Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Roth is an American filmmaker and actor. As a director and producer, he is most closely associated with the horror genre, namely splatter films, having directed the films Cabin Fever and Hostel.
Roth continued to work in the horror genre, directing films like Hostel: Part II, The Green Inferno and Thanksgiving. He also expanded into other genres, directing the erotic thriller film Knock Knock, the action film remake Death Wish, the fantasy film The House with a Clock in Its Walls, and the action-comedy Borderlands. As an actor, Roth starred as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds, for which he received a Critic's Choice Movie Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the ensemble.
Many journalists have included him in a group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack for their explicitly violent and controversially bloody horror films. In 2013, Roth received the Visionary Award for his contributions to horror at the Stanley Film Festival.
In 2025, Roth launched The Horror Section – an entertainment company which allows fans to participate through stock ownership.
Early life
Roth was born the middle of three sons in Newton, Massachusetts, to Sheldon Roth, a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst and clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, and Cora Roth, a painter. He has an older brother, Adam, and a younger brother, Gabriel. Roth was raised Jewish. In addition to English, he speaks French, Italian, and basic Russian.Roth began shooting films at the age of eight, after watching Ridley Scott's Alien. He and his brothers, Adam and Gabriel, made more than 100 short films before he graduated from Newton South High School and attended film school at New York University. To fund his films while in college, Roth claims to have worked as an online cybersex operator for Penthouse Magazine, posing as a woman, as well as a production assistant on feature films. Roth also ran the office of producer Frederick Zollo, leaving after graduation to devote himself to writing full-time. He collected unemployment and found work on Howard Stern's Private Parts as Stern's assistant, staying at Silvercup Studios in Queens at night working on his scripts while Stern slept.
Actress Camryn Manheim gave Roth one of his first Hollywood jobs, as an extra on The Practice, when he moved to Los Angeles. Roth would stay in Manheim's dressing room, working on his scripts, while she filmed the show. The two had become friends in New York, while Roth was working for Zollo. Roth also met Manheim's cousin Howie Nuchow at her family Passover seder—this led to Roth's first animation project, Chowdaheads, the following year. Roth also co-wrote a project called The Extra with Manheim, who later sold the pitch to producer Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium company.
Career
1991–2001: Early work and ''Cabin Fever''
At NYU film school, Roth wrote and directed a student film called Restaurant Dogs, an homage to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. The film was nominated for a Student Academy Award in 1995, ultimately winning its division. Through his internship with Frederick Zollo, Roth met David Lynch and remained in touch over the years, eventually producing content for Lynch with his fledgling website in the late 1990s. Through Lynch, Roth met film and TV composer Angelo Badalamenti, whose music he used in his first feature film. He also met a member of special effects company KNB EFX, which contributed to his first feature. In 1999, Roth moved to Los Angeles, where he wrote, directed, edited, produced, animated, and provided voices for a series of animated shorts called Chowdaheads for Mandalay Sports Entertainment. They were to be shown between WCW Monday Nitro pro wrestling matches, but they were never actually broadcast. Roth's friend Noah Belson co-wrote the shorts and provided the other character voices.In mid-2000, with financing from the website Z.com to deliver a five-minute pilot, Roth wrote, directed, animated, and produced a series of stop-motion shorts called The Rotten Fruit. The company folded after several episodes were done, and its domain name was picked up by Nissan for its "Z" sports car. A portion of Roth's work for The Rotten Fruit was done at the Snake Pit studios in Burbank with miniature sets, posable clay, foam figures, two high-end digital still cameras, and a pair of Macintosh computers. Noah Belson co-wrote The Rotten Fruit along with Roth. Roth had co-written Cabin Fever with his college roommate Randy Pearlstein. They based the premise on Roth's experience of contracting a skin infection while riding ponies at a family friend's farm in Iceland in 1991. Much of it was written in 1996, while Roth worked as a production assistant for Howard Stern's film Private Parts.
Cabin Fever was produced in 2001 on a budget of $1.5 million raised from private investors. The film was sold to Lionsgate at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival for $3.5 million, the biggest sale of that year's festival. Released in 2003, it was Lionsgate's highest-grossing film of the year, earning $22 million at the U.S. box office and $35 million worldwide. Lionsgate's stock rose from $1.98 a share to nearly $6 a share after the film was released; the company used its newly valuable stock to buy Artisan Entertainment. Cabin Fever made Roth a star in the horror genre. In a 2004 Premiere Magazine interview, Quentin Tarantino called it "the best new American film". Cabin Fever was remade in 2016 and directed by Travis Zariwny.
