The Green Inferno

His Honorable Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary General of the United Nations
United Nations Headquarters New York, NY

Dear Honorable Secretary General,

I wanted to bring to your attention a grave matter that demands your immediate attention. It seems a group of students from Columbia University staged an elaborate protest against a multinational corporation whose operations have encroached on an indigenous tribe in the Amazon. This group is led by an activist named Alejandro (real name: Ariel Levy) but a key member of the group is Justine (real name: Lorenza Izzo); a Columbia freshman whose commitment to social causes is tempered by her skeptical regard for Alejandro's group. Alejandro's group are notorious for their ineffectual protests, like hunger strikes and gathering on the campus grounds, where one member always strums a guitar. Justine is drawn to Alejandro's innate charisma (or what passes for such) though his girlfriend and fellow activist Kara (real name: Ignacia Allamand), jealously guards against female competition.

Secretary-General, you might be surprised to learn this uninspiring gaggle of clods are actually enrolled in an Ivy League school and you'll forgive me for saying this but such a group makes you wonder if Columbia has eased its admission standards. But never mind that, let me proceed with my account. The group hopes to thwart a company in its deforestation agenda, which threatens an aboriginal community.

The group manages to secure funding and the means to travel to the Amazon to confront their corporate foe. Upon arrival they quickly don uniform facsimiles of the offending corporation and make their way through their camp, mostly unnoticed. They quickly chain themselves to trees and bulldozers, though Justine is unable to lock herself in, which allows an armed company thug to pull her from the tree and point a gun to her head. Frightened, her fellow protesters film the incident on their cellphones, which saves her life. Having broadcast their video online, which achieves viral status, the group celebrates on their home-bound plane afterward. The lone contrarian is Justine, who realizes Alejandro deliberately jeopardized her life to ensure the sensationalized video had ample, emotional impact.

As the group swills beer in self-congratulatory revels, the plane's engine ignites, imperiling everyone on-board. As the plane plunges then crashes, the pilots and select members of the protest group meet gruesome ends, including impalement by tree branch.

Shock gives way to fear as the crew is descended upon by dart-blowing aborigines. They're led to a village, where hundreds more of the hooting and chanting red-skinned natives paw at the activists. Terrified, the group is herded into a cage, where they await uncertain but grim fates. Secretary-General, I think we both know what happens next. One of the group; a beefy chap named Jonah (real name: Aaron Burns) is pulled from the cage and laid upon what looks like a stone altar; where the village elder, with her one weird eye and painted face, suddenly digs into the poor slob's eye sockets. She proceeds to pull them out and eat them, which makes the villagers howl with delight and the protesters scream in revulsion. Shortly thereafter, Jonah's limbs are hacked off, along with his head. More shouts of glee are heard as the various body parts are fed into ovens. Moments later, the villagers enjoy a tasty treat known in the Amazon as Baked Jonah.

I know what you're thinking; dear Secretary-General, this is too lurid to relate in a letter but keep in mind the tribal elders provided life-sustaining protein to the village.

Fearful of what might happen next, the surviving group members try to escape from the cage, only to encounter a vigilant tribesman with a blow-dart tube.

While waiting in dread for the next grisly development, group members begin acting strangely. One, for no discernible reason, finds it necessary to empty her bowels, which elicits laughter from the villagers. Later, Alejandro begins masturbating and when his bewildered friends gasp in astonishment, he explains he is relieving stress to help focus his mind (Dear Secretary-General, I wish I were making this up). I don't know about you, your honor, but auto-stimulation might be the last thing on my mind if I were facing cannibalization.

Another absurd development is the attempt to get the villagers stoned by placing a bag of weed inside the mouth of a dead activist. After ingesting her cooked remains, the villagers begin to laugh and cavort in a pot stupor. It's hard to keep a straight face when the villagers experience what is essentially a case of the "munchies" when they begin snacking on an activist's body.

Subsequently, the women in the group suffer indignities involving their private parts by the village Elder, for reasons known only to her.
Another escape is attempted and finally, with the help of a boy sympathetic to her plight, Justine and another activist manage to take flight, where they promptly return to the site of the plane wreckage (rather than following the river; the smarter course), only to be captured again.
All this silliness boils down to a battle between company gunmen and the aborigines, which Justine is caught in the middle of.

Your Honor, you might not be surprised to learn that this "tragedy," if it can be categorized as such, is supposed to be a political statement. It is also the mother-of-all-knee-slappers when you hear Justine lie to a gathering of men in suits back home about the aborigines' blamelessness in her friends' ordeal. The story hardly makes a cogent statement about the abrogation of aboriginal sovereignty. If anything, one might find oneself cheering on the bulldozers after watching the cannibals munch the activist bodies like buckets of KFC. If Justine's story is meant to elicit sympathy for the aborigine's plight, it accomplishes the opposite. The choice between the demise of a tribal culture that enjoys eyeballs harvested from optical cavities and the noxious spread of civilization isn't necessarily an obvious one; at least in this instance. Also, the characterization of the aborigines as merely blood-thirsty cannibals who do little but wait around to eat human flesh hardly helps their cause.

So you see Secretary-General Ki-Moon, the story and its cast of characters are silly, ludicrous and ultimately laughable. Even the gory fates many of the activists are subject to invite more mirth than concern. So you may ask, why am I troubling you with this account? I don't know; I guess I just thought it might demand your intervention. What you do with this information is now your concern.
Thank you your Honor, for taking the time to read my letter. Though most people consider you and your organization to be ineffectual do-nothings, I like to think you mean well when your outrage fails to effect any meaningful change.

Thank you for time and attention.

Sincerely,

Al, of Al's Omniflick

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Al
Al's Omniflick
24 Frames a Second
Cinema Lane
Somewhere, USA

Dear Al,
Thank you for your kind words and your stirring account of the ordeal in the Amazon. Though I regret that so many died to further the aborigine's cause, I must say their appalling stupidity leaves me and the venerable U.N. unable to act or comment in any meaningful way. I think you'll agree with me when I say some earnest, half-witted clowns deserve to be on a cannibal's menu. I think the faculty of Columbia University will agree, yes?

But Al, fear not, trust in our commitment to doing nothing. The sooner their account fades from public memory, the better; wouldn't you say?

Thank you once again for your thoughtful letter. I must keep this missive brief, for I must address Russia's intervention in Syria. I think a strong-worded note to Putin should make him feel ashamed, don't you?

Sincerely,

The Honorable Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon

Director: Eli Roth/Starring: Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Aaron Burns, and Daryl Sabara