A biography for Eli Rothhasn’t been written yet.
“I look at careers like Ben Stiller and think that's a great career to have where you're doing movies that you write and direct, and also act in films, although he's primarily an actor.”
“'Beatrice Cenci' was an amazing film. If it were released today it'd win Best Picture. It's so well done, it's so contemporary, and the filmmaking is so smart.”
“Creative writing and shooting are muscles that atrophy. But when you work them, you become a self-generator who can branch out.”
“I've always been fascinated by the idea that there's no such thing as evil; it's all in your point of view. To one group a suicide bomber is the antichrist and to one he's a hero.”
“Look at comic books. It used to be something that only geeks were into. And now it's everywhere.”
“Much of my youth was spent in the parking lot or inside a Dunkin' Donuts.”
“I'd love to see us get to a point where you can make a movie and not worry about the limits of the violence. Then I think they'd get so violent that people would get bored of it.”
“'Eraserhead' is a weird, horrible nightmare, and it doesn't narratively make sense. Stuff's happening, but you honestly feel like you're in a nightmare, and it has such disturbing imagery that it stays with you forever once you've seen it.”
“The best movies now are called 'thrillers.' Because if you use the word 'horror,' people's associations are straight-to-video crap.”
“I've always dreamed of having a year-round haunted house.”
“'Cabin Fever' was very much inspired by 'The Thing.' It's really a perfect guy's horror movie: There's no love story, it's just straight-up horror. And it's so well-done. It moves at a slow pace, but it's really terrific.”
“When you're making a television show, it's about the story and arc of the show rather than any particular episode or director.”
“Some disaster movies look like you're watching someone else play video games. They're fun but it's not real.”
“I've realized that I can't multitask in the writing department; I can only kind of do one thing at a time.”
“I love movies that are just straight-up exploitation, but the ones that endure and the ones that last are the ones where the filmmakers put in that extra level of thought; after 25 years you put them on in front of an audience, and they'll respond to it and enjoy it.”
“I have so many different projects, I hear voices in my head - the characters talking all at once - and I have to write to make them stop.”
“I have the infinite galaxy from '2001' as my screensaver - so if I space out while I'm writing and it goes to screensaver, I can just stare off into the stars.”
“Well, anytime I make a movie, I like to load it up with more things than you could ever catch on the first viewing.”
“What's important for me is staying healthy.”
“As a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi was 21 when he made movies, and when I didn't get 'Cabin Fever' made that fast I thought I'd failed.”