The Green Inferno is about a group of student activists who travel to the Amazon Rainforest in order to protest a logging company and soon discover that they are not alone, and that No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
Eli Roth's love letter to the Cannibal movie genre of old. Notable for a delayed release,note coupled with a press tour in which Roth singled out "social justice warrior" student protesters as his target.
Filmed on location in Chile and Peru with a local tribe.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Justine gets a gun held to her face and is almost killed by a mercenary during the group's stunt. Shortly afterward their plane crashes and several members of the group are killed, leaving the survivors stranded and captured by the natives, who kill Kara and Jonah. After undergoing all this trauma, Alejandro reveals that the whole stunt just delayed the deforestation for a day or two and a rival company plans to pick up where the previous one left off, meaning even if the group didn't crash in the rainforest, their whole protest wouldn't stop the deforestation.
- All Men Are Perverts: Alejandro starts masturbating when Amy kills herself. He claims that it is to "ease the tension," but he continues doing it while Daniel attacks him.
- Alpha Bitch: Kara. She seems to know Justine's interest in Alejandro from the onset and goes out of her way to be nasty towards her.
- Anyone Can Die: Well, only Justine and Alejandro survive until the end. Juan, who is set up to be a pivotal character, is the second to die by the natives.
- Armies Are Evil: Carlos has a ragtag army to help him cut down the rain forest and they're armed.
- Artistic License – Biology: A double case in Lars's plan to put a bag of weed down Amy's throat so that the villagers will get stoned after they eat her. The plan could not work because she is dead, so her corpse cannot absorb the pot into her bloodstream in order to make all of her edible flesh narcotic. On the other hand, if we go under the assumption that the tribe got stoned because the weed was cooked in with the body and vaporized into the air, it would have to be an insanely powerful weed in order to get so many people intoxicated to that degree.
- Asshole Victim: Surprisingly subverted. Alejandro seemed to be destined for this fate, but he remained alive (though captive) by the end of the movie.
- Played straight with Kara, who is the first of the natives' victims.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Alejandro. Not only did he bring the group out for a phony cause, but he acts like a total dick after Jonah is eaten and he selfishly keeps Lars from escaping the cage so that he won't die alone.
- Black Comedy: Some bits, including Lars getting the tribe stoned through weed in Amy's corpse.
- Black Dude Dies First: Jonah technically isn't the first person in the group to die, but he is the first to be killed after they're captured by the natives.
- Blatant Lies: Justine tells her father and other government workers that the natives were not cannibals and were friendly and helped her before getting slaughtered by the evil loggers, presumably to ensure the loggers will be punished and to make sure the innocent activists didn't die in vain.
- Bury Your Gays: Samantha is made into a meal. The first person that unknowingly eats her is her girlfriend Amy. The revelation causes Amy to immediately commit suicide.
- Cannibal Film: Specifically, a love letter to all the macabre cannibal films made, such as Cannibal Holocaust.
- Cannibal Tribe: Can't be a cannibal movie without a cannibal tribe.
- Captured by Cannibals: After crashing their plane in the jungle, the cast are caught by the natives.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: After Amy kills herself, the group catches Alejandro masturbating. His excuse of "finding a release" doesn't sit well with anyone, and when Daniel begins choking him, Alejandro just goes harder.
- Chased by Angry Natives: Trying to escape the tribe will not go unnoticed, although it doesn't stop the survivors from trying.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Kara's cell phone and Justine's playable flute necklace. The latter helps her befriend a young native while the former is used to help the loggers identify her as well as stop shooting at the natives.
- The lesson about female genital mutilation in less developed countries. The girls get subjected to it.
- At the end of the lesson scene, the topic moves to talking about ants. One of the protesters is killed by being swarmed by ants.
- Children Are Innocent: Played with. The kids in the village are still cannibals, but Justine forms a bond with one of them, who ends up saving her in the end.
- Corporate Warfare: Played with. Alejandro is actually a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: In the Roth tradition of killing off the nicest character in the most gruesome death scene of the movie, poor Jonah seems to get it the worst of anybody. He is literally torn to pieces by the tribe and eaten up. Very little is left to the imagination.
- Cruel Mercy: Daniel is left tied to a pole after being tortured, still alive.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Unsurprisingly, the cannibal tribe fares poorly against mercenaries with automatic weapons, though they keep fighting gamely nonetheless before Justine stops it.
- Damsel in Distress: Justine, after she falls into the fast-moving river.
- Devoured by the Horde: Lars is devoured by an entire group.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Jonah throughout the expedition tries to get Justine's attention.
- Downer Ending: Justine survives, but her friends are all pointlessly and brutally killed, while Alejandro apparently assimilates with the tribe and is revered by the new group of activists back on campus.
