I want to take this opportunity to make a statement not only about “Hostel,” but also on cinema as a whole and the general rule of filmmaking that usually constitutes a “good” horror film. A horror movie is allowed to be gory, that’s fine, it provides a visceral feel and is unsettling to the viewer, so it works, in moderation. But scary does not equal gory, and when a self-proclaimed “horror” movie showcases nothing but intestines and screechy music it runs into a bit of a conundrum, that being it has just called itself a horror movie with fuck all to show for it. Sure the gore will make us uncomfortable, so would seeing a butcher remove a pig’s head with a table saw, but the latter wouldn’t scare me, it takes more than that, although maybe I’m just desensitized.
That being said, let’s move on to “Hostel” which, for some reason, is Eli Roth’s crowning directorial achievement and was hugely popular upon its initial release in 2006. It’s widely renowned by critics to be one of the scariest movies of the decade, that’s right, critics, as in more than one critic thought this was true.
Three guys looking for European ass wind up in Slovakia, getting tortured by rich psychos who pay a company to organize their kidnappings. I really wish there was more to it than that. Of course everyone they meet seem to be in on this secret group, which just makes all of Bratislava seem evil. And that’s another thing, Bratislava? What does Eli Roth have against Slovakia? Sure, you hear the occasional horror story about things happening to tourists in various parts of the world, but the world is inherently a more stupid place than it is evil. The whole film would have been more realistic if the protagonists had simply been given wrong directions and accidentally waded into the Danube River and drowned. I’ve been to Bratislava, it’s a delightfully charming place, the people were hospitable. And the city itself was beautiful, nothing like the Chernobyl-esque setting that is portrayed in the film.
Everyone they meet in the movie is a freak. It’s as if all Europeans have some sort of physical disability or a horrendous speech impediment. That or they want to murder someone. I suppose you can’t blame the movie for trying, it attempts to get something going story-wise in the first half, but once the main characters get kidnapped, the plot goes out the window and the focus zeros in on the torture and nothing but the torture. I’m not usually put off by gore in movies but “Hostel” just heaps on the violence and nudity ad nauseum until you just want to garrote a prostitute with barbed wire, I mean puke. I just feel that after watching it that there is nothing good left in the world, or at least in Eastern Europe. It’s nothing but roving gangs of deformed kids, companies that kidnap and murder, oh and sluts… lots and lots of sluts.
There are a couple shining moments in the movie, one when the protagonist dons a disguise and has a haunting conversation with a paying customer who is about to go torture his victim, and another that comes right at the end when the hero avenges his friend’s death and brings the film to a satisfying, although still disgusting conclusion. Despite the closure achieved at the end of the film, the movie still seems mostly empty, and that’s because rather than present the audience with a scary story, Eli Roth merely presents the idea of a scary story while simultaneously asking us how much red corn syrup we bet he can use in an hour and a half of film.
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