First of all, people don't "compare" Eli Roth to Quentin Tarantino. Roth and Tarantino are often associated with each other because Tarantino was the executive producer of "Hostel."

Tarantino is a big fan of exploitation horror, it is a clear influence in his work and he seems to be enthusiastic about promoting it. Everyone knows Quentin is working on more ambitious projects than Eli Roth, but Tarantino's collaboration with Robert Rodriguez "From Dusk 'Til Dawn" was somewhere in that "Hostel" millieu.

Second, exploitation horror is not a new thing. It was very prevalent in the 70s and 80s, and back then, they really used to revel in their gross-out prosthetics, with lingering, well-lit shots, whereas today, they use dark, dingy settings and quick shock-cuts. "Dead Alive" featured a character getting ripped in half and disemboweled, but that was basically just a set up for a very elaborate fart joke.

I think the big difference today is that horror movies are very oppressive and unrelenting, whereas the old-school exploitation films tended to play the gore for laughs, or at least used gags to cut the tension. I'd blame this more on "Silence of the Lambs" than "Hannibal." I think that's where you have to trace the tendency of horror movies to take themselves very seriously.

"Dead Alive" featured a character getting ripped in half and disemboweled, but that was basically just a set up for a very elaborate fart joke. Now, you're more likely to see a few split-second shock cuts of the guts splattered all over a dark room and a rookie cop puking or crying in the hallway outside.

Try to find a film called "ILS/THEM". As far as I know it's only out on Korean DVD right now (it's a French movie), but it was one of the better horror films I've seen in a while. The atmosphere was fantastic, and it's based on true events (yes, these actually happened). I caused me to feel some tension, which doesn't happen often at all. I've seen Last Broadcast, Head Trauma and tons of other small/indy horrors. I've even seen the short Rue Morgue (the mag) made this year for the TIFF and ILS stood above them all. It played at Cannes this year, so while the Korean DVD is legit I'm not sure how it came out so quick. I'm sure in the coming years it'll make it's way to North American shores. There have been some fairly decent horror films out of France, Germany and even Japan (Rampo Noir was pretty good) in the last year or so that haven't gained much of a buzz as of yet.

In terms of gore, I find it doesn't do much for me. Even the so called "extreme" movies like a Murder Set Pieces or Scrapbook don't really mess with my head.

If you don't mind some surreal stuff, Visions of Suffering is a pretty crazy arthouse horror. A Russian movie that you can get on Unearthed Films in the US

I got the impression that people were comparing Roth and Tarantino because they were both film geeks. They seem to genuinely love and care about a tremendous amount of film and everything they do is influenced by something they love.

I think the fast cutting of the gore, is because of ratings more then anything.

I saw a trailer of this on one of their other DVDs and it looked interesting.

Braindead (proper title for Dead Alive) was released in 1992

splattii - Thanks fro the recomendation man. I'll see if I can track that down.

There are a couple more films I'll add to my list. 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer never fails to give me the shivers, especially the videotape dhome invasion scene. A little slice of hell right there.

Also, most zombie films really get to me. Especially the recent Dawn of the Dead remake. For some reason though Day of the Dead creeps me out the most. I think it has a lot to do woth the musical score of all things.