Rebellion and Childhood

I'm not too sure why I'm doing this, but this is another one of Eli Roth's blog entries. It's mainly about his anger with those that don't enjoy his movies, but he goes on a delightful tangent about childhood memories that I rather enjoyed.

"Well, I finally made one of those 2007 Top Ten lists. Ebert and Roeper voted "Hostel Part II" as the WORST FILM OF 2007. Actually, I lied, I share the honor with my friend Chris Sivertson, because Roeper voted "I Know Who Killed Me" as his worst film of the year, while guest critic Michael Phillips gave me the esteemed honor. Roeper actually goes out of his way to say that he would have put "Hostel II" and other "torture porn" films on his list, but they were never screened for critics, so he didn't waste his time watching them, because they're just trash where women get tortured, and he doesn't find that entertaining. It's amazing he's not wearing a Pope hat, splashing holy water on the DVDs. Richard Roeper - whose job is to watch movies last I checked - wouldn't dare pollute his eyes by lowering them to the sewer of our movies...movies he has let others define before he even sees them himself. I feel sorry for Darren Boussman, whose film "Saw 4" wasn't even given a chance to be on this list, because Richard Roeper was too decent a human being to even watch it. Thank God we have people like him keeping us safe by warning us against such evil. We should all write him a thank you note, but please don't tell him that torture porn is a ridiculous term made up by critics who don't understand or watch these films and that that sub-genre actually doesn't exist.

What's so unbelievable about the show is that this guy Michael Phillips actually goes on to say how talented I am, and that I could actually be "adding something to the horror genre instead of settling for dreck." It's pretty incredible - he says I'm "going to have a very successful career" and that if I want to "get myself out of the basement" I can do it, but that it's up to me. It's the weirdest compliment ever - it's as if he chose my film so he could single me out and teach me a lesson. My question is: why would I ever want to leave the basement? The basement is a very special place for me. The basement at our house was where we all hung out. Every day we'd play Atari for hours in the basement after school, it's where I watched every horror movie imaginable, and more importantly, it's where I shot all my first films. My super 8 movie "A Clickwork Orange" was made in that basement. When I was 11 I chopped up my brothers with a circular saw in "Splatter on the Linoleum" in that basement. We shot probably 50 movies down in that basement. We were allowed to make as much noise as we wanted down there. We could blast our music. We could put up any posters we wanted - Jim Rice, Iron Maiden, "Mother's Day", St. Pauli Girl, all those cheesy posters we won throwing darts at carnivals in Maine - as long as there was space you could just tape it up. The walls were peeling, but instead of repainting, we'd hang a poster for "Pieces" over the spot where it was crumbling. It was great. Every weekend in high school at the end of the night - no matter what we were doing - EVERYONE went back to our house and hung out in the basement. I'm very close in age to both my brothers and all our friends would hang out together pretty much every weekend from 1:00 AM on. We'd raid the kitchen, fire up some Celeste pizzas, grab the cookies, and stuff our faces. We'd be down there all night watching horror movies and Skinemax, playing Nintendo NES, rocking out, filming movies, and playing street hockey with our dog Atlas. Atlas was the most amazing German Shepherd, and everyone knew him, and he knew everyone. You could take slap shots from across the basement and Atlas would catch the ball in his mouth. He loved playing goalie. Even yesterday I was hanging pictures in my basement in Los Angeles and Gabe said to me "Are you sure you want so many posters up?" and I said "I want it to be just like the basement." He agreed. I actually went back to my parents house in Boston and got my torn up "Mother's Day" video poster so I could frame it and hang it up in my have a piece of The Basement with me in California. So when Michael Phillips says that I could get out of the basement if I wanted to, to him I say: fuck that. I love it in the basement. The basement's where you can relax and have fun and there are no rules, no bullshit, you can blast your music, hang any posters you want, trash your furniture, throw a football or play hockey indoors, and just hang out and have fun with your friends. And I would much rather spend my life in the basement than where this former theater critic is: up his own ass. That's a dark, depressing place to be, and I feel sorry for the people who are stuck there because they'll never get the enjoyment of watching these movies in the middle of the night with a group of friends.

And since I got such an overwhelmingly positive response to my "artwork" from 2nd grade, here's another drawing from my book. I was probably 7 when I drew this. My parents actually saved my report cards from that time, and my teacher wrote them that I was incredibly smart and creative, and I had exceptional storytelling ability, but that I was too focused on "toilet humor and violence". My parents' response was "He's an 8 year old boy." I've been getting the same criticism for almost 30 years. What can you do. Some things never change. Back to the basement I go... "

(the picture was a crudly drawn crayon poster for "Alien" sporting a big "R", someone saying "Don't Shoot!" and and alien popping out of someone's stomach. The rest isn't clear enough to decipher.)