Eli Roth Quotations

Natural 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.

Las Vegas is a 24-hour city. It never stops.

Much of my youth was spent in the parking lot or inside a Dunkin' Donuts.

Horror movies are the best date movies. There's no wondering, 'When do I put my arm around her?'

Possession and exorcism is something that's in every religion and every culture. It's a real primal fear: Is the body a vessel for our spirits? What happens if something else takes over it? Where does the spirit go?

'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.

Anytime you're the first to speak out against something, there's going to be a backlash.

You know, I'm from Boston, and in Boston, you are born with a baseball bat in your hand.

There's fear in everything, but we can't just succumb to that. We have to suppress it, so we get used to suppressing fear to make it through the our day. Otherwise, we'd become paralyzed by them.

'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.

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

I've always been fascinated by the idea that there's no such thing as evil; it's all in your point of view. To one group a suicide bomber is the antichrist and to one he's a hero.

I've always dreamed of having a year-round haunted house.

I think that horror films have a very direct relationship to the time in which they're made. The films that really strike a film with the public are very often reflecting something that everyone, consciously or unconsciously feeling - atomic age, post 9-11, post Iraq war; it's hard to predict what people are going to be afraid of.

I think characters are most terrifying when they're relatable. It's best when your most horrible characters make sense, and are believable. That's when a movie is most terrifying.

I have no tattoos. There's nothing I've even been that into to get a tattoo of it.

Some disaster movies look like you're watching someone else play video games. They're fun but it's not real.

Lucio Fulci is such a massively underrated director. Everyone knows him as the Godfather of Gore.

When people direct insults at me, I can take it.

I 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.

My phobias worsen as I get older. I'm scared of flying, driving. I'm terrified of sharks. I'm a germaphobe. But I try to face my fears; I do. Well, most of them.

People want to be disturbed when they go see a horror movie.

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

The world is changing. Social media is a way to sell movies and to build a fan base. The truth is that you have followers because they know you are into it and you're funny and you like it. I think it's great.

We 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.

You have to trust your instincts and hope the fans like what you do, but you don't gut check with the fans. If we're going to make a series, people are going to have a lot of opinions and if there's one overwhelming majority or one thing you continuously hear repeated from the fans, you certainly take that into account going into next season.

I hear what people say, I read all the reviews, all the blogs, and I am always curious to hear it, because you can't always listen to the good press, you have to hear the bad press, too.

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

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

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.

The 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.

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.

I 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.

You 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.

It'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.

You'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.

I always feel that there's no violence in a movie - it's not real, it's a magic trick. Nobody is really dying. In fact, the people that die in my movies have gone on to become extremely successful!

The difference is in Hostel it's in the theatre - it's in public but it's in a private place. You have to actively make a choice to want to go see it. It's not being forced on anyone. Whereas 24 you can be flipping channels and it's right there in your living room. Anyone has access to that. But that just shows how mainstream it is and how people are seeing this stuff on YouTube. People are scared of it. This is a subject matter that everyone's talking about and everyone's thinking about, particularly in American culture.

Even the European critics... They said Hostel is the smartest film they'd seen on capitalism and how it's gone too far.

Hopefully we'll get to a point where people realize movies don't cause violence. It just reflects the violence going on in the culture.

I 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.

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'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.

I 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.

Imagine 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.

I 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.

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

Dawn 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.

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.

I'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.

When 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.

When I go see an R-rated horror movie, I want lots of violence. I want nudity. I want sex and violence mixed together. What's wrong with that? Am I the only one? I don't think so.

Sometimes you have this tragedy which turns into an incredible opportunity.

I've always wanted to be involved in an exorcism movie. But I thought, "How do you make something scarier than The Exorcist?" The answer is you don't. But that doesn't mean you can't make something that is original and interesting.

Everybody has to know where they're coming from, what they're doing, why they're doing it, who they are. These are essentials.

You can pretend everything's fine, but if there's an unhappiness or you're not having sex or you're not communicating or you're made to feel third best in the house and you don't address it and you just try to put on a nice face and a smile, that kind of aggression and anger is going to come out in some sinister way.

In musical theater, if you have a song, it has to advance the plot. If you have a song in a musical and it does not advance the plot, it gets dropped.

I'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.

One of the great joys of life, now that you can afford a nice suit, is getting one for free. That's why I like to do press tours - I always say making movies is just an excuse to get free clothing.

There's something very scary about exposing yourself on camera, knowing that you're going to be put on thousands of screens around the world for everyone to judge, but there's also something very thrilling and exciting about it.

Twitter is wonderful. You can kill rumours instantly.

'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.

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

I think in life we get very caught up in the minutia and, unfortunately, it generally takes some sort of tragedy in your life to put things in perspective.

You can't help but be influenced by the things you love. Read more at: https://tr.im/ezGbq

The 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.

The scariest people are usually the sweetest.

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

When I was 22, I had this horrible psoriasis outbreak. It was all over my legs, I couldn't walk because my legs were cracked and bleeding. Weird things like that can happen to your body.

Once I got over the fear of writing female characters, it actually came quite easily and I was really happy with it. I just thought about girls I knew really, really well and I'd just have conversations with them and tried to relay how they talk about certain things.

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

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

For the fee of $10,000, anyone could be escorted to a room, handed a loaded gun and offered another human to kill. The concept made me nauseous. But it also felt real, and rang bells with my more cynical side.

So when I was beating the guy, I started thinking, 'What if I was Hannah Montana?' . . . And little do they know that that's why I look so insane . . . I'm torturing myself with thoughts of, 'How could I actually pull off being a high school student and a pop star at night?'

Hopefully we'll get to a point where there are absolutely no restrictions on any kind of violence in movies. I'd love to see us get to a point where you can go to theaters and see movies unrated and that people know its not real violence. It's all pretend. It's all fake. It's just acting. It's just magic tricks.

Look at comic books. It used to be something that only geeks were into. And now it's everywhere.

The one negative to horror is that it's always law of diminishing returns. When you go in the funhouse, the ride is never scary the second time. You will never have that pure experience as when you first watch it.

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

I never put out a vanilla edition of a DVD.

Movie stars need to retain some of that mystique if you are a big movie star.

I think you should make movies as long as the story dictates.

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

If you are having fun on the set, you are not getting things done.

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

I love movies. I mean, I really, really love movies.

Horror movies are the best date movies. There's no wondering , 'When do I put my arm around her?'

Shooting 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!"

Anytime you make a movie, the goal is a wide theatrical release, with the right distributor.

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

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.

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

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

I 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.

Everyone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.

For a long time, I had a crazy girl dating habit.

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

I 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.

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

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