2011-10-27 06:34:18

ELI ROTH: A Master of Modern Horror Asks A Very Big Question–How Evil Are You?

Filed under: Eli Roth, Featured
Posted by: John

by JOHN MARKS

Have you ever asked yourself what you might do when faced with a terrible choice? What might happen if you had to act against your own conscience in order to follow a direct order or please a superior? It’s much easier to answer the question if it’s a matter of life and death or a question of saving a loved one, but what about those times when authority alone puts you in the box? This Sunday, horror film director Eli Roth, who gave us Cabin Fever and the Hostel movies, doesn’t just pose these questions, he runs a test to try and answer them.

As writer and producer of this hour of television, I’m biased, but the results are fascinating.

Roth, the Discovery Channel and a team of producers, editors, cinematographers, psychologists and actors have attempted a version of the fifty-year-old Milgram experiments, the brainchild of social psychologist Stanley Milgram, who scandalized the scientific community in the 1960’s by demonstrating with the help of a device called a shock generator that a majority of Americans, when prodded by authority, might be capable of committing horrendous acts against complete strangers.

The test results raise troubling questions about our own era and suggest at the same time unexpected solutions to an age-old moral problem. If you want to know what I’m talking about, tune in this Sunday night at 9 p.m. EST to the Discovery Channel series Curiosity.

Meanwhile, don’t just take my word for the show’s excellence. Here are rave reviews from Variety and Entertainment Weekly.

If you’ve ever wanted to know how evil you can potentially be, this one’s for you.

Comments (4)

4 Comments »

1. Just set the TIVO.

   Comment by Liz — October 28, 2011 @ 7:48 pm

2. What does “TIVO ” mean?…. MY comment for “How Evil Are You” will hopefully be posted under John Mark’s most current entry, because I want him to notice it, and I don’t understand blogging well enough to know if the blogmaster has to look back to see if more recent comments have been posted on older blog entries. I care to continue a conversation and hope I did not give offense by any of my interpret
   -ations.

   Comment by leslie holmes — November 14, 2011 @ 10:52 am

3. Leslie, I always see the comments, so you can post on whatever story you like, and it will be at the top of my queue. Unless a person is obscene or making violent threats, I approve everything, so no worries about giving offense. We’ve heard it all here. Look forward to hearing your comments. John

   Comment by John — November 14, 2011 @ 11:24 am

4. Thankyou John for this help and encouragement to blogging. I only discovered it recently, …AFTER leaving the comment on your entry on the fate of journalism…a re-reading of that made me realize that I had put you in Berlin at the time of the “deep sea rescue”, and maybe you were in some OTHER place in Germany, anyway, I suppose it doesn’t change the sense of anything. I hope I finally answered to the issue of empathy and compassion bridging great divides!
   It’s funny to think you were in Iowa City over a span of time when I was raising small children 10 miles down I-80 in West Branch!! Their father got his PhD in Psychoacoustics from Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Department at the U. of Iowa. We are both Canadians and in our B.C.(”before children”) years we were united in Secular Humanism.

   Comment by leslie holmes — November 14, 2011 @ 6:29 pm

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