- Driven to Suicide: Amy slits her own throat after she realizes that she's been eating Samantha.
- Dumb Blonde: Amy, the group's only blonde, is extremely paranoid, fretful, and naive.
- Eaten Alive: Jonah and Lars are both torn apart and eaten without being killed first.
- Eye Scream: The fate of one character who has both eyes gouged out.
- Fanservice: Justine spends much of the last part of the movie in a very skimpy outfit. Though, given the fact that she only barely escaped having her genitals mutilated, this may be an example of Fan Disservice.
- Fate Worse than Death: Daniel is left tied to a pole, eaten by carnivorous ants. He's left alive by the end of it all.
- Final Girl: Justine fits this to a T. This is later justified when she is discovered to be a virgin and prepared for genital mutilation, cited earlier in the film as being a rite of passage for tribal women which explains why she was kept alive over the others.
- Genre Throwback: Eli Roth made this film for the cannibal craze that occurred back in the 80s.
- Give Chase with Angry Natives: While escaping the natives, Justine runs straight into the group of armed loggers, who start slaughtering the natives.
- Go-Go Enslavement: When Justine is being prepared for the ritual, she's dressed in little more than a thong and a loose bandeau top.
- Going Native: In the end, Alejandro is still alive and has joined the cannibal tribe, though it's unclear what his role is.
- Gone Horribly Right: Lars' plan to get the tribe stoned by shoving a bag of potent weed down Amy's throat works with flying colors, as the entire tribe gets blitzed out of their minds... but the munchies hit them while he's trying to escape, and they descend on him en masse.
- Granola Girl: The female characters, to one degree or another. Although being Bourgeois Bohemians, this is to be expected.
- Groin Attack: Justine, Amy and Samantha get sharp bones shoved up their vaginas.
- Grossout Show: Not for the faint of heart, or weak of stomach.
- Hired Guns: The mercenaries hired by the construction company.
- Hollywood Natives: Obviously, most native tribes aren't this savage. To Roth's credit, he did get an actual tribe to play the part. In fairness it was an intentional homage to the cannibal films of the '80s. Nonetheless he was criticized harshly for this by the group Survival International, which advocates for tribal peoples, saying it was a racist depiction that would be used against them. Roth made a statement in reply saying people could tell fiction from reality (apparently the native actors found it hilarious) and logging companies need no excuse aside from greed.
- Hope Spot: The activists manage two escape attempts, but both fail.
- Humans Are Bastards: Specifically, drug lords and cannibal tribes are bastards.
- Idiot Ball: Granted, he's not the most stable or logical person, but during the second escape attempt, Alejandro knocks Lars out with a poison dart rather than just, well, escape with them all. It's not like he wanted to stay, as he begs Justine to free him later. His logic is that the natives will surely eat Lars first, which not only is no guarantee, but would have ostensibly only saved his skin for another day at best. Thus the incident really serves no purpose except driving home what a stupid bastard he is.
- I'm a Humanitarian: It's a film about cannibals, so...
- Initiation Ceremony: Justine goes through a painful ceremony to determine her virginity (which she has). This saves her from becoming cannibal chow, because they want to perform female circumcision on her as a rite of passage.
- Irony: The logging company the activists protest against end up saving the last two survivors from the cannibal tribe whose forest said activists wanted to protect.
- Jungle Drums: They start playing as soon as they're brought into the native camp.
- Jungle Girl: Justine ends up looking like the native tribe, covered in white powder with a red line painted across her face.
- Jungles Sound Like Kookaburras: Though we never actually see any native birds.
- Karma Houdini: Despite spending the second half of the movie being a repugnant jackass who does things like masturbating after Amy gets killed and preventing Lars from leaving so the natives will eat him first, Alejandro manages to survive the movie, as the ending credits reveal.
- Killed Offscreen: Samantha's death is the only one we don't see, so the gut punch of her getting turned into slop is that much more effective.
- Loincloth: Some of the tribe wear them.
- Male Frontal Nudity: We see about half Lars' penis when he's peeing in the woods, just as a spider is crawling its way...
- The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: Alejandro is on t-shirts at the end of the movie in a Che Guevara-esque portrait (earlier we saw portraits of the actual Guevara in a cafe where the activists met).
- Mayincatec: The tribe of cannibals are an homage to the gory cannibal films of the 70s and 80s, so they naturally have stereotypical traits of South American tribes.
- Mercy Kill: Daniel begs this from Justine, but it's the native child who grants his wish.
- Mood Whiplash: After the horrific dismemberment and devouring of the first man by cannibals, one of the captives gets Montezuma's Revenge, in a loud Toilet Humor-ish way, with fellow captives going essentially "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!" The contrast is about as stark as you can get.
