'The Green Inferno' (2013) Review

     For my eighth film this month, I watched the 2013 film ‘The Green Inferno’ and honestly I wish I didn't. In my past reviews, I have given my real opinion but tried to be optimistic with the film's plot and execution. I am not going to hold back with this one. I had heard little about ‘The Green Inferno’ besides that it was extremely graphic and greatly influenced by the controversial film ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ that was released in 1980. If you’ve never heard of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, be grateful. The film is banned in multiple countries and the director even got taken in for questioning after its release for the murder scenes appearing “too realistic”. After some research, it is clear to me that ‘The Green Inferno’ is nothing but ‘Cannibal Holocaust’  less popular little brother. 

Let me make it clear that I love a good slasher film. I love campy, gory, over-the-top scares in a horror film and things that bring something new to the table. This was too far and too much for me. ‘The Green Inferno’ tells the story of a college girl named Justine joining a student activist trip to the Amazon to save the rainforest. Things quickly take a turn when the plane crashes in the jungle and the students are taken by a tribe of cannibals. Right off the bat we get into extremely disturbing content watching people get ripped into pieces and held captive by a indigenous tribe. A huge issue that many people had called out about the movie was the way it held indigenous people in a negative light. This included portraying them as savages with little to no morals. Horror movies have a great history of explaining the ‘ghosts’ or ‘curses’ at the expense of indigenous people. Demonizing a group of people to further your story causes more harm than good and overall isn't good story telling either. It is a lazy excuse to ‘explain’ a plot point instead of leaving things to the imagination or using creativity. ‘The Green Inferno’ isn't the only horror film to do this and sadly, it won't be the last. This old trope is over done and feels like an exploitation rather than an explanation.


    The acting was mediocre at best for a movie thats real focus was torture scenes rather than quality of film. The lead character Justine, played by Lorenza Izzo, was decent for what she was given but over sexualized for the situation being. The most disturbing part of the movie for me (TRIGGER WARNING/ SPOILER AHEAD) was the genital mutilation subplot. There was no reason for this part to be as graphic as it was. All it really urged me to do was to turn off the movie (which it was TRYING to do, so I guess it succeeded here). For a film directed by a man, this felt very wrong to be portrayed the way it was. I honestly don’t think this topic had any place to be portrayed in a movie like this, or any for that matter. To go from a mutilation scene to then sexualizing the female character in peril was very unnecessary and done for shock value. Shock value is another trope popular in horror where they use a plot point to purposely provoke a reaction of disturbance. In this context, I found it careless and weak. If I had to force myself to say something good about this film, it would be that it did as it was intended to do, gross me out. Also, the location for filming was very beautiful.

‘The Green Inferno’ made me not want to eat for a couple days after viewing and stuck with me for too long after. NOT in the good way. I am definitely not into this type of movie and that is why I would not recommend this to anyone. I rate this 0.5 out of 5, giving it a half star for being a film that did actually scare me. Instead, I would recommend better films with similar undertones like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tusk, or The Hills Have Eyes. 

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