I’ve met Eli Roth twice. The first time was at a party. The second was in an L.A. synagogue, at my cousin Mason’s Bar Mitzvah. As Mason read his Torah portion, I kept glancing back and thinking that there was a sick and brilliant mind in the house of God. Roth’s first feature film, “Cabin Fever,” blows my mind. It had a measly budget of $1.5 million and became the highest grossing film released by Lion’s Gate last year, and was also the highest grossing horror film of the year. “Cabin Fever” is sick, funny, and is playing in the Film Series this weekend. If Roth had had his way, the film’s tagline would have been, “If you can’t get laid after seeing this movie, you’re pathetic.” Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino both love “Cabin Fever,” and you will too. Eli wishes he could have made it out to Wesleyan this weekend, but he has too much on his plate. Please accept this interview in lieu of his person.

MAX GOLDBLATT: So you make this really intense, really funny indie horror movie. It seems to be funnier and grosser than any horror movie in a long time. Was this the movie you’d been waiting to make your whole life? I know you got sawed in half at your Bar Mitzvah…

ELI ROTH: Pretty much, yeah. Thanks for the compliment. I have been so disappointed by horror films for so long, with the exception of a few great ones here and there, I just had this feeling that nothing bloody or sick was ever gonna get made again. The studios for a while were just churning out these horrendous pieces of crap, and even the R rated films had no sex and barely any violence. What happened to films like “Evil Dead 2?” Was there ever going to be another “Dead Alive” or “Texas Chainsaw Massacre?” I had been planning my life from age 13 to make splatter movies. It’s sad that “Cabin Fever” is one of the most disgusting horror films in a long time, because I truly wish all films were that sick and weird.

MG: This film is in the tradition of Evil Dead. What films would you say are the ones that you as a horror fan always return to?

ER: The films I watch over and over are “Evil Dead”, “The Shining”, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, and John Carpenter’s “The Thing”. Those films are kind of my textbook for how to make a great horror movie. I also love Peter Jackson’s films, as well as Tarantino’s movies, but recently I’ve been obsessing over Japanese horror; films like “The Grudge” and “Ichi the Killer.”

MG: So you’ve said that the genesis of the film goes back to a skin virus you contracted in Iceland. Could you elaborate on how much of the film is based on personal experience?

ER: The film’s based on the skin disease I contracted in Iceland, but also based on other things that happened to me in my life. It’s kind of like a culmination of all the horrible things that happened to me. I got this weird infection in my hip when I was 12 and I couldn’t walk, so those feelings of loneliness and terror of dying play into it. And I got this horrible parasite when I was 17 that took a year to get rid of. I had to drink this awful medicine and kept imagining these things eating me from the inside. No matter how healthy you are something can come in and take you over and use you as a host and if you don’t get it right away you’re fucked. That scared me. Then I read about the real flesh eating disease, and knew it was the perfect way to tie it all together.

MG: One of my favorite characters in the movie is Dennis, the kid who bites people and wants pancakes. On the DVD there’s a special feature of him doing some crazy martial arts. What’s the deal with that kid?

ER: Matthew Helms keeps sending me videotapes. I don’t know why. They’re very strange. He dances around to Gloria Estefan Miami Sound Machine music in them. I wanted to put it on the DVD, but we couldn’t get the music rights. So I sent him the song “Gay Bar,” [by Electric Six] and had him recreate it exactly for the DVD. I thought it would really confuse people. Mission accomplished.

MG: Why do you think so few people, critics especially, respect horror movies?

