As we first reported here  Eli Roth is reportedly leaving the horror genre (at least for now) to do a sci-fi / action film. The film is also going to be PG-13, quite a change of pace for a director known for stretching hard “R-ratings”. The director recently responded to the articles in his MySpace Blog and here’s what he had to say;

“The journalist asked me about the trend of PG-13 films, and I said that my new film is PG-13, and that it was not a horror movie, it was action/sci-fi. He looked very surprised. How could I possibly make a PG-13 film? Especially one that wasn’t a horror movie???? I explained to him, that it’s not that I wanted to or set out to make a PG-13 film, but that the idea best lent itself to a PG-13 rating. I said the mistake that studios make is that films get watered down or castrated to fit a certain rating, and that rating doesn’t necessarily best serve the story. “Hostel” would not have worked as a PG-13 movie, because a very important ingredient to the story is the violence. A film like “Cloverfield”, in my mind, was the perfect PG-13 movie, because it was really scary, it had a good amount of violence, but just the shot of the girl’s chest exploding in the tent was all you really needed. It wasn’t about the gore, it was about the monster.”

Eli Roth also commented on the initial articles reporting the genre change and the PG-13 rating;

“While the reporting was fair and I like the journalist, I can just see some editor coming up with a spin about how I “ditched horror,” just to get people to read the story. As soon as I saw that headline I just thought “I should’ve kept my mouth shut.” That one headline went all around the internet. A headline that nasty is not only untrue, it makes it seem like I’m like spitting in the face of everyone who’s ever supported me. It was really frustrating to read that, even though I know my real fans would know a headline like that is bullshit. And then I realized that no matter what I say, people are going to put some kind of “spin” on it, true or not, to get people to read the story. All I would ask of you guys is to be wary of any headlines about me, because until my next film comes out, we’re going to see more of them. If I made Hostel 3 they’d say I was repeating myself, and if I said I’m doing anything different they say that I’m “ditching” horror. “

This looks to be another sign that the torture genre is coming to an end. Eli Roth’s MySpace Blog can be found here.