Great Film: Hostel
Somewhat stylish, but very trite and predictable!
The plot, in short: Three backpackers, two Americans and one Icelander,
does Europe by train with two major goals: To get high and nail as many
women as possible... In Amsterdam they accidentally learn of a hostel
in Bratislava, Slovakia where sex-mad women thirst for men in general,
and American men i particular. They of course decide to go there and at
first it seems the rumors were true. But they soon learn that the
hostel is nothing more than a front for a bizarre club, where people
can pay a huge fee to get to perform unspeakable acts...
My 2 cents: The director and writer Eli Roths biggest accomplishment
before Hostel is Cabin Fever (2002) - weather or not that is something
good is a matter of personal judgment. That he got two Evil Dead'ers
(Scott Spiegel and FX-genius Gregory Nicotero) interested in his script
is not at all surprising. But how he got Quentin Tarantino to executive
produce (and thereby act as "posterboy" for his flick) is, to me, a
total and utter mystery.
Hostel has potential, I'm not going to take that away from it. The
thought that a place exists where rich people pay money to torture and
kill other people is interesting. And a story about a kidnapped person
who finds himself locked in that very place, waiting for his assassin,
should make for a great film! The film is wonderfully lit, specifically
in the torture chamber-scenes. And the set-dressing in those scenes are
marvelous. It really feels like Roth found these places - and just shot
them as the were. But the lighting, set-dressing and potentially-rich
story, unfortunately, ends the positive things I have to say about
Hostel.
It is frustrating to see a story that could have been so exciting and
horrific get so utterly fumbled up! The movie is an hour and a half
long, and takes a whopping 50 minutes to get to the place that is
supposed to be the scene of terror and creepiness. The nearly hour-long
"intro" is spent observing the backpackers while they party, get high
and watch naked ladies in Amsterdams Red Light-district. When the story
finally starts to focus on whatever is wrong with the Slovakian hostel
it points everything out to such an extensive degree that it feels like
Roth wants to put a stupid-hat on every member in the audience. I sat,
in vain, and waited for him to take the lid off, go "ta-daa!" and show
me something intelligent that I had missed. But it never happens and
when the lid, towards the end, slowly slides off on its own accord it
turns out that the ones you suspected were bad guys were in fact...bad
guys. The ones you suspected were dead...were dead. And the entire
movie ends the way you suspected it would all along.
Jay Hernandez (Paxton) and Derek Richardson (Josh) doesn't do to shabby
in the two leads. But Roth has stayed true to Hollywood formula and
chosen picturesque before personality, and the bigger part has
unfortunately been given to Hernandez - instead of Richardson who I
thought were more likable, and more interesting to watch.
Spanish director Koldo Serra made El tren de la bruja in 2003. A
short-film about a man who agrees to partake in an experiment and
suddenly finds himself strapped to a chair in a dark room. He hears
metal objects being handled and someone pacing back and forth in the
room. When the light is turned on it dawns on him that he will probably
be tortured to death. Serras short-film is fifteen minutes long. It was
filmed in two days and is scary as hell! Hostel is both longer and has,
as it first seems, more story to build on. But it still wants to base
the horror in exactly the same sort of scenes as Serras short - and
fails miserably! Hostel is, probably, made specifically for an American
teen-audience, where drugs and naked women represent half of the movies
pull. Blood and bodyparts make up the other half. If you watch this and
expect anything more sophisticated than some blood and naked breasts
you'll be disappointed.
Cast
- Paxton played by Jay Hernandez
- Josh played by Derek Richardson
- Oli played by Eythor Gudjonsson
- Natalya played by Barbara Nedeljakova
- The Dutch Businessman played by Jan Vlasák
- Svetlana played by Jana Kaderabkova
- Kana played by Jennifer Lim
