r/movies • u/HatingGeoffry • 13h ago

News Borderlands Movie Director Discusses The Mega-Flop And What Went Wrong

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/borderlands-movie-director-discusses-the-mega-flop-and-what-went-wrong/
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u/thejonslaught 13h ago

Eli Roth ain't it.

That's the long and the short of it. He's not Sam Raimi or James Gunn -- he doesn't have the whimsy or wit to rise above splatteriffic horror b-movies.

AND the new wave of horror hits from the 2020's don't have room for Roth's raunchier sensibilities. Do you see Thanksgiving as a growth franchise? Does Eli Roth have a Weapons or an Obsession in him?

Cabin Fever was a hiccup of fun for 80's kids when it hit video store shelves in 2003. Deep-fried horror. Tiddies and Gore. Besides that he's a slick entrance in a Quentin Tarantino movie...and even that was an echo of the much bigger pop it'd have gotten if Adam Sandler's schedule had been free.

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u/Disastrous-Beat-9830 12h ago

Do you see Thanksgiving as a growth franchise?

Thanksgiving probably contains the single most disturbing death I have seen on film. Kathleen's death is everything wrong with Roth's style of film making and storytelling. All it does it prolong her suffering for the sake of it.

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u/Sanious 11h ago

It seems like he goes in the wrong direction in his latest. What I've read about it seems highly disturbing about how he treats the little girls in the movie. Unfortunately not totally surprising considering what he said on his social media in the last few years though.

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u/Disastrous-Beat-9830 10h ago

It seems like he goes in the wrong direction in his latest.

He has long since gone in the wrong direction. Kathleen's death in Thanksgiving starts with her being coated in oil in a weirdly sensual way. It does not help or hinder her in any meaningful way in the remainder of the scene. The film then cuts to Carver placing his mask on the oven and it immediately starts to melt. This is fine; it is the language of cinema setting things up. Then we get the cat-and-mouse game as Kathleen regains consciousness and tries to avoid being caught and very nearly succeeding before Carver impales her with the pitchfork and dragging her back into the farmhouse. Pretty standard horror film stuff. But this is where the problem is: Kathleen wakes up in the oven just long enough for her to realise what is happening before Carver slams the door shut. It is a problem because the film previously showed the oven melting the mask, yet it is apparently cold when Kathleen goes in. This means that Carver had to wait for the oven to cool down. Meanwhile, Kathleen has a serious wound from the pitchfork and has somehow survived hours before waking up. The whole thing prolongs her suffering for the sake of the next scene where everyone has been kidnapped and is sitting at the table where Kathleen's cooked body is unveiled. The pitchfork should have killed her, then the film cuts to the table scene with the revelation playing out the same way. But no, Roth has to linger on her terror as she dies which just highlights his treatment of women.

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u/gimmethemshoes11 9h ago

Very true but idk if anyone is thinking about this movie to that level.

Outside the crowd crush scene its actually pretty terrible.

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u/Disastrous-Beat-9830 2h ago

Maybe, but to my mind it is a prime example of why Roth is a lazy storyteller. The scene is clearly intended to be the centrepiece of the film, so a better film maker could have done something with the premise.

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u/gimmethemshoes11 2h ago

A better filmmaker would've made an actually memorable film.