- National Geographic Nudity: Most of the tribe is nude, save for some body paint and/or loincloths.
- The Natives Are Restless: Specifically, they're hungry. Very, very hungry.
- Nature Lover: Many of the activists are this, naturally, willing to be killed in order to save the rainforest.
- Noble Demon: The corporation's security boss would clearly prefer to shoot Justine once for all and throw her painted corpse to the jungle, but he is human enough to call in a helicopter to get her out of there when she reaches them at the end of the film.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: For trying to save the rain forest and the tribes living there, the cast gets some undeserved karma. It's so gruesome that it's even the tagline of the film.
- Non-Idle Rich: Justine is clearly privileged and with a rich father (and presumably many of the other student activists are), but she's determined to make a difference.
- Panthera Awesome: A black panther waits near a river that Justine crosses to escape. It not only scares the natives from coming closer, but the cat doesn't attack Justine. What a hero!
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The native tribe is gunned down by the group that's destroying the rain forest. Considering that they were basically eating an activist group that was trying to save their home, it's hard to feel sorry for them (aside from the boy who helped Justine escape).
- Properly Paranoid: Being in a small plane worries Amy, who admits she fears they'll crash. They do crash, just not until the return trip.
- Refuge in Audacity: Lars manages to work an escape plan by shoving Carlos's weed down a dead Amy's throat and making the natives so high that they can escape.
- Rituals and Ceremonies: To show that the tribe means business when it comes to cannibalism, they tie up and methodically cut up Jonah in the most horrifyingly gory death in the film.
- Rousing Speech: The tribal leader gives a few of these, but since it's in another language, we only get the effect.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Carlos manages to buy his way out of getting arrested.
- Sequel Hook: After the start of the credits, we hear a phone call between Justine and Alejandro's sister. The sister says she's found a surveillance photo of what appears to be Alejandro still in the jungle, and she tells Justine they need to talk.
- Shout-Out: The title The Green Inferno comes from Cannibal Holocaust's Film Within A Film of the same name.
- Slashed Throat: After discovering that they were eating one of their crew, Amy breaks a plate and uses a shard to slash her own throat.
- Soapbox Sadie: Essentially, everyone. They're literally flying out, unprepared, to the Amazon to protest deforestation and displacement/killing of tribal peoples.
- The Sociopath: Alejandro. He manipulates his group into putting themselves in danger so that a rival corporation he's associated with can colonize the land, gambles on Justine's life when one of the militia men puts a gun to her head, seems to take an awful lot of pleasure when Amy commits suicide (though he claims that it was to "ease tension"), and drugs Lars with one of the natives' darts so that he can't leave the cage and they'll eat Lars before Alejandro. This is actually foreshadowed at the beginning of the movie when Justine's friend warns her that "creepy charismatic" people are not to be trusted.
- Splatter Horror: As befits the unholy lovechild of Eli Roth and a Cannibal Film, this film is gleefully gory once the main characters are captured by the cannibals, starting with the dismemberment and devouring of Jonah and continuing hard until close to the end, sprinkling the gore with moments of Black Comedy like Lars getting torn apart by the entire stoned tribe with a serious case of the munchies. Even the offscreen deaths tend to turn one's stomach, thanks to the onscreen demonstrations of what the cannibals are capable of.
- Take That!: The film is meant to be one to "Slacktivists" and "Social Justice Warriors". Most of the group were easily influenced "Slacktivists" and end up playing the patsy for a group representing what they're fighting against. Justine, in particular, joined the group clearly for all the wrong reasons. However, "Slactivists" is kind of a misnomer here, considering that these people don't just stay online with their activism, but literally put their bodies in the line of fire in the name of their cause before they even interact with the cannibalistic tribe.
- Taking You with Me: Alejandro drugs Lars so he won't die alone at the hands of the natives.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Alejandro and Kara get pissy when any of the activists question the strength of their plans, express awareness of the dangers involved, or suggest protection. Of course, all of these doubts end up being perfectly valid.
- This Cannot Be!: How the activists understandably react after the plane crashes.
- Too Dumb to Live: One of the students who survives the plane crash walks right into a propeller blade. There's no real reason he does so, as he can slowly see it moving in front of him. He just does.
- Tranquillizer Dart: The natives will use them to recapture any escapees such as poor Samantha.
- Virgin Power: Justine's candidacy for Final Girl is tied to this.
- Wham Line:Alejandro: There is more on the way.
Daniel: More what?
Alejandro: Bulldozers.
Daniel: What?
Alejandro: We didn't stop anything. We just delayed it by a day or two. - Witch Doctor: The eldest female of the tribe has this as her purpose.
