Predator becomes the prey
Eli Roth focuses on real-life shark horror in ‘Fin’ documentary
For Eli Roth, “Fin,” streaming Tuesday on Discovery+, is a real-life horror movie. In “Fin,” Roth, 49 and a Newton native, surveys how the mass slaughter of sharks worldwide — over 2 billion since 2000 — means probable extinction with 10 species already on endangered lists.
How does the director of “Hostel” and “Cabin Fever” end up in Hong Kong, the Bahamas, his life threatened in Africa, investigating sharks?
“Randomly, I got asked to host a talk show for ‘Discovery: Shark After Dark’ during Shark Week.
Growing up in Boston I was terrified of sharks and they asked me to go on a dive.
“There are very few moments where your whole system of belief changes instantaneously. That happened when I went into the water in the Bahamas with them.”
Sharks, protected in those waters, are a major factor in the islands’ profitable eco-tourism. Roth said that over one shark’s lifetime they can generate a quarter-billion dollars in tourist revenue.
“They were so beautiful. Highly intelligent, they had personalities. I felt so secure. I realized they don’t want to eat me. I just fell in love with them.
“Then I started learning we’re killing 100 million sharks a year. I thought if I can affect people with a documentary, this might be the scariest movie I’ve ever made.
“But I didn’t want to be one of those Hollywood idiots, standing behind a cause they know nothing about. So I spent five years on this movie. I went all over the world. Leonardo DiCaprio came onboard. I met Sea Shepherd,” the activist American conservation society that patrols the oceans.
“It really is a global problem. The perception of sharks as ‘maneating monsters’ has allowed it to happen,” Roth acknowledged.
He learned that sharks, unlike fish, mate. Males don’t reach sexual maturity until they’re 18. They have few progeny, sometimes not until they’re 40 or 60. They can live to be 100 but with the mass slaughter, “They’ll be gone if we don’t do something,” he said.
“Their function in nature is to keep the ocean healthy. They’re like bees. So it’s really terrifying. I’m hoping I can raise awareness.”
Roth is particularly incensed by shark fishing tournaments like one scheduled in Fairhaven on July 22.
“It’s the same shark tournament that’s in the movie. They’re doing it again! It’s all legal and it’s setting a terrible example. Why are we even allowing this to happen?
“We’re at a moment now where we can do something,” he concluded. “If we don’t do something now I don’t know how we can save sharks.”