In a recent interview with Movieline, Eli Roth (creator of torture-porn series Hostel, friend of Selena Gomez) spoke about the process behind filming his upcoming cannibal film, The Green Inferno, in a remote village on the Amazon River. (Already we are on board.) He explained that the location was so remote -- the last person near it was Werner Herzog filming Aguirre, the Wrath of God -- that those living in the village did not know what a movie was, let alone had they ever seen one, so they had to figure out a way to get them on board with the idea of filming in their village, as well as using them all as extras. So:
"We said, ‘Can we shoot here?’ and talked to them, and our producers said ‘We have to explain to them what a movie is. They’ve never seen a television,'" Roth recalled. "So we brought a generator and set up a television. I thought they were going to show them E.T. or The Wizard of Oz, but they showed them Cannibal Holocaust to see how much they could handle."
Cannibal Holocaust being, of course, the 1980"found footage"-style horror movie that is still banned in several countries due to its portrayal of "graphic brutality, sexual assault, and animal violence." Eli Roth goes onto explain that the villagers reacted to the film as if it were a comedy (which is an interesting way of putting it, since what is a comedy?), and that they were great on film because they were "perfectly natural" because they still had no idea what they were taking part in and I guess what I'm trying to say is how was this ever possibly allowed and in what world and what the fuck and also: HOW WAS EVERYONE'S DAY TODAY? Let's keep doing this! At least for now!
