“Viva La Foca”: Eli Roth Makes Us a Playlist Inspired by Italian Sexploitation Cinema

Eli Roth, photographed by Vittoria Buraschi.

Welcome to SOUND ADVICE, Interview’s weekly destination for playlists curated by our friends, enemies, and lovers. Over the past few weeks, we’ve collected playlists from Benny Blanco, 9mice, Saya Gray. This week, Eli Roth, master of the American slasher film, takes the reins with a playlist centered on his obsession with disco soundtracks from 1970s Italian sexploitation movies. That might sound niche, but niche is where the director thrives. “I don’t feel guilty about my guilty pleasures,” the director declared while answering our SOUND ADVICE questionnaire. “I put them in movies.” Later this month, Roth is releasing Eli Roth’s Red Light Disco, a full album showcasing his favorite Euro B-movie tracks from Italian soundtrack label CAM Sugar. It’s literal murder on the dance floor, to put it mildly. In the questionnaire below, Roth lays out the itinerary for his perfect night in Capri and reveals which song on this playlist makes him horny.

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Where do you dance? I’m a wedding dancer. Not professionally, but that’s where I tend to do most dancing now. That, and at film festivals if there’s some after party. Phones have definitely taken a lot of the fun out of it for me. I am a pretty ridiculous dancer, so I like to dance with my wife at a wedding or at a party where I know the footage won’t be replayed out in public for the rest of my life. I think back to some of my past exploits on the dance floor and I’m just so thankful there are only photos.

Who do you trust most with the aux cord? My wife Vittoria has great music taste. She’s Italian but also we love the same eras of music, if it’s late 60’s or French pop, but usually it’s Italian disco, like Rafaella Carra, Pino D’Angio or Renato Zero. Oh, and a lot of Italian rock like Litfiba, and more classic stuff like Battisti, so any time she has the aux it’s always something good that I may be hearing for the first time.

What was your first concert? The Monkees! 1986, in Foxborough, MA at the football stadium. The name keeps changing, but back then it was I think Sullivan Stadium. I went with my friend Ben Davis and my mother and we thought after we were going to meet The Monkees. We didn’t know how, but we were going to. Mike wasn’t performing with them at that time but I saw him later at the Lone Star Roadhouse when I was in college and I got to meet Micky Dolenz at a screening of Head that Edgar Wright hosted. I love the Monkees, it was amazing to see them live.

Bluetooth or wired headphones? Bluetooth. I like the idea of wired but I always knock into them now. Also, when I talk I walk around in circles and wave my hands like the stereotype of a Hollywood person, so it’s easier that way.

What song on this playlist makes you cry? I have weird songs that make me cry, it’s never the sad ones. It’s usually ones that trigger some sort of embarrassing memory or makes me miss a time of my life that I want to travel back to and live in again for a moment. “V slepych ulickach” always gets me.  My sound recordist on Hostel, Tomas, gave me a list of songs from the early 80s, from when the Czech Republic was Czechoslovakia. I fell in love with the music, from Michal David, Team, Tublatanka and this song from Miroslav Žbirka and Marika Gombitová. This song was just so mournful and sad and wistful and I love Marika’s voice so much. It takes me right back to that whole period of my life 20 years ago making Hostel, and it worked so beautifully in the film. I remember feeling like I was on this insane adventure, making my second film with no idea if anyone would ever see it or like it, just out there with no exceptions going for it trying to really prove that my first film wasn’t a fluke. I think of being in the editing room with my editor George Folsey, who just passed away sadly. George was editing The Pink Panther for MGM and had recut Aquamarine in that room, and The Pink Panther was on hiatus waiting to do reshoots, so Shawn Levy let us have the back room to edit.  he MGM building had just gotten sold so the whole floor was empty except our room. It was just me and George late at night, editing this crazy horror movie, and this song just fit the mood of the film so perfectly.  George especially loved this song. We just played it over and over. It really got me and gave the scenes this deep sadness without it feeling overdone. I love the song so much, it makes me even sadder now that George is gone.

What song on this playlist makes you horny? Hahaha, well, I have odd taste but what started as a joke between my wife and I now actually makes me horny. “Sexy Dream” by Litfiba. I used to laugh at the lyrics and act out the video in slow-motion motion, but now it’s actually not ironic any more and I love it. I can sing it in Italian, which makes my wife very happy, so what started as joke is now actually my horny song.

