. The final shot suggests Alejandro — the smug leader — is still alive, possibly joining the tribe as their new spokesman for bad plot twists.
It’s supposed to be cynical and clever, but it lands like a wet drumstick: bland, messy, and overcooked.
Final Thoughts: A Cultural and Culinary Catastrophe
The Green Inferno wanted to be a modern Cannibal Holocaust — a bold statement about voyeurism, ethics, and exploitation. What it became is a two-hour YouTube challenge titled “White People vs. Consequences.”
It’s gory without purpose, political without perspective, and offensive without self-awareness. The only thing truly horrifying is realizing how much fun Roth probably had making it.
Rating: 3 out of 10 Burnt Drumsticks.
Because if you’re going to make a movie about people getting eaten alive, at least give us something with bite. This one’s all gristle.
