I think that Roth sets out to make thoughtful horror, with depth of character and plot but then gets caught up in the gore, and the desire to put extreme images on our screens.
So often, everything that makes good horror great is lost in Roth's work because he in unable to put over a truly likeable character for us to root for. Even in Green Inferno, where the female lead is in danger of having her genitals mutilated, there is still a disconnect because there's just not enough good character work in the opening act to get the viewer emotionally engaged.
And when he does spend 60 seconds trying to get across a point about someone's character, it's the ridiculous scenes such as the antagonist masturbating while locked in a cage by cannibals.
Roth spends way too much time thinking "I want THIS freaky thing to happen in this movie now, how can I manipulate the script to that point? Never mind how unrealistic or outside of the established character traits."
That clunky, immature execution distracts me and pulls me out of the movie, becoming too aware of the writer's intent through his sledge hammer subtlety.
I didn't hate Green Inferno. But it's flaws are many. And calling it an "homage" to works like Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox is to greatly exaggerate the meaning of "homage".

Agreed. He's a talentless hack that can't do anything but try and mimic old movies because he doesn't have a single original idea in his head.

What the fvck are you talking about? Hostel and Cabin Fever were just as sh!t as this. Eli Roth has always been a stain on the horror genre. Nothing's changed.

I quite like Hostel and Cabin Fever. Hostel Part II was a step down from those in my opinion. And this was another step down as far as I'm concerned. Never seen Knock Knock.

He really loathes activists and SJWs? Not a great film but seems its his way of mocking white american activists.
Im more humble than you can understand

You act like hes fallen when his movies were always average at best
If Ari Gold saw Chappie he would say:
"Chappie makes Elysium look like Citizen vcking Kane"

Yeah I used to look forward to his movies now its just crap after crap.
Lose the Game!!!!!!!

Yeah this movie was no masterpiece but I did think it did have a couple of enjoyable or exciting moments.
I am the son of a man named Tom.

but to be fair though cabin fever was not that great of a movie either. PANCAKES! ugh!! -.-

I don't get what people see in
Cabin Fever
Tolerance Is Intolerant Of Politically Incorrect Thought

I don't see a "decline" from 'Hostel' to Hostel II." I thought the sequel was a good horror film, and a perfect sequel. What makes the first one so much better?
have a drink twat-
Helmut Berger, "Mad Dog Killer"

Hostel 2 improved on proceedings vastly
Oh god NO! The only thing Hostel 2 did was piss on the original.

Personally speaking I liked Hostel 1&2 and disliked Cabin Fever and Knock Knock and have yet too see Green Inferno but I think he is pretty talented he just needs to lower the amount of toilet humor in his films in my opinion it undermines the horror bits

I am not the biggest fan of Cabin Fever but at least it had a good blend of humor and horror.
Unfortunately, both Knock Knock and Green Inferno has potential to be smarter movies than they ended up. Knock Knock could have been a good satire on rape with the tables turned and Green Inferno could have been a smart satire on over privileged college students boycott something they knew little about other than a professor telling them that logging in the rainforest is bad.
It seems like both these movies were phoned in and could have been well above average horror flicks.
Dean

Take off the binders. Eli Roth sucked from the beginning. Hostel was full of protagonists that deserved to die and Cabin Fever was a vacuum of plot holes. Eli was never the new wave of horror. He is just a chump with a few ideas.

eli roth has no "classics" in the horror genre. the dude wouldn't know the meaning of horror if his life depended on him. all his movies are just crap torture porn with no sense of direction

This message has been deleted.

Really? Hostel 2 was really poor. what was the point of the guy shooting the kid again? TO be shocking..heard it ll before.
Green Inferno is a poor rip off of Cannibal Holocaust. It doesn't excel at anything. It's neither suspenseful, nor gory, so it kinda falls into a no mans land of mediocrity. The only interesting thing in this film is that the main "villain" is a woman, but he doesn't do anything with it.
Knock Knock, again a potentially interesting premise, that fails because Roth doesn't follow it through. Reeves "free pizza" speech reduces him from full on victim to guy getting kinda unjustly punished for doing something he shouldn't have. Again, Roth falls into mediocrity by not running with an idea.

No. Hostel: Part II is where he finally started to show some maturity as a director, with far more likable characters who weren't complete ass-clowns that the audience wanted to see slaughtered. Cabin Fever is awesome, but in a "so bad it's good" way. Everything about that movie just screamed "amateur" and was completely awful. It's the gory campy nature people enjoyed. Hostel was atrocious. It was nothing more than a slightly less sh itty "Saw."
You are utterly and completely wrong. Knock Knock and The Green Inferno, both with their own faults, are showing a director growing and trying new things. Sorry you like spoon-fed drivel. That's what the "torture porn" generation produced. Mouth-breathing morons like you that don't know the first thing about what makes a director good or bad.

i agree since then its like B-D horror lol

He became friends with Taratino.

Sometimes I find it funny, sometimes I get pissed. People commenting horror films are a bunch of really annoying sour nerds. Just read most of the answers to this post. Why do you take it so serious? Most of these movies are meant to make you laugh at some point
"Critics" don't know a beep about making a glass, but they know a thousand ways to break it.

Man, I hated Roth's movies right from the start Cabin Fever pissed me off and Hostel was just bait-n-switch (it's nowhere near as gory/transgressive as its reputation suggests). The guy is good at marketing but I think his writing sucks.
That said, I did kind of enjoy Green Inferno though the earlier bits up till the plane crash were really annoying. After that it's a predictable, somewhat sanitized jungle horror/cannibal movie. Kinda dumb, kinda fun.