What’s the one Italian sexploitation film everyone should watch? W la foca, from 1982 directed by Nando Cicero. I mean, it depends what your tolerance for this stuff is. I love ridiculous early 80s sex comedies. These films are not politically correct, nor are they particularly intellectual, but that’s what I love about them. They’re just funny, and this one in particular stars my favorite star of the time, Bombolo. He was a cultural phenomenon in Italy, a real man of the people who kind of became an accidental movie star.  The plot is he’s a doctor and Lory Del Santo is a sexy nurse who comes to work for him but she has a pet seal.  Now, W la foca would be pronounced “Viva La Foca,” which is very close to a soccer stadium change “Viva La Figa” which if I’m translating politely is slang for, um, long live vagina.  But they wouldn’t use the word Vagina.  They’d say pussy.  So, in the movie, she goes around with a pet seal and has to buy milk “For her foca” which throws everyone off guard, because it’s close to the word “Figa” which is slang for… vagina. You get where I’m going with this. But it’s one of those movies where you truly don’t need subtitles to get the joke. The dishes scene here illustrates the type of humor in these films.  The setup is that there are so many dishes that no one wants to do that the family says whoever speaks first has to do them.  So the grandfather, Bombolo, his wife and the daugther are all on the couch watching TV trying not to talk. And the sleazy boyfriend comes over and he fucks the daughter behind the couch with the family right there and no one can say anything because they don’t want to do the dishes.  So then he finishes and the girl sits down and the boyfriend starts flirting with her mom, Bombolo’s wife, played by Dagmar Lassander. And the grandpa is ribbing Bombolo, like, “Hey, aren’t you gonna say something,” and Bombolo’s just in agony, gesturing towards the pile of dishes, like, “I’m kind of stuck here, I’d rather say nothing than do those dishes.” So of course the boyfriend has sex with Bombolo’s wife and no one can say anything because none of them want to clean the mess. There’s also another scene of the seal farting ice cubes. It’s a masterpiece. You can’t not laugh whenever you watch it.

Who’s the grooviest person you know? Tie between Tarantino and my wife Vittoria. I know it’s a huge name drop, but Quentin really is that groovy. He loves all things 70s, he always has good music on, great movies, he still plays board games but also can go out on the town, he’s got that cool kid vibe without even trying. But it’s not the obvious cool guy from high school; it’s the friend who knows everything about everything and has a great sense of humor and is the most fun to have a sleepover at his house.

Vittoria, my wife, has amazing style. I met her at a wedding in Italy when she was working on the design team at Dior.  he was like something out of the late 60s, her whole aesthetic, her taste in music and movies and clothing. Her fashion sense and knowledge is unbelievable.  nd she makes such groovy clothes, they’re literally late-60s style outfits made with vintage Italian Fabrics. I know it’s a shameless plug to say this about your wife, but it’s true. She does it effortlessly, because she was raised in Siena and Florence and grew up surrounded by the most beautiful architecture and clothing in the world.  Check out her clothes here, or her IG @unimpressed.studios, see if I’m lying.

Sunglasses inside: yes or no? In America, no. In Italy, it’s the law.

Who’s in your musical coven? I’m a child of the 70s and 80s, so I love the foundation of rock music, Beatles, Bowie, Led Zeppelin, but also late 70s punk and New Wave and metal, Devo, Weird Al, Iron Maiden, Misfits, 90s New York hip hop like Beastie Boys, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and then you can throw in Gordon Lightfoot. But now I’m super into Rafaella Carra, Jaques Dutronc, Litfiba, Charli xcx and lately Doechii. I’m all over the place.

What is your guilty pleasure? I don’t feel guilty about my guilty pleasures, I put them in movies. Like “We are Dead” by Dale Gonyea, which was a song I heard on Dr. Demento as a kid and spent a lifetime tracking down and finally got to use in Knock Knock. I still have some other songs I want to use in movies that are hidden gems, but I won’t give those away.

With this playlist, you wanted to curate “a very cool, very groovy 1970s Italian disco party.” Who’s on the guest list? I mean, of course we need Edwige Fenech, Gloria Guida, Alvaro Vitali, if he was alive, Bombolo, Nadia Cassini, Annamaria Rizzoli, Lory Del Santo, Lili Carati (RIP) Femi Benussi, Marissa Meli, Barbara Bouchet, Olga Carlatos, Dagmar Lassandar, Anita Ekberg, Quentin Tarantino, Sean Baker, Renato Zero, Piero Pelu, Rafaella Carra (RIP),  The Argento family, Antonella Fulci, and the cast of Romanzo Criminale.

What song is playing in heaven? “In Heaven” by David Lynch. Sung by the Lady in the Radiator. David’s playing it through an old 1950s Zenith radio.

What do you listen to while making love? I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t “Sexy Dream” by Litfiba.

You have one night in Italy. What are you doing? Ooooh, tough one. Depends where I am. If I’m in Florence, I’m going for aperitivo at Santino, then dinner at Trattoria Cammilo, then getting gelato at Sbrino and then having one last drink in Santo Spirito. If it’s summertime and I’m in Capri, I’m going to lunch at Fontellina, then take a huge nap and oversleeping, then wake up and run to Aurora Pizza for dinner or, if they’re too packed, to Villa Verde for pizza, then I get gelato at that stand just off the square with the waffle cones, then smoke a nice cigar drinking wine in the square watching the football game and screaming with the Italians, then join Gianluigi Lembo and the band on stage at Anema e Core to sing songs like “New York, New York” at the top of my lungs, serenading Pat Riley, Jerry Bruckheimer, and others from Los Angeles who are totally confused as to why I’m on stage singing with the band. That’s kind of my perfect night. I’ll take Capri.