The $80 million worldwide gross of 2006’s down-and-dirty
horror flick Hostel, and in particular its $19.5 million Stateside opening weekend, guaranteed writer-director
Eli Roth (above right) a couple more pictures, and he hasn’t been shy about exercising options
on a full slate of announced projects that, at times, has included up to a
whopping eight movies. Naturally, though, Roth can’t direct 24/7, nor in a
bubble (one thinks… that would present some practical hurdles), so he’s had to
trim his slate a bit.

Roth and a pair of his Hostel:
Part II leading ladies, Bijou Phillips
and Vera Jordanova,
appeared recently at the Los Angeles Fangoria Convention, and amidst information
about that movie’s production — shot primarily in Czechoslovakia, but including
location work in Iceland and the south of France — were plenty of questions about
Roth’s recent and upcoming work. Apart from exercising a pretty spot-on impression
of David Lynch (“OK, here’s the deal: rabbits!”), for whom Roth worked prior to
Cabin Fever, Roth shared his thoughts
on making the Thanksgiving trailer,
as well as other tidbits. To wit, a brief sampler:

Roth said that making the Thanksgiving trailer for
Grindhouse
was the most fun he’s ever had filming anything, and that he took particular
glee in corrupting an entire town’s schoolchildren for the outdoor processional
gone terribly wrong. “If you ever have a chance to film a parade scene where
you cut off a giant turkey’s head,” said Roth, “do it!” Asked if he would
consider extending Thanksgiving to a feature-length
production, as Robert Rodriguez has talked about doing for his trailer for Machete, Roth said he’d like to make a Thanksgiving feature, but
that the less-than-hoped-for theatrical grosses for Grindhouse have
cooled some at the Weinstein Company and elsewhere on the idea. “I made a pact
that Edgar (Wright) that if I did Thanksgiving, he’d do Don’t!,” says
Roth, in reference to Wright’s trailer contribution, before adding, “But it
would have to be, like, Dogshit ’95… instead of Dogme ’95 — shoot it down-and-dirty,
in like seven to 10 days, for under $1 million. That’s the only way it would
work. We’d have to put those limitations on ourselves.”

As widely detailed, Roth’s next directorial project is an
adaptation of Stephen King’s Cell,
penned by The People Vs. Larry Flynt’s
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. And Roth doesn’t have any involvement in the Cabin Fever sequel,
directed by Ti West, beyond taking an executive producer credit. But the Thanksgiving experience got some other
creative juices flowing, and according to Roth he’s also going to direct an entire film,
called Trailer Trash, consisting of
20 to 25 phony, stylized previews. No word yet if these would be shot in consecutive
fashion either before or after Cell,
but one can imagine that a few of Roth’s friends will likely get involved as
well.