Eli Roth has spent decades in the entertainment industry, but he’s still chasing the high of telling his schoolyard friends about the wild new movie he just saw.
“If someone had given me this tape in seventh grade and I watched it, would I be running around telling all my friends, ‘We gotta watch this again right now’?” he says. “”You’re coming over after school’ and I’m gonna watch their reaction watching it. On a very basic level, that is still how I gauge these movies. Is this something that I want to call Quentin [Tarantino] and go, ‘Dude, dude, dude, you gotta see this’?”
That mindset is the impetus behind The Horror Section, Roth’s new scary movie company. Earlier this year, the organization made headlines when Roth offered regular fans a chance to invest. Nearly 2,500 people joined during the March launch period, pledging anywhere from $100 to $1 million.
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Although there have been several announcements about Horror Section plans so far — including financing Roth’s next original film, “Ice Cream Man” — its first project is gearing up to hit theaters. The Horror Section’s initial acquisition title was “Jimmy & Stiggs,” a gory, bonkers alien film written and directed by Joe Begos opened Friday on around 800 screens. While Begos has made a name for himself among the indie horror community with films like 2019’s “VFW” and 2022’s “Christmas Bloody Christmas,” “Jimmy & Stiggs” is an entirely different beast.
“Ti West called me and said, ‘Have you seen Joe’s movie?’” Roth says. “He goes, ‘He made an old school, early-Peter Jackson movie. He shot it on film, it’s all practical effects and it’s pretty insane, and it might be right for your company.’ I hadn’t even thought about releasing other people’s movies — we were going to distribute our own films.”
Yet “Jimmy & Stiggs” gave Roth that same feeling he’s been chasing since childhood.
“I was blown away,” he says. “Rarely do I watch a movie that makes me say, ‘How the fuck did they do that?’ I loved it. It really reminded me of when I saw ‘Dead Alive’ in the theaters, or that time when I was 15 and I saw ‘Evil Dead 2’ unrated. They just melt your brain. You can’t believe someone made a movie that wet, that violent, that insane, that unhinged.”
So Roth reached out to the team at Iconic Events about getting extreme horror in theaters, and the partners headed to CinemaCon in April with the hope of speaking to theater owners. Sure enough, he was able to set up a flurry of meetings.
“What really shocked me was that I could sit down and talk to the theater owners,” Roth says. “They just set up meetings for me at CinemaCon, and for an entire day from 7:00 a.m. on, I met with every theater chain. They said, ‘We’d love this. We would definitely do it if it says “Eli Roth Presents.” We’ll put it in our multiplexes.’ We’re talking AMC, Cinemark, Marcus, IPic, Alamo … all of them.”
Roth says he also was eager to work with the theaters to create additional perks to incentivize moviegoers and make the theater proprietors feel special as well. In order to interest owners, Roth pushed for a theatrical-first experience that doesn’t rush films to VOD after just 18 days. He also included custom theater greetings for individual chains and theaters, and non-English messaging as well. For fans, there are unique extras. “Jimmy & Stiggs” includes fake trailers from Roth (like his “Thanksgiving” clip from 2007’s “Grindhouse”) as well as a post-screening mini-making of documentary shot in Begos’ apartment.
“I was blending the line between being a distributor and a director and presenting and on camera,” Roth says. “I realized how important it is to talk to the theater chains so they see how much you care about their business. I know filmmakers care by the virtue of making the movies, but if you’re an actor or a director or producer and you want them to give you front-and-center treatment, you’d be smart to sit down with them. I didn’t have those relations. But we couldn’t believe how many people wanted to sit down with me. ‘These are all the movies I’m going to make.’ And then they went, ‘This is awesome. If you give us these movies, we’ll give you great treatment.’ I will live and die by theaters — hopefully live — and people will come out and see you. We live to fight another day.”
Beyond the possibility of box office success, Roth wants to help support the careers of ambitious young filmmakers. He cites the poster of his 2006 film “Hostel” — which was emblazoned with “Quentin Tarantino Presents” at the top — as a major turning point in his career.
“Quentin putting his name on ‘Hostel’ was like the most popular kid in high school being like, ‘Hey, want to ride in my car?’ Then you’re in the front seat,” Roth says. “Everyone’s nice to you because you suddenly you have the stamp of approval from the coolest kid in school. It’s great to be in a position to do that for the next wave. I want to see more movies from these people, so as much as I want them to succeed, I want them in a position where they can go and make more.”
Watch the “Jimmy & Stiggs” trailer below.
