By Daniel Robert Epstein

Really Scary: Hey Eli, I heard you're traveling all over.

Eli Roth: Yeah it’s because Hostel is coming out internationally. I got to go on the Hostel world tour. It was really cool but also exhausting. I've really been doing it for almost five months now because I started doing press in the US on November 18 and I’m going to finish on April 18. In January, I started going to France, Italy, Spain, London, the Czech Republic, Mexico City, back to LA. Then I went to South America, Argentina, Brazil and Germany.

RS: Did you go to any of the former Soviet areas where Hostel is supposed to take place?

Roth: No. But I did go to Prague where we shot it and I had to face the fire from Slovakian journalists from. We did a huge press conference and a premiere. There were about 70 journalists from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It actually went great. The press conference could not have gone better. They were really terrific.

RS: Did they ask why you set it there?

Roth: First I came out and told them, “Over here, this is going to be seen as a hilarious comedy. To you guys, it's going to be a comedy because it doesn't make any sense. This movie is not a depiction of Slovakia. It's done for a specific purpose because this is an amalgam of American stereotypes of Eastern Europe.” People in America don't even know Slovakia exists. They still think it's Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia and Serbia. To them it is just some war-torn Eastern European country where the girls are beautiful and just want to have sex with Americans. This is honestly what people believe about Eastern Europe and the characters in the movies get tortured to death for this belief. One journalist said, "Well, aren't you worried that no one's going to go to Slovakia?" I was like, "First of all, nobody knows you exist, so they're not going there anyway. Number two, the latest statistic I found was like 12 percent of Americans own a passport. They don't travel. People don't travel outside their own city in America. The third thing is that people still go to Texas after there have been a number of chainsaw movies made there. Besides, who's doing the worse stuff in the movie? Nobody from Slovakia kills anybody, it's Americans, Japanese, Dutch, and the people who run it are speaking Russian.” The idea is that the Russian mafia has come into some post-Communist place and taken it over. It was a huge hit in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

RS: I thought that was super cool.

RS: How awesome was it that Quentin [Tarantino] did all that press for the movie?

Roth: That was amazing because Quentin was such a behind-the-scenes guy because he was helping me with writing. But when we were shooting the movie, he was doing his episode of CSI, so he was unable to go to the set. He wasn't in the press photos that got released, but Quentin was so happy with how the film turned out. He said it was the movie he was most proud of that his name was on that he had not directed. He went above and beyond. I thought maybe he'd give an interview or two, whatever he had time for. He went on Conan O'Brien and he took me on Jimmy Kimmel with him. It was amazing.

Roth: It was. He would not have done that unless he felt strongly about the film.

RS: Do you consider the uncut version on the DVD the director’s cut?

Roth: The theatrical release is my definitive cut. There was a cut that I did with another ending but when we showed to audiences, it didn't quite work. We re-shot the ending and it worked much better. They asked me to make the DVD unrated but there really wasn't much left to do. There is only 30 extra seconds of eye goo because the studio asked me to do it.

RS: Tell me why Sony is putting out the DVD rather than Lionsgate who released it theatrically in the US.

Roth: I was making the film independently for like three million dollars. When we were in pre-production, Sony Screen Gems stepped in, and said, "We'll buy this for four million dollars." So we could raise the budget to four million dollars because we knew that's what they would buy it for. While we were shooting it, they looked at the dailies and saw just how violent it was. The head of Screen Gems had worked very closely with the guy who's now co-president of marketing at Lionsgate, Tim Palen. Tim had done the Cabin Fever campaign and he also did the SAW and the SAW II campaign. I think the head of Screen Gems understood that his bosses would freak out if a movie this violent went out in the United States with the Sony name on it. Around the rest of the world, it's no problem. Lionsgate has more leeway with this kind of stuff. Even while I was shooting, we made a deal where Lionsgate became an equity partner in the movie and they would partner on the theatrical release but Sony would keep the home video.

RS: The Cabin Fever DVD is so full of stuff and I look at the Hostel DVD, which does have some cool stuff on it, but it makes me think we might get double dipped down the line.

Roth: What bothers me about double dipping is when there is an absolute barebones DVD with nothing on it and then the special edition comes out fully loaded. I filled up this DVD with as much stuff as we could put on it. We have four commentary tracks, we have a great behind-the-scenes that my brother did. If they decided to do a special edition later on, I still want people who bought this DVD to feel they got their money's worth. Quentin did audio commentary on it which he rarely does. I don't want people to feel ripped off, ever.

RS: How much did that opening weekend of almost $20 million blow you away?

Roth: It was shocking. We made the movie for four million dollars, so if this thing had done ten million dollars at the box office, it would have made two and a half times its budget. You get these updates over the weekend as they're happening and the call came in, "We're ahead of Narnia! We're ahead of Narnia! Wow!" We couldn't believe it. We opened at number one with 20 million dollars. It was shocking. Then what was amazing was something like David Letterman talking about it in his monologue. It was unbelievable. It really broke out beyond the core of just horror people talking about it. It somehow got into pop culture. What was especially nice was how it showed people you don't need $200 million to make the number one movie. You just need ideas that are relevant to people. People are tired of a lot of films coming out of Hollywood. I'm not saying that that's Narnia, but people want their horror movies horrific. They don't want their horror films safe and SAW II and Hostel really showed that. Now studios are really rethinking their horror movies.

