I was given the opportunity to have a one-on-one chat with director Eli Roth at the recent Fango/Chiller Con in NJ. Now, as we all know, I'm really not one for the interviews...not because I'm too good, but because prepping and posting an interview for the site is VERY time consuming. I accepted the challenge and met with Eli in his hotel room for a quick chat. I came fully prepared with a list of questions, however, as the conversation progressed, I realized that I didn't even need to pull my list of questions out of the bag. What I decided to do was just transcribe our conversation, pretty much word for word, and what we have here is the end result. Enjoy!

Eli: It was a very fortunate situation with the DVD because when I was shooting the film, I had very specific ideas. I hate, hate DVDs where you can't navigate the menu. You know where there's a little dot or it turns a little, I like HUGE selections, and a giant box around the selections, and then they came up with the band-aid idea and I thought, this is perfect. Third Sector was great, because they really work with the director and they had great ideas. They were totally in tune with creating a menu selection, that had the feel of the movie, and we hid all kinds of shit in the menu selections.

MAP: It's funny because I was looking for some easter eggs but couldn't find anything.

Eli: I mean I could tell you if you wanna know.

MAP: Tell me one.

Eli: OK. Don't do anything on scene selection 1 thru 3, just let it run.

MAP: OK

Eli: There's one other easter egg I wanna tell you about, in the hospital, where you gotta hit the enter button.

MAP: In the film?

Eli: In the film.

MAP: Wow, that's awesome.

Eli: Yeah, and that takes you to a special feature.

MAP: I wanted to ask you about a few small roles you had in Troma films, I hear you had small roles in Citizen Toxie and Terror Firmer?

Eli: No, I didn't! I'm friends with Lloyd Kaufman and my friend Gabe Friedman is the editor, whenever they're doing a shoot in LA, they always invite me to the set. Lloyd always goes, quick Eli, stand next to that guy and then I'm in the movie! Since Gabe's the editor he always keeps me in extra long, and since he types up the credits he always for some reason makes a credit for me, just to fuck with me. Gabe had even called me about doing a commentary on the Bloodsucking Freaks commentary as the Blood and Guts expert. But I went and actually tracked down all the cast members. I did interviews, I got people to come in, I even did on camera interviews at Troma, apparently it was very popular!

MAP: So you had a relationship with Lloyd Kaufman?

Eli: Sure, sure...Lloyd, one of the many who passed on Cabin Fever.

MAP: Really?

Eli: Oh yeah, everybody passed on it.

It was great though, we made this film for 1.5 million and Lions Gate bought it and then released it on 2100 screens.

MAP: How did you go about getting funding?

Eli: I wrote it in '95 and I spent 6-years just knocking on doors. Never giving up, I went to every company in New York, every company in LA. Everybody said no. Every year, over and over and over. And I was working in production, I was doing budgeting and scheduling, production assistant, stand in stuff. I always wanted to be on set, working and to write. I continued writing and just got production experience. It's actually a good thing that I didn't get the money right away, because finally when I stepped foot on my set at 28 I'd been a PA for 10-years, I had all this experience. We managed to put a budget together, but while we were shooting we didn't have any money. One of our investors dropped out 3-days before and we had to raise money while we were shooting. The first day at lunch I asked my producer, are we shooting tomorrow? And she said, I'll tell you at dinner. Every day we shot as if it was our last day. We never had money. Even when we were editing we didn't have any money. While we were in the sound mix we had to get money wired in from investors. I had to show investors a finished cut of the movie and then they'd show their kids. And their kids would be like, yeah this is better than American Pie. Your fate is then in the hands of a 12-year old kid. It's totally fucked.

MAP: It's funny because it doesn't look like that type of film.

Eli: Which is a testament to the talent we had working. We had a great fucking crew. Nobody wanted this to look like a low budget movie. We had Angelo Badalamenti doing the music...for free! I worked for years for those guys doing research for free, just to be in contact with them, because I love them. Everybody worked for well below their rate. We had a great pool of talent, people who really cared about making this movie look good. We've paid out the actors more in their profit money than their entire salary for acting in the movie. I'm so happy that now we can write a check for these people.

MAP: Amazing that it doesn't look like a troubled independent film at all.

Eli: Which is cool, and when we were selling it they didn't want to tell people, they're like no, let people think this is a studio movie. But now when you see the indie successes of the year nobody mentions it. There's such snobbery against horror movies anyway. Like horror movies are not considered an art form.

MAP: Oh definitely.

Eli: And they're like, you're a moron if you make horror movies, It's like being a porn director.

MAP: Oh absolutely, I heard that Blockbuster recently started to phase out their horror sections and they're lumping the horror movies in with action adventure.

Eli: Are you kidding me?

MAP: No, I'm 100% serious.

Eli: That's really disgusting.

MAP: It's a sad state of affairs.

Eli: You know what, it's a problem because the horror fans fucking fight with each other. Like, this movie sucks or May vs. Cabin Fever. The horror directors are all friends, everybody goes to see each other's movies and even if you're not a fan of the movie, you still fucking support it.

MAP: Especially the independents.

Eli: ESPECIALLY the independents

MAP: We review a lot of the independents on our site, films that sometimes cost $1000 or even less.

Eli: Look at the creativity behind it, look at the thinking, look at the ideas, view it for what it is.

MAP: Absolutely.

