"Hostel" director ditching horror with new film

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Eli Roth, the director of the relentlessly gruesome "Hostel" movies, is aiming for a family crowd with his next project.

Roth told reporters on Wednesday he is two weeks away from finishing a script for a science-fiction action film inspired by the mainstream hits "Cloverfield" and "Transformers."

"This will be my first big-budget, PG-13, mass-destruction movie," he said backstage at the music industry's NME Awards in Los Angeles. "I went total chaos and pandemonium."

He declined to detail the plot ahead of a "big announcement" next month.

Films rated PG-13 in the United States strongly caution parents that some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. But they are easier to market than R-rated films, which require viewers under 17 to be accompanied by an adult.

"I feel like I pushed the violence in R movies about as far as I can push it. I feel like I'm bled out. I wanna switch it up," said the 36-year-old protege of Quentin Tarantino.

"Everyone I know has been saying 'When are you gonna do a movie my kids can see?' And finally, I'm gonna make a movie that 13-year-old kids can see."

Roth was in theaters last year with "Hostel: Part II," the latest in a string of films belonging to the so-called "torture porn" genre. As with its 2005 predecessor, it revolved around hapless backpackers who are killed for sport by paying customers in Slovakia.