RS: Don't horror movies traditionally do well? People say it goes in waves, but every year there's horror movies. What's going on here?

Roth: Guess what? I can tell you that this summer, in August, everyone was already saying, "Horror movies are dead, horror movies are dead" because Dark Water didn't make any money. I'm like, "Horror movies aren't dead, shitty movies are dead." Then [The Exorcism of] Emily Rose came out and even though it wasn't a horror movie, it has horror elements in it, and it does really well. Everyone said, "You know what, nobody wants R-rated horror movies anymore." I was like “Watch what happens with SAW II." SAW II comes out and makes $90 million. Before that was released there were a number of people making R-rated horror movies that were told by the studio, "You have to make this PG-13." These people change their opinions from movie to movie. It's really sad. If you make a good movie that delivers, people will come see it.

RS: There has been some internet backlash against you, why do you think that is?

Roth: The internet is the only voice for people that hate. If you look at the internet you might think that people hate you but it's such a small percentage of people. You can literally have five people on a message board and it makes it seem like people hate you. The truth of the matter is, the numbers speak for themselves. Hostel has made $70 million dollars in the theaters before the DVD. People are always going to hate you. The stuff that internet haters are saying about me seems to be similar to what they are saying about Quentin Tarantino. It's jealousy. Any time there's someone who has success or does it themselves or gets any kind of attention, there's always going to be people who bitch and complain. For every one person who posts on a message board saying, “I'm sick of this guy.” I get like 200 messages on my MySpace page saying, “Thank you for making this movie.” You just can't pay attention to it. The more success you have, the more there are people out there who hate you and try and stop you. You just can't let that bother you.

RS: Is Raw Nerve still around?

Roth: Raw Nerve is still around. We're in a different incarnation. Hostel is the first Raw Nerve movie. 2001 Maniacs is an early Raw Nerve project that just came out. Before we were partnered with a financier and we have split with that financier because we had a number of differences over what direction the company should go. Now it's me, Scott [Spiegel] and Boaz [Yakin] on our own. We still have the label and we have different projects. We’re in negotiations with Dimension and another one at Focus Features. The truth of the matter is, if I'm going to produce something, chances are I really want to just produce my own movies, unless a close friend is directing.

RS: Do you and Tim Sullivan get along?

Roth: We do get along. I saw Tim the other night. We had a very good conversation, he's very happy and I'm really happy for him. The fans are really responding to his movie and Tim's off directing movies now.

RS: You're a horror filmmaker and it's coming up to your third film so, of course, it's time to do a Stephen King adaptation. That's just the rule.

Roth: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Actually I think my third film will be Hostel 2 and then I'll do Cell after that. So many of my favorite directors have done a Stephen King adaptation and Stephen King is my favorite writer. It's just one of these opportunities that you dream about ever since you're a little kid. I consider it a real honor.

RS: Was Cell the one to do because it's his newest thing book or is Cell something you really felt close to?

Roth: I would not have done it unless I fell in love with the story. I didn't want to do it just to say I did a Stephen King adaptation. I couldn't stop reading it. I thought it was such a clever, modern twist on the zombie movie. It’s people getting zapped on their cell phones and turning into complete killers. I've always wanted to make a zombie movie, but I never had a zombie idea that was that much different from the zombie films that have already been done. So when I read this, I thought, "Oh my God. Stephen King must be tortured by people on cell phones. It must drive him crazy." I own a cell phone, but I try to be discrete when I use it. In the movie theater or a restaurant other people’s phones drive me crazy. You get that from reading Stephen King's book with the whole thing with people and their phones being referred to as the phone crazies. The book is really about how cell phones have completely invaded all aspects of our culture and what if these people suddenly took over the world. I've always wanted to do a total, full-on, Armageddon zombie apocalypse. In the zombie movies whenever the moment turns and everyone becomes zombies, you never see it happening all over the world. You always see it on television, news flashes or quick flashes from another country, but you never actually see it like the way Roland Emmerich did it in The Day After Tomorrow. What if you took the Roland Emmerich approach and in the first 20 minutes of the movie, you actually saw everything going completely to hell in a matter of minutes. I want to see cars smashing into each other, people jumping out of buildings, people in movie theaters ripping each others' throats out. I want to see total chaos and Armageddon around the world.

RS: Do you see it as a parallel for anything else going on around the world besides the cell phone aspect?

Roth: It's one of those things I haven't delved into yet because I've been busy writing Hostel 2. But I do see a number of things. It's really about how cell phones have invaded all aspects of our society. At this point, I'm not looking at too much beyond that.

RS: Will Jay Hernandez be back for Hostel 2?

Roth: Yeah, Jay's going to be in it, if I can afford him. After Hostel, he just shot Oliver Stone's World Trade Center and now he's starring in something [Boys Don't Cry director] Kimberly Peirce is shooting. If he's available and I can afford him, he’ll be in it otherwise I'm going to have to figure out another storyline.

RS: What's going on with the Rotten Fruit DVD that was supposed to be out a while ago?

Roth: I got a little sidetracked with this movie called Hostel [laughs]. Now that there’s stuff out there like iTunes and people are downloading stuff to their iPod, it's making me rethink about putting out the DVD. I wonder if I should just sell the episodes individually. I think Rotten Fruit is perfect for iPod. I love Rotten Fruit so much so I want to do something with it. But I guess what I really need to do is find a producing partner that could handle these projects while I'm shooting a movie. I just haven't found that person yet.