Eli: The trouble is the MPAA makes it hard to sell a horror movie. You can't show blood in a trailer, they rate your poster! So with Cabin Fever we couldn't show half the shit that happens. So they cut a trailer and the other thing is that studios will sell it to look like whatever's been successful. So 28 Days Later does well, so they want to sell it like 28 Days Later. I'm like you gotta tell people it's funny, otherwise they're going to be thrown off and they're like no, no, no. So people went in expecting it to be scary and there's ass fingering and pancakes and people are like what the fuck is this? It's all about meeting expectations. It's difficult for the horror people, you can't show 'em what's in the movie. That's why every trailer looks the fucking same.

We need a destination for everyone to bond, because comic book people did it, they're like we have ComiCon. Once they banded together, and people realized the economic power, they get fucking respect now. They demanded it and they got it. The horror fans need to do the same thing. It's gotta be at like Fangoria and Chiller, you know, this is where movies are gonna be announced and we may not like movies, but we're not gonna fucking bash 'em before they open. We're not gonna destroy everything before it hits the theatres. And we're gonna fucking support shit in the theatres opening weekend. It was like this for the comic book fans ten years ago, but ComiCon changed that.

MAP: I wanted to ask you a little about casting, with Ryder Strong in there I assume you were a Boy Meets World Fan?

Eli: No, I never watched the show, I just thought he was the guy.

MAP: Then how did you meet him?

Eli: He just came in and auditioned.

MAP: And you had no idea he was from Boy Meets World?

Eli: I had seen his picture and I kinda recognized him even though I had never seen the show once. And I was like, this is a fucking great actor. And I told him, and he was glad that I never saw the show. Because that show is not him acting, it's sitcom acting, it's a different style. And Ryder's so fucking talented. He's so smart and so cool. And he just wrapped this movie Mojave off of Cabin Fever. This was his shot to show that he's grown from that. That he can act and he's a fucking good actor.

MAP: And a good sport.

Eli: And a great sport. The thing about it is Boy Meets World is not who he is, Cabin Fever is what he likes. When he watches movies with his friends he's watching Cabin Fever. And he said, this is finally something that his friends will watch him in. He loves Evil Dead and TCM and Ryder gets the Bruce Campbell treatment in this movie.

MAP: Oh, absolutely.

Eli: He never complained once, he wanted the blood. He wanted to do his own stunts. He's such a great guy, he's a one-take wonder. He can turn it on and off. Between scenes he just reads, he's like cool, where do you need me. He's an easygoing guy, great sense of humor he was a dream to work with.

MAP: I wanted to ask you about nudity in Cabin Fever as well, it's something you don't see too often these days, especially in horror movies. It seems as if everyone thinks they're too good...

Eli: Too good to fucking show their tits. You are never too good to show 'em, everybody shows their tits. Look at every award winning actress, Susan Sarandon, Nicole Kidman, they all do nudity. They do what is required of the role.

At this point we get the 5-minute warning

Eli: The hardest thing for me in making Cabin Fever was finding a girl that would do nudity. It was next to impossible to find a girl, because you're paying scale and people don't know me. It's like you're Halle Barry and do Swordfish it's OK, but you're Shannon Elizabeth and you do American Pie, you're fucking ruined. Everybody only wants you to be naked. And everyone's like, oh she's the naked girl from American Pie, that's who she is. She's never broken out of that, so you never know it's like a double-edged sword. There were girls that came in that flat out told me they would not be in the movie because they wouldn't do nudity. And they were like, are you saying my client can't be in the movie because they won't show their tits? I'm saying that this is a job and there are certain services required of the job and if this is a movie about the body and they're a couple having sex and they're gonna break up later, and you're gonna see this body rot and we're gonna see it. And people are fucking, kids don't always fuck with their clothes on and they don't fuck with the sheets up to their necks. Especially people that have been dating since high school, so that's what I wanted. You have to negotiate for body parts, an inch of ass crack. It drives me crazy when I see an R-Rated movie, and there's kids having sex and there's no nudity. When we were kids and you saw that R, you saw tits. I judge movies by what percentage of nudity is there.

MAP: I know time is short, but I wanted to see if you could tell me a little about 2001 Maniacs and The Box.

Eli: 2001 Maniacs is s co-production of my new company Raw Nerve and a company called BSP, it's both of us and Raw Nerve is a horror company, we'll be producing about 3-4 movies a year. Robert Englund is starring in it and it's totally fucked up, politically incorrect and really fucking violent.

MAP: Theatrical release?

Eli: Yeah.

MAP: R Rated?

Eli: Yeah, we shot it independently, it's fucking spectacular and we start editing on Monday. And The Box, Rich Kelly and I are writing that. We're working on the script now he's gonna produce it and I'm gonna direct it. It's gonna be a fucked up movie, much more like The Ring, straight fucked up and not weird/funny like Cabin Fever. Again independently financed, with both of our names on it, let the studios fight for it. This way we have total creative control to make it as fucked up as we want to.

MAP: So, what's the deal with pancakes?

Eli: Like why not? I love pancakes. This kid comes in, he's fucking insane, and he does Karate and it's like how can you not put that in the movie? Sometimes a wonderful opportunity is presented to you and you just have to take it. Like, Pancakes were in the script, but the Karate was not. The kids like a crazy Karate freak, well guess what we're shooting guys. He's nuts, there's some stuff on the DVD with pancakes.

MAP: I know, I saw the music video.

Eli: He sends me videotapes! On his own, unsolicited, sending them to me. I tell him, you keep sending me this shit, I'm gonna put it on the DVD. And his parents are like, it's great!

MAP: That's all I got Eli, I appreciate your time.

Eli: My pleasure.