at a family friend's farm in Iceland in 1991. Much of it was written in 1996, while Roth worked as a production assistant for Howard Stern's film Private Parts. Cabin Fever was produced in 2001 on a budget of $1.5 million raised from private investors. The film was sold to Lionsgate at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival for $3.5 million, the biggest sale of that year's festival. Released in 2003, it was Lionsgate's highest-grossing film of the year, earning $22 million at the U.S. box office and $35 million worldwide. Lionsgate's stock rose from $1.98 a share to nearly $6 a share after the film was released; the company used its newly valuable stock to buy Artisan Entertainment. Cabin Fever made Roth a star in the horror genre. In a 2004 Premiere Magazine interview, Quentin Tarantino called it "the best new American film". Cabin Fever was remade in 2016 and directed by Travis Zariwny. Hostel In 2005, Roth's second feature, Hostel, was made for just over $4 million. It opened No. 1 at the box office in January 2006, taking in $20 million its first weekend. The film went on to gross $80 million worldwide in box office, and more than $180 million on DVD. Although the story is set in Slovakia, all the exteriors were shot in the Czech Republic. In the film, three friends are lured to visit a hostel where they think their sexual fantasies will come true. Instead, they fall into the clutches of an international syndicate that provides first-hand torture and killing experiences for rich, sadistic tourists. The film was rated No. 1 on Bravo TV's 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments, and Empire Magazine readers voted Hostel the Best Horror Film of 2007. Roth reportedly turned down studio directing jobs to make Hostel. He took a directing salary of only $10,000 to keep the budget as low as possible, so there would be no limits set on its violence. In January 2006, film critic David Edelstein in New York magazine credited Roth with creating the horror subgenre "torture porn", or "gorno", using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act. Thanksgiving In 2007, Roth directed and narrated the faux trailer segment Thanksgiving for Grindhouse and appeared in Death Proof, Tarantino's segment of the film. Roth and co-writer Jeff Rendell won a 2007 Spike TV Scream Award for best "screamplay" for their work in