They deserved it

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2006)

Strange movie. It's like a product of America's post 9/11 mentality meets Porky's. In my opinion, it's worth a look, but I'm not sure what it's trying to say. If it's about American paranoia, and the fortress mentality of "everyone's out to get us", it works pretty well, except for one thing: the three leads are selfish, dick-driven ****holes who deserve everything they get. This may be Eli Roth's point, but I doubt any American Hollywood Director would have the cojones or the principles to assassinate his career by making a movie that pushes the view that Americans abroad - including the troops in Iraq - are not heroes or liberators, but are, in fact, ignorant, vulgar, boorish interlopers. Once you take that out of the equation, there's not much left - if it's not a critique of American mentality & foreign policy, then what is it? Purely in horror terms, it fails dismally. It's neither disturbing, suspenseful nor scary and, in terms of gore, it pulls its punches badly (even on the "unrated" DVD). So, having said that, 6/10 is giving Roth the benefit of the doubt - maybe he really has tried to slide a subversive something into the American unconsciousness. If he has, then hats off to him - after all, isn't that what really good horror is all about?