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Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, English subtitles, French subtitles, Portuguese subtitles, Spanish subtitles
Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, English subtitles, French subtitles, Portuguese subtitles, Spanish subtitles
REVIEW Three fratboy jerks bumble through Eastern Europe looking for drugs, booze and girls. They find all three in spades at a hostel in Slovakia, but something seems... not quite right. When one of their party goes missing, the two buddies begin to suspect foul play. Ferociously gory, ludicrous, but extremely entertaining, Hostel begins horribly, as we're forced to watch these three make asses of themselves in Europtrip fashion. Once the blood starts flowing (and spurting, and spraying), Hostel kicks into high gear and never lets up. The second half is by turns intense, hilarious and crowd-pleasing (this is a blast with a responsive audience). And by making the villains so very evil, director Roth even manages to make the leads sympathetic. Be warned, this is an unapologetic exploitation film, but it doesn't skimp on the cruelty and brutality; will be a tough watch for those with an aversion to torture scenes. For the rest of us sickos, Hostel proves to be a refreshingly amoral roller-coaster ride that aims to please.
Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, English Subtitles, French Subtitles, Portuguese Subtitles, Spanish Subtitles
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic 2.35
Features:
Audio commentary: Director and Executive Producers' Commentary with Quentin Tarantino
Audio commentary: Director and Guests' Commentary with Harry Knowles of AintItCoolNews.com
Audio commentary: Director and Producer's Commentary
Audio commentary: Director's Commentary with Eli Roth
Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, English Subtitles, French Subtitles, Portuguese Subtitles, Spanish Subtitles
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic 2.35
Features:
Audio commentary: Director and Executive Producers' Commentary with Quentin Tarantino
Audio commentary: Director and Guests' Commentary with Harry Knowles of AintItCoolNews.com
Audio commentary: Director and Producer's Commentary
Audio commentary: Director's Commentary with Eli Roth
This movie is so schizophrenic that you may think you're in the wrong theater for the first half. A pair of ugly American tourists and their found-along-the-way buddy from Iceland run around Europe in a typical obscenity laden attempt to score as much nookie and pot as they can consume, and are basically rude and spoiled obnoxious turds. (And in typical xenophobic fashion, guess which of the three tourons gets offed first? Hint: He didn't have an American Passport...). In fact, the first part of the film is a cross between a tour advertisement for the gorgeous nature of Europe - "Hostel" has some amazing cinematography - and a soft core porn flick. B**bies? Everywhere.
But then comes the evil that "Hostel" is being sold as. Those hot babes? They are evil femme fatales selling out cute tourists to a place where you can pay to have your sickest fantasies played out. (And in another telling undercurrent of conscious, is it odd that the only sick designs that anyone has involve the brutal torture and murder of the victims? And that an American victim fetches the best price? No fantasy hot sex? Oh wait, the ones who have the hot sex fantasies are getting murdered! It's back to the old slasher rule of 70's horror...lower head gets too much action, upper head will get decapitated.)
Ok, so I did sit on the edge of my seat for most of the film's second and third segments. You don't get much actual horror from the movie itself, there's a lot of obvious screaming and flying body parts, but no direct shot of said torture (like no-one in the theater I was in could tell the difference...pah). By the film's third act, it's devolved into a cat-and-mouse game of escape with revenge as the primary motivational drive.
But with the lead characters in the movie being such dorkwad tourist-morons ('tourons'), the early killing doesn't elicit much sympathy. In fact, with the news of 2005 and early 2006 reporting that the American military is all to happy to ship suspects out the country and off of the radar screen to be "questioned" (hah!) without the quaint regulations of those pesky activist courts, then how hard is it to imagine a place like "Hostel" in a corrupt county where those rules do not apply? And how disturbed will you be when the scene where the little kids turn from candy-chompers to skull-stompers? Or will you, like some in the theater I saw "Hostel" in, cheer them on?
Maybe the earlier analogy of "Hostel" to those 70's slasher flicks was not quiet complete. "Hostel" may be more appropriately compared to those 50's and 60's mutant movies where our national subconscious used atomically enhanced critters to scare us into fearing the Cold War. "Hostel" uses images of foreigners running a tourist death-camp to remind us that all it takes is one sleazy non-American with a bankroll to off as many citizens and sympathizers as he can, as long as your willing to pay for the privilege. Quentin Tarantino backing Eli Roth to issue political allegory as horror films? Hey, stranger things have happened.
Not Scary, Not Sexy, Homophobic, and Just Plain Crap
Oh No! wrote on 02/27/2006:
The only scary thing about Eli Roth's film is that I paid 12 dollars to see it. The only other thing that was remotely scary was that I also paid to see his other moronic film. I know that he is personally a totall a-hole and a big homophobe. Everything queer in the film is demonized and the only out gay character is the truly evil demonic character. What a bunch of crap? Go back into therapy Eli and get over your own homo feelings. The first hour of the film is centered around 3 guys trying to get laid in Eastern Europe- read BORING, seen it a thousand times before. All the girls are shaved and model material, totally laughable. What's worst is that they pandered the film to queer bars and bdsm stores in LA- even though they are filled with hate for both. Go on Eli. You're not wanted here. And Quentin's only role in the film was to put his name on it; another loser ploy by our guy, Eli.
..wait.. it gets much better.
shaihalud wrote on 02/27/2006:
I think the horror scenes work well for not having to use computer effects or fancy editing techniques commonly used in today's horror. The scenes are so chilling that all they needed were sets, lighting, and great traditional effects make-up. The letdown in this film is the gratuitous college boy humor that wastes time and lacks any gore for the entire 1st half. The characters come off looking really stupid and boring which maybe sets them up for being so naive. Some occasional Euro-boobs and pot smoking to keep teen boys watching. Translation: $$$$ "teen sales at the box office". Thinking I was let down, I was wanting to leave the theater. Then, it the f**cked up sh*t hits the fan. You see a very intense and wicked side to humanity, "the tourism trade", and the fun Tarentino-style comeback revenge scenes. Thus, I think it's saves itself in the 2nd half and can be one of the better horror DVDs for your collection.
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