Best quotes by Eli Roth

MoviesHorrorThe best movies now are called 'thrillers.' Because if you use the word 'horror,' people's associations are straight-to-video crap.

Eli RothI never put out a vanilla edition of a DVD.

Eli RothI look at careers like Ben Stiller and think that's a great career to have where you're doing movies that you write and direct, and also act in films, although he's primarily an actor.

Film IndustryFilmmakingI've always been a fan of 3D, going back to movies in the '50s. I was part of the early '80s 3D craze, which was coming at you in Jaws 3D, so I've always wanted to make a 3D film.

MoviesI love movies that are just straight-up exploitation, but the ones that endure and the ones that last are the ones where the filmmakers put in that extra level of thought; after 25 years you put them on in front of an audience, and they'll respond to it and enjoy it.

GoalsFilm IndustryMovie MakingAnytime you make a movie, the goal is a wide theatrical release, with the right distributor.

Inspiration'Cabin Fever' was very much inspired by 'The Thing.' It's really a perfect guy's horror movie: There's no love story, it's just straight-up horror. And it's so well-done. It moves at a slow pace, but it's really terrific.

FearEmotional ImpactHorror FilmsI love movies that have that resonating scare, that really get under your skin and make you think.

Artistic ExpressionStorytellingMovie MakingI think you should make movies as long as the story dictates.

FilmEli Roth'Beatrice Cenci' was an amazing film. If it were released today it'd win Best Picture. It's so well done, it's so contemporary, and the filmmaking is so smart.

ActorsFilm IndustryI think filmmakers, in general... There are some awesome, really great filmmakers - but on the whole, filmmakers, actors, I think they are the biggest bunch of whiny, over-paid babies on the planet.

TechnologyWe live in an age now where so many people watch movies based on what Netflix recommends. It learns your taste and they really understand viewer habits.

ComedyHumorLaughterA comedy can actually get funnier and funnier. Even though you know the joke, you enjoy it so much, it's the facial expression, you laugh. The laugh doesn't wear off. It could be with you for thirty years.

RelationshipsChangePersonal ExperiencesFor a long time, I had a crazy girl dating habit.

CreativityHorrorI can think of endless horrible things to do to people!

ImaginationMysteryOne of the great elements of the supernatural is having that mystery and letting people's imaginations run wild with it.

Societal PressureEveryone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.

SilenceEven post-WWII, nobody talked about the Holocaust. It wasn't until the '50s that people started talking about it.

ChildhoodResponsibilityLeadershipAs a kid, I was the neighbourhood baby-sitter - very responsible, always in charge.

MoviesI like movies that work on two levels - like The Simpsons, kids can watch it and adults can watch it. Teenagers can watch Hostel and if they want to see a blood and guts violent movie they're going to have a great time. They're going to scream and yell, it's a great date movie because they're going to squeeze their date and their date is probably going to be too scared to go home... so you take them home and put on Dirty Dancing and everybody wins.

Creative writing and shooting are muscles that atrophy. But when you work them, you become a self-generator who can branch out.

LoveExperienceChildrenBelieve it or not, but I was a camp councilor for three years. I love kids.

Eli RothChile could work as a double for L.A.; it's very production-friendly and there's terrific talent down there.

Horror FilmsHorror audiences don't need to see some TV actor they're familiar with.

Horror moviesI feel like in the '90s, horror just lost its way and everything became so safe and watered-down.

PreferencesI'll direct any movie starring a monkey or the Olsen Twins. Preferably both.

Self-ImprovementSelf-AwarenessI need to eliminate 'like' from my vocabulary. I begin sentences with, 'That's seriously like ' I hear myself talking in this Los Angeles high-school student kind of way, and I hate it.

SuccessInspirationFilmmakingAs a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi was 21 when he made movies, and when I didn't get 'Cabin Fever' made that fast I thought I'd failed.

DirectingShooting at Quentin Tarantino movie was like a masterclass in directing. Although I went back literally right into rehearsal, started shooting... while I was doing it I had to write my Grindhouse trailer and I added two days of shooting. My brother was producing Hostel and the Grindhouse trailer and I was like: "Gabe, just figure this out!"

Horror'Eraserhead' is a weird, horrible nightmare, and it doesn't narratively make sense. Stuff's happening, but you honestly feel like you're in a nightmare, and it has such disturbing imagery that it stays with you forever once you've seen it.

QualityComparisonAssumptionsIt's just assumed that a horror sequel is going to be bad. It's never going to be as good as the first one.

LifeResilienceProblem-SolvingPerspectiveTragedyThe film, 'Aftershock,' for me is really about how the minor problems in life that we think are so major ultimately mean nothing when a tragedy happens, when a real problem happens.

Quentin Tarantino assistant called me and said: "I have good news and bad news. The good news is you got the part, the bad news is you have to do it." I was like: "Oh Jesus, when am I supposed to do this?" I was prepping Hostel.

FearSocietyHuman BehaviorNatural disasters are terrifying - that loss of control, this feeling that something is just going to randomly end your life for absolutely no reason is terrifying. But, what scares me is the human reaction to it and how people behave when the rules of civility and society are obliterated.

DedicationProductivityObsessionBalanceWorkI get a little too obsessive with work.

FearHorror FilmsArtistic ExpressionI generally follow my own compass and make films about what's scaring me.

Film IndustryEli RothQuentin [Tarantino] called me and said: "Yeah, you've got to be in my movie. You've got to be in Death Proof." But he made me audition. I was like: "Dude, I don't even want to do this..." So I left the casting of Hostel: Part II to drive to Venice, where Quentin was holding his casting, and the person ahead of me was Derek Richardson from Hostel 1 and he was like: "Dude, what are you doing here?" I said: "Don't ask!"

