Despite what critics may say about his movies, Eli Roth's love for horror, camp, and dark fantasy knows no bounds. No one pays tribute to their influences quite like Roth does in his films. It's no wonder Quentin Tarantino, a fellow film nerd, cast Roth in his 2009 war movie Inglourious Basterds as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz.
While most of Roth's movies are considered trashy genre fare existing somewhere within the bounds of horror, his features span the spectrum. Some are gruesomely violent. Others are absurdly hilarious. They all contribute to Roth's reputation as a cult director who tends to offend critics and confuse mainstream audiences by subverting their expectations.
Knock Knock (2015) - 4.9
Knock Knock is post-John Wick Keanu Reeves at his most ridiculous. In Knock Knock, Reeves plays a married man home alone for the weekend who is targeted by a pair of deranged women looking to play a perverse game.
After seducing Reeves's character Evan, the women (played by Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) unravel a farcical, outlandish plot to torture Evan and expose his misdeeds to his family - just for the fun of it. While some fans interpret Knock Knock as a tongue-in-cheek feminist thriller, others see it as irresponsible, pornographic garbage.
The Green Inferno (2013) - 5.3
Roth's homage to old Italian cannibal horror movies, particularly 1980's Cannibal Holocaust, is a gruesome story about a group of fair-weather environmental activists who are captured by an Amazonian tribe in Peru. As it goes with films of this nature, the tribe practices cannibalism and ritualistic sacrifice.
While Roth received criticism for his characterization of indigenous groups, he defended the film as an exploitation picture that uses extreme violence to provide commentary about the ways outsiders disrupt indigenous practices. One of the film's supporters, novelist Stephen King, described The Green Inferno as "a glorious throwback to the drive-in movies of my youth."
Hostel: Part II (2007) - 5.5
The second installment in Roth's torture porn series Hostel is just as divisive as its predecessor. It centers around three American women vacationing in Rome who are lured to a Slovak village where wealthy clients bid to torture them to death in a secret facility. The film's unrelenting carnage and deeply disturbing connotations proved too much for many critics, who couldn't see past its gory tone.
Fans of the Hostel films, though, note its geopolitical undercurrents. Instead of ghosts or monsters, this film shows how those with wealth and status can buy the right to anything, even committing heinous murders.
Cabin Fever (2002) - 5.7
Eli Roth's debut feature is a schlocky, bloody romp that aims to deconstruct the "college kids on vacation" trope in horror. Rider Strong leads the cast of typical horror movie characters through this atypical film remade in 2016, which eschews traditions and ends on a totally dismal note.
Roth established himself as a parodic yet very knowledgeable purveyor of horror with Cabin Fever. Instead of Jason Voorhees or the Necronomicon, the holidaying gang in Cabin Fever is assailed by flesh-eating bacteria in the local drinking water.
Hostel (2005) - 5.9
The first Hostel film sees Roth taking his immoral and depraved sense of humor to the extreme. A group of college friends with frat bro vibes enjoy a European vacation, but the adventure takes a wrong turn in Slovakia, where they are kidnapped and sold off to rich businesspeople with a taste for brutality.
Hostel makes some grotesque statements about late-stage capitalism while implicating its blood-hungry audiences in the barbarity. Roth apparently conceived of the film while swimming in Quentin Tarantino's pool.
The House With A Clock In Its Walls (2018) - 6.1
The House With a Clock in its Walls is a family-friendly fantasy flick based on the 1970s mystery novels by John Bellairs. A big-budget CGI-filled romp, the film tells the story of an orphaned boy who moves with his warlock uncle.
Jack Black plays the warlock, Jonathan Barnavelt, and Cate Blanchett plays Barnavelt's neighbor Florence Zimmerman, who just so happens to be a witch. Horror blends with PG-level humor in the film, which proved to be a box office success.
Death Wish (2018) - 6.4
With Bruce Willis in the lead, Roth remade the 1974 Charles Bronson thriller Death Wish. Willis plays Dr. Paul Kersey, a Chicago surgeon whose wife and daughter are attacked during a home invasion gone wrong; Kersey sets out to kill those responsible for the assaults no matter the cost.
Death Wish's morally questionable theme of retribution serves as a segue into graphic scenes of mutilation and slaying that unfortunately reinforce stereotypes about urban crime. Instead of toying with the lone wolf, vigilante gunman trope in the film, Roth chose to uplift it - a choice many critics interpreted as tone-deaf for 2018. That being said, the film did well enough in theaters.
Inglourious Basterds: Stolz der Nation (2009) - 7.1
In addition to acting in Inglourious Basterds, Roth also directed the feature's film-within-a-film, Stolz der Nation. Nation's Pride, as it's known in English, is the Nazi propaganda movie that highlights the exploits of Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper infamous for killing 250 Allied soldiers in the movie.
Roth used hundreds of extras for Nation's Pride, which amplifies both the overarching movie's fascination with cinema and its pulpy, revisionist history. Tarantino himself served as an extra in Roth's short.
Grindhouse: Thanksgiving (2007) - 7.5
Roth directed the fake trailer for the fake film, Thanksgiving, seen during Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's double-feature Grindhouse. Grindhouse is an homage to 1970s exploitation films that all three directors love so much.
Thanksgiving is billed as a holiday-themed slasher about a serial slayer who preys up his victims dressed like a pilgrim. Roth also does the voice-over narration for the trailer.