The Green Inferno -2013-

The Green Inferno did not start a new cannibal revival (a proposed sequel, The Green Inferno 2, was produced without Roth’s direct involvement and released in 2015 to poor reviews). However, it cemented Eli Roth’s reputation as a preservationist of extreme cinema. By remixing the tropes of Deodato and Umberto Lenzi for a post-9/11, social-media-obsessed audience, Roth forced a new generation to confront the ethical questions of the original cannibal films: Are we any more civilized than the "savages" on screen?

For fans of unrated, uncompromising horror, The Green Inferno is a must-watch—a fever dream of blood, bamboo, and bad decisions. For everyone else, it’s a reminder that some movies are designed not to entertain, but to scar.

Final Verdict: A savage, problematic, and undeniably effective piece of grindhouse horror. Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

Rating: R (for aberrant violence, disturbing gore, language, sexual content, and drug use)
Run Time: 100 minutes
Streaming Availability: Often rotates on Shudder, AMC+, and for digital rental. The Green Inferno -2013-

The film follows Justine (Lorenza Izzo), a naive college freshman from New York City. Eager to impress Alejandro (Ariel Levy), a charismatic but manipulative activist, she joins a student protest that successfully disrupts a court case for a corrupt corporation.

Emboldened by their viral victory, the group—calling themselves "ACT" (Action Against Tragedy)—decides to take their mission to the Amazon rainforest. Their goal: to chain themselves to bulldozers and halt the construction of a pipeline that will destroy a remote indigenous village.

However, their plane crashes deep in the jungle. The surviving students, including Justine, wake up inside a cage. They quickly discover that the very tribe they sought to save is not a gentle, noble collective. They are starving. They are ruthless. And they have a longstanding tradition of ritualistic cannibalism. The Green Inferno did not start a new

What follows is 100 minutes of unflinching survival horror. The students must escape a village where dismemberment is a ceremony, where their modern morals mean nothing, and where "The Green Inferno" (the tribe’s name for the eating of human flesh) is simply a part of life.

Critics panned it as gratuitous torture porn, missing the satire. Audiences expecting Hostel’s gritty realism found cartoonish gore (a penis bitten off, ants eating a tied-up man). But that tonal clash is intentional—Roth makes the violence so over-the-top that the “serious” activist dialogue becomes absurd. The film is a rage comedy about liberal guilt, not a horror movie about Amazonian dangers.

The Cannes Walkout: When the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), reports circulated about people fainting and vomiting. While some of this is standard horror marketing, the film is genuinely intense. The Cannes Walkout: When the film premiered at

Critical Split:

Release Delay: The film was produced in 2013 but wasn't released wide until 2015 due to financial troubles at the original distribution company (Open Road Films) and disputes over the marketing budget.

If you have never seen the film, these are the sequences that have entered horror folklore:

In the pantheon of modern horror, few films have sparked as much visceral revulsion, walkouts, and heated debate as Eli Roth’s brutal love letter to classic Italian cannibal cinema: The Green Inferno -2013-. Released initially at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2013 (with a wider theatrical rollout in 2015 due to distribution delays), the film positioned itself as a return to the unrated, grindhouse-style terror that defined the video nasty era.

For the uninitiated, The Green Inferno -2013- is not merely a movie; it is an endurance test. It is a cautionary tale about activism gone wrong, wrapped in the graphic, unsimulated-looking violence of Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox. But why, over a decade later, does this specific entry in Roth’s filmography continue to generate curiosity and controversy? Let’s dissect the plot, the production, the themes, and the enduring shock value of The Green Inferno.