'Troll 2' is one of the rare sequels where you don't have to waste time watching the first one, since the films have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

MoviesEli RothI want a movie that 30 years from now, people can look back and see it as a reflection of where the culture was at - as a barometer of the culture.

LongevityQualityPlanningI want it to be able to hold up in 30 years' time. So, I'm really thinking about everything.

SportHigh SchoolBaseballI'm from Boston, and in Boston, you are born with a baseball bat in your hand. And actually, most of the bats in Massachusetts are used off the field instead of on the field, and we all had baseball bats in our cars in high school.

HappinessFilmmakingDirectingWhen I'm filming a kill scene [as a director], I just get happier and happier as we chop up body parts.

When I was filming the death scene [in Inglourious Basterds], and I'm killing somebody, I had to work myself up.

ActingPerformingI knew how to act and had studied acting and enjoyed it, but I'd never pushed myself to really perform as an actor, and create a role, and have the whole character's backstory.

MotivationMusicI was listening to music to kind of pump myself up and get psyched up, like I was listening to Iron Maiden and Misfits and Dead Kennedys, and it was like my '80s Massachusetts parking-lot heavy metal and Guns N' Roses.

Horror moviesEli RothI like movies like 'Mother's Day', where you watch it, and you've liked it for years as a horror movie.

Human NatureConsumerismDawn Of The Dead is about how we're just a country cannibalizing itself, turning into one shopping mall, and everyone at the mall is just brain-dead, wandering around. Capitalism gone awry, and the worst parts of human nature coming out. All these different things that people read into the films that are all there, very strong anti-Bush sentiments that went into making those films. It's great. I like it when people get it the second or third time, when someone else points it out to them. They don't realize it's been there all along. Those are my favorite movies.

My parents love it! They're on set. They make cameos in the movie. My father is a psycho-analyst and a professor at Harvard and he told me how many of the other professors at Harvard have gone and seen it. They love 'Hostel' and they love the thought behind it.

The censors were great. There's always back and forth. But it's 'Hostel 2', it's not 'Happy Feet 2'. Everybody knows what Hostel is and people that are going to see it are going for more of what they loved in the original. No one is accidentally going to walk into it, no parent is accidentally going to take their child, and we're not pretending what it is in the advertising. We're saying it's very violent, it's very scary and a continuation of the first one.

With 'Hostel II' I thought I had a very, very strong female audience so I'm going to make a movie that's going to appeal to them. The guys will love it, they'll have their moments. But there'll be a lot more male nudity in this one. I have a lot of sausage in this one!

I felt people responded to two things. One, obviously, is the gore and the scenes like the eye gauging.

I want to have an ending where people say: "That's the most shocking ending I've ever seen in a mainstream horror film."

I think in the late '80s and early '90s horror was dead.

ViolenceEli RothAll the copycat movies were always PG-13 and people said: "Nobody wants violence."

PerceptionIntelligenceFilm IndustryQuentin Tarantino faced the same backlash when his films came out until eventually people felt they were actually much smarter.

Film IndustrySensitivityYou'd be lucky to get tortured to death in one of my films. It's the best thing that could happen to your career. But I'm very aware that as soon as you put women in this situation, all of a sudden people are like: "Wow, well wait a second!" Immediately, people become very sensitive to it.

EmpathyGenderOpinionsBraveryIt's the difference between hunting a lion and hunting a deer. If someone hunts a lion, it's like: "Wow, they're brave!" But if they're hunting a deer it's like: "That poor deer!" I know that. I know that guys getting killed is horrible but people have seen it before. You've seen The Evil Dead. With girls, it's like: "I don't want to see that happening..." I know that.

Horror FilmsYou have to write scenes and design scenes that are scary and horrific, but that are also watchable. I didn't want people to just feel like they got punched in the stomach.

Horror FilmsFilmmakingI don't want people to feel: "Why am I watching this? It's sick and sadistic." I want people to watch and think it's scary but they can't wait to see what happens next. I also wanted to make a movie that was watchable.

HorrorStereotypesAmericaThe point of the first one was that it was about guys being lured by sex and the stereotypes... I always say it's like a horror version of Borat. Borat's not an accurate depiction of Khazakstan, it's an accurate depiction of America. That's what Hostel is.

Borat shows American stereotypes of Eastern Europe but it's an accurate depiction of what a certain type of American is. They think they can buy and sell these girls and then they get bought and sold.

ArtGender RolesFilmCriticismI started the film [Hostel Part II]with the girls in an art class and there's a nude male model. People think that women are objectified, well here you go! Here's a man being objectivized but now it's under the guise of art.

CreativityViolenceMovie MakingI'd love to see us get to a point where you can make a movie and not worry about the limits of the violence. Then I think they'd get so violent that people would get bored of it.

Women became almost our bigger audience. Teenage girls went crazy for my movie. I saw it. I went to theatres all over and there were gangs of girls going and screaming. There were kids that were 10 or 11 years old when September 11 happened. They've been told for years they're going to get killed, they're going to get blown up. Every time you go on an airplane, X-ray your shoes because you're going to get blown up. Terror alert orange, don't travel. So, people have a reaction and they want to scream. Horror movies have become the new date movie.

RelationshipsGriefImagine trying to relive your worst break-up, your worst fight, the most painful death of a loved one, and just really relive it step by step, and bring it up and apply it to the scene you're in.