Hostel (2005)

Hostel

2005

Starring: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson

Directed By: Eli Roth

Having seen Eli Roth's first film, Cabin Fever, I wasn't too sure how to prepare myself for Hostel. I didn't think Cabin Fever was that good of a movie, but found some things about it redeeming. When I heard that Quentin Tarantino and Scott Spiegel were listed as "Executive Producers" I felt a tiny bit of comfort. Then I read that Tarantino had just read the script, liked it, and gave Eli Roth some connections to make his second film, Hostel.

Before I get to the "meat and potatoes" of the review, I must first get something off my chest. It seems of late than any horror movie rated "R" nowadays must contain several things: naked women and sex, lots of drug use, and shocking gore. Hostel is filled with these things, which is what I think appeals to most moviegoers today. Take out the sex, nudity, and drugs and you've got SAW and SAW 2, which also rely on shocking gore to rattle the audience. To me, all these films seem to be is a series of "gags" with no real substance or validity.

With that said, Hostel isn't a bad movie, but instead it's just kind of... OK. The first half of the film literally has no gore, but instead relies on sex, drugs, and nudity to keep the audience interested. What happened to the days of horror cinema where you didn't need to see all the gore to feel scared? Hell, even the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween weren't all that gorey. They had nudity or sex with some mild drug usage, but then it seemed that these issues only helped add to the characters. In Hostel however, it doesn't.

The first half of the film does nothing to really set up the characters and really does nothing to set up for the second half, which is where the blood and gore lies. After about an hour of watching three young men walk around with gigantic hard-ons, the second half of the film doesn't really pay off like it should. Granted, we're not supposed to really care about these characters, but then Eli Roth spends about an hour with them doing nothing but smoking pot and getting laid. It's kind of like a frat house movie for the first hour. Then, when the gore and blood finally comes around (which is what the audience was waiting an hour to see), the pay off really isn't that good. It's not bad... but it's simply not that good.

The acting in the film isn't the greatest and to be honest, I had never seen any of the cast before in my life. There was no one for me to identify with and I felt that everyone that "got it" in this film totally deserved it. It seems that Mr. Roth wanted us to not care about the main cast, but then feel sorry for them at the same time. This shows through with mediocre acting. Honestly, once everyone started dying off, I just wanted it to end. I'd go into more details here and give specifics on each actor, but there wasn't one single actor in the whole film that impressed me.

The blood and gore really isn't all that great except for one scene that kind of unnerved me where a guy gets his heels sliced open. There is a scene where a girl gets a blowtorch to the eye that is just plain ridiculous. It's like watching good fx/bad fx play out on screen. Some of them are really good and stomach turning, and then some are just plain laughable. In fact, I found the whole eyeball scene hilarious. Yes, I'm a sick, sick man.

The blood and gore really isn't all that great except for one scene that kind of unnerved me where a guy gets his heels sliced open. There is a scene where a girl gets a blowtorch to the eye that is just plain ridiculous. It's like watching good fx/bad fx play out on screen. Some of them are really good and stomach turning, and then some are just plain laughable. In fact, I found the whole eyeball scene hilarious. Yes, I'm a sick, sick man.

The whole "shock horror" genre is really getting old and Hostel is just another addition to the SAW family of filmmaking. I'm not saying these are bad movies, because they're really not horrible at all, but they simply are just not that good. The only redeemable qualities to this film for me were this: One character whom you think will be the one to "live through it all" doesn't and I found that somewhat refreshing.... and that the main guy who does "live through it all" goes back for revenge. To me, those were the only saving graces this film had to offer.

With horror films today the mentality seems to be: "Hey, let's see how bad we can gross out the audience." and to be honest, that's not a good attitude to have. What happened to the old fashioned tension leading up to the scare? What happened to the feeling of panic you get when you know a character shouldn't do something but they do anyway? None of the horror movies today evoke those emotions. In Hostel, I was counting down the minutes until the bloodbath, and then felt ripped off when it came.

I'll at least give Hostel the credit of trying to stay as original as possible in the mass-produced shock horror films being released today, but that's about all I can say, because when you look at the evolution of horror films, it's not that original after all.

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