Overall Rating
 Awesome: 22.1%
Worth A Look: 25.97%
Average: 6.08%
Pretty Bad: 13.26%
Total Crap: 32.6%
9 reviews, 127 user ratings
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| Hostel |
by MP Bartley
"See, this is why a lot of Americans don't have passports."
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Eli Roth talks a good game, and so does Quentin Tarantino. Roth in particular has been letting all and sundry know that his new release, 'Hostel', is a throwback to the tits and gore horrors of the 70's and 80's, and that 'Hostel' is going to show us all disgusting sights we've never seen before. Tarantino, on the other hand, has boasted that during scripting and shooting he was on hand to call Roth out whenever something smacked of movie convenience. Sorry gentlemen, but I regret to tell you that you've both failed here.Paxton and Josh are two young Americans screwing and drinking their way around Europe to make the most of their extended summer vacation, hooking up with the manic Icelandic guy Oli along the way, and ending up in remote Eastern Europe. But after the first 45 minutes, which are pretty much the 45 minutes that a group of horny 14 year old boys would film, having never discovered girls, drink and drugs themselves, things take a nasty turn for the worse on this holiday.
Firstly, one of the trio mysteriously disappears after leaving a nightclub with a girl. Then, following the few clues that he's left behind, the others find that the trail leads them to a seemingly abandoned factory, that's actually a site for torture, brutality and murder. Which you can pay to do. Cue the next 45 minutes of...well, torture, brutality and murder.
So, whose claims to start with first? Quentins, I think. Despite his claims of demanding total realism from the script, he must have been sleeping through some of the first read-throughs. For how else to explain a script that features not one, but two, scenes where bad guys conveniently throw a gun away for our hero to pick up and use just moments later? Or a car that conveniently has the keys in the ignition (I know NO-ONE who does this. Ever) just ripe for a high-speed escape? Or lopped off apendages and limbs that a) handily trip up the torturers intent on killing our heroes and b) never actually bleed for more time than would actually be inconvenient and threaten life (ie, more than a few minutes)? A reunion on train giving a handy chance for revenge?
And what about the sequence where out of nowhere, Paxton reveals that when he was little he saw a girl drowning, and feels he should have done more to save her, instead of running off to get help? Hey, does anyone think that little memory is going to serve a huge purpose later?!
Yeah yeah yeah, I know what you're saying, about how I should just remember that it's only a movie, and that it's certainly not the first offender. It's not, but if there's going to be an awful lot of bragging beforehand, then it had better make good on its claims.
So if Roth cannot escape the conventions of the genre, how far does he actually push them? Again, not as far as he thinks. There's a very nasty bit regarding an eyeball hanging loose and then someones head being caved in, but other than that Roth relies on the 'what's best left to the imagination is scarier' truism.
Which is fine, except that 'Hostel' is gross, but never scary or disturbing. Instead, it's a bucket load of gore that we've seen in 'Saw' and 'Saw 2', but without the inventive plotting. For all their flaws, at least the Saw films did have some ingenuity and twists - all 'Hostel' has is a 'whoops, better get out of here' moment. And even then, our heroes aren't likeable enough for us to really wish their escape.Roth has a knack here for finding great locations (the factory itself is the stuff of nightmares), but as a director/writer he needs to get over his own hype and start delivering on the promise that he showed in 'Cabin Fever' (which was a gruesome, but creepy, minor gem). Praise to the make-up department here, but no-one else.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12912&reviewer=293
originally posted: 04/03/06 18:50:08
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Toronto Film Festival For more in the 2005 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
06-Jan-2006 (R)
DVD: 18-Apr-2006
UK
21-Apr-2006
Australia
23-Feb-2006
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