|
Biography
Early life
Roth was born in Newton, Massachusetts to Cora, a painter, and Dr. Sheldon Roth, a renowned psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, as well as professor at Harvard University. He had a Jewish upbringing.
Roth began shooting films at the age of eight after watching Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). He made over 50 short films with his brothers Adam and Gabe before graduating at Newton South High School and then attending film school at New York University, from which he graduated in 1994. Actress Camryn Manheim gave Roth one of his first jobs in Hollywood, putting him on as an extra on The Practice when he first moved to Los Angeles. Roth would stay in Manheim's dressing room working on his scripts while she filmed the show. By the age of 20, Roth was the development head for producer Frederick Zollo, eventually leaving to devote himself to writing full-time. To earn his living, Roth did budgets and schedules for such films as A Price Above Rubies and Illuminata.
Directing career
In 1995, Roth co-wrote Cabin Fever with his roommate and friend from NYU Randy Pearlstein. Much of the script was written while Roth was working as a production assistant for Howard Stern's movie Private Parts; Stern remembered and congratulated Roth on his January 11, 2006 radio show. The movie was filmed in 2001 on a shoestring budget of 1.5 million (raised with private investors) and was sold at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival for $3.5 million dollars after a massive bidding war between eight studios. It was the biggest sale of the festival that year. Cabin Fever made $30,553,394 theatrically worldwide. It was the highest grossing film for Lionsgate that year.
Lionsgate used the theatrical success of Cabin Fever to raise the money to purchase Artisan studios. Lionsgate's stock rose from $1.98 a share at the time Cabin Fever was purchased at the Toronto Film Festival to nearly $6 a share after "Cabin Fever" was released theatrically. (Source: Lionsgate website financial reports.)
Roth's second feature film, Hostel, was made on a budget of a little more than $4 million, in 2005. It opened to #1 at the box office in January of 2006, taking in $20 million dollars opening weekend, and knocking out The Chronicles of Narnia from the #1 spot. It went on to gross $80 million worldwide in box office, and over $180 million worldwide on DVD. In April of 2006, on Eli Roth's birthday, Hostel opened on DVD at #1, again outselling The Chronicles of Narnia, which had opened at the #1 sales slot only one week prior. The movie takes place in Slovakia, where two college students visit a hostel, where they think that all of their fantasies will come true. Instead, they find an international syndicate with the express purpose of torturing and killing random people for profit and sexual pleasure and release. Arguably the most horrific scene is when a girl has her face burned with a blow torch and her eyeball removed with a pair of scissors. The film was voted the #1 scariest movie moment on the Bravo TV special 100 Scariest Movie Moments: Even Scarier Moments.
Roth reportedly turned down numerous studio directing jobs, including The Dukes of Hazard and House of Wax, to make Hostel, although at one point he was (and perhaps still is) the producer of a Baywatch movie that has yet to be made. Roth took a directing salary of only $10,000 on HOSTEL in order to keep the budget as low as possible, so there would be no limitations on the violence. Roth shot the film as an NC-17 movie, but the film passed through the ratings board with an R.
In January, 2006, New York Magazine credited Roth with creating the horror sub-genre 'Torture Porn,' or 'Gorno,' using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act. Roth has publicly spoken out against the term, saying it exemplifies how critics are always quick to reduce horror to a sub-class of pornography, and that many horror films are much smarter and better made than critics give them credit for.
Roth is working on three other film projects, including Hostel: Part II (due for release in 2007); an adaptation of the Stephen King novel Cell; and along with Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie, will be directing a fake trailer - entitled Thanksgiving - for the Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez movie Grindhouse (2007). Roth will also appear in Tarantino's Death Proof segment in the role of Dov.
Other work
Roth is an accomplished animator, having written, produced, directed, animated and voiced two series: Chowdaheads (1999) and The Rotten Fruit (2000). Chowdaheads was co-written and co-voiced with friend Noah Belson, and was made with traditional hand-drawn animation. The Rotten Fruit, which Roth again co-wrote and co-voiced with Belson, was made with stop-motion animation done with foam puppets.
Roth participated in a DVD audio commentary for Blood Sucking Freaks. The DVD is one of the highest selling DVDs for Troma. Roth often makes uncredited cameos in Troma films.
Filmography (director)
* Scavenger Hunt (announced)
* Cell (2007)
* Hostel: Part II (2007)
* Grindhouse - trailer Thanksgiving (2007)
* Hostel (2005)
* Cabin Fever (2002)
* The Rotten Fruit (2000)
External links
|
