A scene from Eli Roth’s HOSTEL. Photo credit: Rico Torres
Excutive producer Quentin Tarantino and director Eli Roth have created a film so horrible, so vile and unbelievable, you are already believe I’m giving this a good review, but I’m not. When I say it is so horrible, so vile and unbelievable, I am not explaining some of the film’s content, I’m speaking for the entire film. Tarintino said he got the idea from a website advertising something, and was so disturbed by the idea, he decided to make a film about it. Now I know why “supposedly” paramedics were called to the theater, because this film is just simply too ridiculous. Hostel really proves to be Hostile.
In the very first scene of the movie, we see a large man, the camera not showing his face, walking around and whistling, tossing blood, blood, tissue and teeth into a drain. He then picks up some horrible instruments and cleans them of blood and other things. Already we know, whoever this person is, we’re not going to like him.
Three young men, Paxton (Jay Hernandez), Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), and Josh (Derek Richardson), have backpacked across Europe in search of merely getting stoned and finding women to sleep with. They meet a druggatic who informs them about a Slovakian city where the women are gorgeous, and easy. Excited to go, they get on a train and meet a very strange Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasak) who likes to eat salad with his fingers, but after Josh thinks he’s hitting on him, Josh yells at him and scares the man away. When they arrive in the city, they eagerly check into the Hostel, and meet gorgeous, half nude, women in the spa. That night, they party a little to hard, and the next day Oli is missing.
The following night, after leaving many notes for Oli at the Hostel, they go out and party again. Josh meets the Dutch businessman at a bar that evening and apologizes to him about the way he reacted. The partying continues, but Josh decides to head back to the Hostel before Paxton. The front desk leads him to a private room on the first floor because he is not feeling well. In the following scene, we see through the eyes of Josh who can only wee through a very small hole and we then realize his feet and hands are handcuffed to a bloody metal chair. The sack over his head is lifted and we see a familiar face under in a surgeon’s costume with a drill in hand. What reason does he have, or is it just recreation?
In the promotional ads for this film they said they “supposedly” had to call paramedics to theater because of all the gore and brutal torture in this film. Trust me, this is nothing we haven’t see before, this no worse than Lionsgate’s other film Saw. In fact, there actually prove to be two films in this picture, an American Pie film, with more nudity, but with less crude humor and the second half is like Saw.
The blood in this film is very heavy, but the gore is barely enough to make you queasy. There are few scenes with horrible slicing, but the worst is probably the one stomach churning eye gouging scene. The characters really prove to be somethng out of an American Pie film or some sort of National Lampoon’s film. Paxton is the sex craver , Josh is the wiser guy who seems to make good decisions, and Oli is the brainiac. Unfortunatly unlike some of those films, before we see any actual character development , people are already dead and the film has turned into something else. There are a few scenes where somethng a little unexpected, not scary, but actually humorous ruins the movie. Black comedy is all right in spoofs and ripoffs, but in “a trying to be” horror flick, it ruins the entire mood of the scene and thus strips the film of any true horror.
The concept of the film is a little disturbing, but I usually enjoy films by Quentin Tarantino, so I think if he was the director of this film he may of helped to keep the tension and make this failure into something truly scary, otherwise Hostel ceases to entertain.
Rated R for brutal scenes of torture and violence, stong sexual content, language and drug use. Running time 95 grueling minutes.