ER: Because the filmmakers themselves don’t take them seriously. Look at the sci-fi fans. It took “Star Wars” for people to take that genre seriously. Next up was comic book movies – they got no respect until “Batman,” and it wasn’t really even until “X-Men” came out that people started respecting these films. The problem with horror is that the filmmakers themselves don’t let you call their movies horror films. Look at “The Sixth Sense,” a $300 million dollar grossing Oscar nominated film. The marketing execs at Disney said it’s a “supernatural thriller.” That term DIDN’T EXIST before “The Sixth Sense,” and people bought it! “Silence of the Lambs” won every Oscar because they called it a “thriller,” so now any other movie that’s scary that wants to win Oscars or gain respect they call a thriller. I saw press releases from New Line Cinema that went out to publicists telling journalists they were not to call “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” a horror film. What the fuck kind of message does that send to the public? It’ s a remake of one of the seminal films in American culture, a horror film, and they call it a thriller. In the 70’s you had every major director from Spielberg and Kubrick to the new guys like Carpenter and Romero making horror movies. Now if you tell people you’re making a horror film it’s like telling people you’re making a porn.

MG: As a young director, what do you bring to the horror genre that is different from the older guys?

ER: I am more in tune with what audiences want. I’m the guy that’s been going to the theater opening weekend and getting disappointed with the same films being recycled. I know what’s shocking, I know what people miss, and I am not afraid to get down and dirty to cause controversy and risk everything to make my film. I went heavily into debt to make Cabin Fever, which we made on credit cards. These older guys can’t risk that. They have families.

MG: The film had a quick shoot and a small budget. What was the shoot like, and did you feel prepared for it?

ER: The shoot was tough. We shot the movie in 24 days, and yes I was extremely prepared for it, otherwise I would have never gotten through it. Directing wise it was a dream, but producing wise it was a nightmare. Our main investor evaporated three days before shooting. It really sucked. I had to raise money making phone calls between setups. That’s no way to make a film. Plus we were shooting exteriors at the shortest daylight time of the year in North Carolina, so we had to jam and were getting 30-40 camera setups a day.

MG: At the screening of “Cabin Fever” that I was at, you told the audience to go out and see the movie on the opening weekend, because those are the only grosses that studios care about. Why is that and did your opening weekend grosses make an impact?

ER: Hell yeah. Theatrical releases are often big commercials for the DVD; that’s where studios make their money, which is why they’re panicking about pirated DVDs. The way Hollywood works is that Monday morning people see what made money, and the films that are similar to it get pushed to the top of the pile and get into production. “Cabin Fever” is a low budget non-star movie with absurd amounts of violence, it’s totally un-P.C., it’s offensive, and at times it’s funny. It’s everything movie studios don’t do. So the fact that it made 6 times it’s budget opening weekend, and competed with “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” and “Matchstick Men” sent a very clear message to the studios: you don’t need stars, and the more disgusting, the better. I had a number of directors call me the following week to tell me that their movies got green lit specifically because “Cabin Fever” did so well. If a horror film does well it’s good for everybody.

MG: Could you describe your road from film school to directing your first feature? What did you do in between and how did “Cabin Fever” get made?

ER: It’s really too many jobs to sum up. I worked non-stop from movie set to movie set, doing any job I could just to stay involved. I worked as assistant to the director, producer, as a stand-in. I just kept meeting people and making contacts. I was in New York City for almost 10 years, while I was in school, and then moved to L.A. I had a student academy award and was standing on the street directing pedestrian traffic on sets in zero degree weather a week later. You have to be willing to sacrifice everything.

MG: What new stuff are you working on?

ER: Currently I’m writing a teen comedy called “Scavenger Hunt” for Universal Studios, as well as a horror movie with Richard Kelly [writer and director of “Donnie Darko”] called “The Box.” Both will be disturbing in their own way. I also put up a website for my show The Rotten Fruit (www.therottenfruit.com) and I’m putting together a DVD of my animation.

MG: It’s a cliched question, but what’s your advice to people interested in getting into the film industry?

ER: Be prepared to sacrifice everything: your finances, your friends, your relationships. I’m not saying you have to break off contact with these people, but you have to be willing to go years without seeing them. Work on as many sets as possible. People think because you like movies and understand them you can be a director. You are kidding yourself if you think that. You need to work on sets. Even Quentin Tarantino was a P.A. at one point. And have a good attitude about everything – it’s the only way to get through it.