Hostel (2006)
Cast: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Jan Vlasek, Barbara Nedeljakova
Director: Eli Roth
Synopsis: Randy Americans seeking massive shagfest head off for Central Europe
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

 

Hopes of actually meeting Quentin Tarantino and his latest protégé, Eli Roth, were dashed in early October when plans to attend the Sitges Film Festival—where Tarantino was due to present Roth's latest horror opus, Hostel—were abruptly swept aside by the horrifying reality of the Kashmir earthquake.

Film festivals and celebrity sightings suddenly seemed rather trivial.

So it was back home to deal with real horrors rather than cinematic ones.

Hostel nevertheless premiered at Sitges before opening in the United States, where it promptly shot to the top of the box office and earned Lions Gate a very healthy profit.

Eli Roth had arrived on the horror scene only a few years earlier amid a surprising amount of fanfare. Cabin Fever had generated considerable excitement on the festival circuit, fuelled in no small part by whispers that Roth had worked with David Lynch and that perhaps a little of Lynch's genius had somehow rubbed off on him.

It hadn't.

Even so, disappointing though Cabin Fever ultimately proved, it now looks almost like a masterpiece when placed alongside Hostel.

The film begins looking suspiciously like yet another American Pie variation, with a trio of oversexed American backpackers descending upon Europe in search of women, alcohol and more women.

They soon encounter a mysterious traveller who informs them that Slovakia is overflowing with beautiful young women because "all the men were wiped out in the war."

Which war exactly?

The First World War?

The Second?

Perhaps the Balkan conflict...except that Slovakia wasn't exactly overrun by it.

Mr Roth's grasp of European history proves about as convincing as the rest of his screenplay.

Let us be charitable and assume it was intended as some obscure joke rather than an astonishing piece of geographical ignorance.

Undeterred, our amorous adventurers head for Slovakia and quickly discover what must surely be the most remarkable youth hostel ever constructed—a luxurious establishment populated almost exclusively by stunning young women apparently eager to leap into bed with anything possessing a passport and a pulse.

The first forty minutes consist largely of drinking, partying and assorted flesh on display before the film finally remembers it is supposed to be a horror movie.

One of the tourists disappears.

Then another.

Gradually the horrifying truth behind the hostel is revealed, leading into an extended succession of torture scenes interspersed with an escape narrative that somehow manages to be considerably less exciting than it sounds.

The gore is certainly plentiful.

The horror is not.

Instead of building tension, dread or genuine fear, Roth appears content simply to pile unpleasant images one upon another in the apparent belief that brutality alone is somehow synonymous with horror.

It isn't.

The film staggers towards an abrupt conclusion and leaves remarkably little behind beyond a catalogue of mutilation and an overwhelming sense of wasted opportunity.

This viewer emerged from the cinema neither shocked nor frightened.

Merely irritated.

If this represented the future direction of horror cinema, then devotees of the genre had every reason to be worried.

Ironically, Hostel even makes the then-recent remake of The Hills Have Eyes look perilously close to a masterpiece.

Now that is a genuinely horrifying thought.