2005–2007: ''Hostel'' films and ''Thanksgiving''
In 2005, Roth's second feature, Hostel, was made for just over $4 million. It opened No. 1 at the box office in January 2006, taking in $20 million its first weekend. The film went on to gross $80 million worldwide in box office, and more than $180 million on DVD. Although the story is set in Slovakia, all the exteriors were shot in the Czech Republic. In the film, three friends are lured to visit a hostel where they think their sexual fantasies will come true. Instead, they fall into the clutches of an international syndicate that provides first-hand torture and killing experiences for rich, sadistic tourists. The film was rated No. 1 on Bravo TV's 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments, and Empire Magazine readers voted Hostel the Best Horror Film of 2007.Roth reportedly turned down studio directing jobs to make Hostel. He took a directing salary of only $10,000 to keep the budget as low as possible, so there would be no limits set on its violence. In January 2006, film critic David Edelstein in New York magazine credited Roth with creating the horror subgenre "torture porn", or "gorno", using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act.
In 2007, Roth directed and narrated the faux trailer segment Thanksgiving for Grindhouse and appeared in Death Proof, Tarantino's segment of the film. Roth and co-writer Jeff Rendell won a 2007 Spike TV Scream Award for best "screamplay" for their work in Grindhouse, sharing the honor with Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Rob Zombie, and Edgar Wright. In January 2023, it was announced Roth is developing a feature-length film version of Thanksgiving.
Hostel: Part II opened in sixth place in June 2007, with $8.2 million; it went on to gross $17.6 million in US theaters. The film, which cost $10.2 million, earned $35 million in theaters worldwide and $50 million on DVD and pay television. Lionsgate attributed the lower grosses to the summer release, opposite blockbusters such as Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and Ocean's Thirteen, as well as the film's workprint having been leaked online before its release. Close to two million illegal workprint downloads were tracked the day Hostel 2 opened.
Hostel: Part II was nominated for six Spike TV Scream Awards, including best horror film and best director. It was on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 20 best horror films of the past 20 years. In March 2006, Dimension Films bought the rights to Cell by Stephen King and would produce a film to be directed by Roth. In 2009, King finished the screenplay, and actors John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson joined the project; however, Roth did not direct.
2009–present: Career fluctuations
In 2009, while acting in Inglourious Basterds, Roth said that he would soon begin his next film, Endangered Species. He has also produced the 2012 kung fu film The Man with the Iron Fists, written, directed, and scored by RZA who also stars in the film. According to Roth, Tarantino is involved as well. In an interview with CHUD, Roth said, "This movie will have everything martial-arts fans could want, combined with RZA's superb musical talent. This project has been his dream for years, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. Fans should know that, yes, there will be blood... This ain't no PG-13.Through his company, Arcade, with Eric Newman and Strike producer Marc Abraham, Roth produced the horror film The Last Exorcism, which was directed by Daniel Stamm. Completed in December 2009 and retitled in February 2010, The Last Exorcism cost $1.5 million to produce. It opened at more than $20 million in U.S. sales, and earned No. #1 opening spots in Canada and the UK. The film had paid for itself when rights in a few foreign territories were sold before shooting began. It earned over $40 million box office in the United States, and $70 million worldwide.
In 2014, Roth produced the American supernatural horror film Clown and had the minor role of "Frowny the Clown." He next helmed Knock Knock, a remake of the 1974-shot horror film Death Game, about two women who seduce a married man and then do unspeakable things to him. Keanu Reeves starred and executive produced.
In a 2013 interview with The Guardian, Roth indicated that he had suspended work on Endangered Species to focus on 2013's The Green Inferno. Roth directed the cannibal horror film The Green Inferno, which was inspired by his love of Mondo horror films such as the infamous Cannibal Holocaust. The Green Inferno was criticized for its portrayal of indigenous people as cannibals, and it was described as a "new low in racist film making" by People's World. In 2015, Roth was announced as the director of the adaptation of the best-selling shark novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, eventually called The Meg. In 2016, it was announced that he had left the project due to creative differences.
Roth hosted and executive-produced an episode of Discovery Channel's TV series Curiosity, titled "How Evil Are You?" The episode explored the scientific aspects of evil, with Roth undergoing a brain scan and DNA sequencing at University of California, Davis with neuropsychiatrist Dr. James Fallon. Roth also re-created the infamous Milgram experiments for the documentary, with results identical to those from 50 years earlier. Roth directed the pilot of Hemlock Grove, a horror/thriller series, that premiered on Netflix on April 19, 2013. He also hosts Shark After Dark on Discovery Channel's Shark Week. Roth helped with a project with DreamWorks' TV show Fright Krewe.
Roth's 2018 remake of the film Death Wish opened to $13 million at the box office. The film is centered around a trauma surgeon who turns to vigilantism after his family is attacked. The film was panned by critics as "pro-gun propaganda" and ill-timed in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Roth defended the film, stating that the film was not pro-gun and that he wanted the film to focus on family, protecting one's family, and seeking justice for one's family. Also in 2018, he directed the fantasy comedy film The House with a Clock in Its Walls, his first PG-rated film and his highest domestic grosser to date.
In 2024, Roth wrote and directed an adaptation of the Borderlands games.