Hostel Review [2]
Posted by Chad Webb on 01.11.2006
Ahh, the crapfest of January has arrived.
Jay Hernandez: Paxton
Derek Richardson: Josh
Eythor Gudjonsson: Oli
Barbara Nedeljakova: Natalya
Jana Kaderabkova: Svetlana
Jan Vlasak: The Dutch Businessman
Rick Hoffman: The American Businessman
Directed by Eli Roth
Release Date: January 6, 2006
Running Time: 95 minutes
Rated R for brutal scenes of torture and violence, strong sexual content, language, and drug use
Reviewed by Chad Webb
The horror genre is sore spot for me that seems to be forever ongoing. It is a very rare occasion these days to witness a horror film that rises above ordinary, or stands out as innovative and daring. Placing Hostel as letdown would be an understatement. What left an endlessly irksome feeling in my gut was the fact that this film was banking on having Quentin Tarantino's name associated with it. For those who do not know, Tarantino is one of three executive producers and also the presenter. I learned this before the film was released, and immediately started to obtain doubts. If writer and director Eli Roth utilized the genius and resourcefulness of Tarantino, then it was in a fashion so minute and insignificant that no viewer would be able to spot it. Hostel is as close as humanly possible to a complete and utter waste of time. It might have been number one at the box office, but it is quickly number one in terms of worst movies of 2006.
Paxton (Jay Hernandez of Friday Night Lights) and Josh (Derek Richardson of Dumb and Dumberer) are making there way across Europe to view the sites and experience unlimited partying. Accompanying them along the way is the drifter Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) from Iceland. Paxton and Oli have drugs, women, and partying on their minds, while Josh is unsure of what he really wants on his trip. They are traveling from hostel to hostel to eat and sleep, and while benefiting from the freedom of Amsterdam, they meet a young man who directs them to a Slovakian city that will lead them to women who love foreigners. Obviously they decide to head right for the city, and along the way they run into a peculiar man on the train who leaves them all with an uneasiness feeling. They end up staying in a hostel which gives them two beautiful women for roommates (Barbara Nedeljakova and Jana Kaderabkova). The three then enjoy a pleasure filled time with the girls by visiting the dance club and taking full advantage of having them as roommates. The next day Paxton and Josh find Oli has disappeared. They accept the fact that he has returned home. That same day, Paxton and Josh are living it up with the girls when they both fall ill. What occurs next is horror beyond their wildest dreams. Josh wakes up in a creepy old slaughterhouse factory where people seem to torture for fun. The friends are faced with the struggle of their lives, and they must escape and uncover the many mysteries they have been presented with.
Oli is portrayed by Eythor Gudjonsson, and he happened to be cast in this film by pure luck. He met Eli Roth during his release of Cabin Fever, and since Roth was so impressed with his charisma, he was granted a role in this film. Oli provides a couple moments in which one might smirk or giggle, but his characters is quite hollow and meaningless. For that matter, all three main characters operate with just enough emotion to offer any persuasive depictions. Their acting is simply middle-of-the-road and second-rate in every way. Jay Hernandez displays talent that is admirable to be generous, but his finer instants are few and far between.
There are only two sequences that have any quality whatsoever. One involves Jan Vlasak, whose character is a Dutch businessman explaining to Josh why he wanted to be a surgeon. The other sequence is a speech given by Rick Hoffman, and this is the only form of explanation the audience receives as to why these people torture. Amazement is a word that springs to mind when these scenes transpired because they actually possessed passion and intrigue.
Hostel relies on nudity, blood, and gore to attract any audience, but the juvenile pathway the film takes to its conclusion prevents it from satisfying the taste buds of horror fans. I have nothing against seeing beautiful nude women, but the first half the film appears to be a poorly made adult film. Put yourselves in the shoes of the characters for a second. If you arrive at a hostel in which you and your friends are rooming with beautiful women who want nothing more than to meet your every desire, would one of you not say "this is too good to be true"?
The idea for Hostel came to Eli Roth when he was shown a website that offered anyone a chance to torture and kill people for a price. The rest was history, or perhaps tragedy. The film was written, produced, directed, and released in under one year. That is pretty exceptional speed for a filmmaker. This fact made it apparent that Roth did not take his time to craft a inventive and interesting horror picture, but he thought the idea was so disgusting that he had no choice but to create a script as fast as he could. He wanted to show the world how sick some people can be, and maybe he did, but it was not rewarding as a film experience. This is definitely an enticing foundation for a story, but the story never reached its destination of being unique, imaginative, or scary.
In The Sixth Sense, moviegoers were frightened just by the sight of Haley Joel Osment's breath on the screen. The blood and gore was not the slightest bit necessary to install fear to the audience. The sensation of suspense and terror was non existent in Hostel as the gruesome scenes just passed by with no emotion at all. Roth has inserted some truly violent and even memorable scenes of torture, but if I want to see gore and violence like this, I can go buy the Faces of Death series. When one scene has a hero running over three enemies with one shot of his car, it starts to make one wonder if the money spent on admission could have been spent on renting two better movies at the video store. On a ridiculously comical note, the hero pays off a children's street gang to ambush and kill some thugs that are chasing him.
After 150 gallons of blood are spilled throughout the film, one will feel like they were tortured right along with the cast. The trailer made this film look magnificent, but I guess that is proof that a trailer does not make a film enjoyable. If Eli Roth had explained the role of the characters and explored reasoning with importance and authenticity, the story would have exploded with promise. Plot and character development would have been realized if the villain had been the main focus, and the story revolved around him instead of three stupid students. Hostel is more than a disappointment because the basis of the film is unusually gifted with potential, but the result is a chaotic mess of nude women and a ghastly amount of dead bodies that are the total opposite of scary.
The 411: Unfortunately, this film is just another January bomb. I try to avoid horror if I can because of how unsatisfactory the movies are, but I was hoping Hostel would put me in the mood again. I would recommend going to see any other movie besides this one, including BloodRayne. It would be better to stay at home this week.
