Stop The Presses: The Splat Pack Speaks!
Today, Time Out London tries to put the whole Splat Pack phenom into perspective, and they do a more than decent job of it. Says the mysteriously un-bylined story of directors Roth, Zombie, Wong and Aja, "They’ve seriously upped the gore quotient of late, pushing R ratings to their viscous limits. Their relatively low-budget movies have earned millions, infiltrating popular culture from the suburban mallplex to 'The Sopranos'. The films have also made many social critics nervous, particularly in regards to their almost loving attention to the details of pain. Detractors call it torture porn."
Rob Zombie hates the Splat Pack/torture porn label: “It kind of devalues us: ‘Oh, those guys, whatever,’ ” says Zombie, calling from the final editing sessions of his risky remake of "Halloween". Indeed, Zombie would rather frame his "The Devil’s Rejects" as more a “modern-day Western, like 'Bonnie and Clyde'” than horror at all. Still, the visual integrity of his 2004 road movie, which looks like a grungy lost gem from the deepest, darkest ’70s, makes it a highlight of the series—and a sign of the director’s sober approach to misfortune, a hallmark of postsnark horror. “If you’re going to show horrible events, let them be horrible,” Zombie says."
What's really interesting is what Eli Roth of "Hostel" fame has to say.
Says the candid director, "'Hostel' is very much a reflection of my disgust with the Iraq War and the Al Qaeda videos: God, what if I’m abroad and someone’s going to chop my head off? That’s something that genuinely terrifies me. But also terrifying is the attitude of [my movie’s] American tourists, throwing a bunch of money around, thinking they can take over another country. And they’re the ones who ultimately get bought and sold. It’s not just about people wanting to kill us, but capitalism gone awry and American imperialism.”
So "Hostel" is really about why the world now hates Americans. I think Roth's stretching things a bit. The feeling the world has toward us is not as much about rampant capitalism as it is about the horrible mistakes of the Bush administration. Not that many hated us capitalists in the USA with such vitriol before the war in Iraq. And those horrible mistakes will be with us for decades to come. Maybe that's what Roth really means. But the way he's quoted, it's not quite clear.
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I think that what many view as the mistakes of the Bush administration are considered to be driven by capitalism. The war is viewed as being about oil pricing for example. So, I think these are the same thing.
Many of the "Clients" in the Hostel movies are non-Americans anyway, so it's more the general sense of "class warfare" that I think it's really talking about, the idea that we can be bought, sold and played with.
what you say makes a good deal of sense, todd. but never have the oil wars gotten so bad. the war is not completely about oil pricing. the mistakes are about weapons of mass destruction that weren't there and being misled into war by the manipulation of our fears. there is a plethora of reasons for this, oil pricing being just one. remember, the first bush thought invading iraq would open a pandora's box. the elder had a good premonition of the horrors that would ensue.
i agree about the class warfare aspect of the movie, though. what i was bitching about at the end of the time out piece is that the writer didn't make exactly clear what roth meant.
Eli Roth floods the internet daily with conspiracy theories since his weak sequel "Hostel Part II" bombed. Hey, Eli, your film got no respect because it was awful. Not because of piracy. Grow up and take responsibility for your lack of talent. Tarantino can't pimp your films forever. Maybe instead of crying all the time, maybe you should do what all the 'real' masters of horror did before they became what they are today... listen to peoples advice and learn to handle criticism.
Rob Zombie is right, that whole 'Splat Pack' label is ridiculous. Mainly because Eli Roth's name should never be mentioned in the same breath as Rob Zombie's. Rob has actual talent and Eli has Tarantino to sell his bad student films.
ouch! very nicely put, though.
Regarding Eli's comment...in Hostel 2 the main clients are Americans, and the punch line being that the victim becomes the vindicator is pure genus on Eli's behalf. He is truly the Horror director of my generation. Looking at his work as a whole it is evident that his commentary is about what real fears are present now amoung the United States citizens, and that is scary. Rock on Roth.