When you think about it, one of the messages of old-fashioned horror tales was that traveling beyond your own personal comfort zone is something you do at your own risk: think of Renfield visiting Dracula's castle in Transylvania and turning into a bug eater or those intrepid infidel tomb violators from the mummy movies. Yet ever since Brad Davis got slammed into a Turkish prison for ineptly trying to smuggle dope, the stakes have risen. In Hostel, for instance, a trio of doltish young men find themselves trapped in a hellish factory death 'n' torture chamber – all for the crime of being outsiders.
As written and directed by Eli (Cabin Fever) Roth, the movie's a grueling experience for both its characters and the audience. Though it takes a good forty minutes to spring its trap, once it does, Hostel refuses to let you go. Roth's set-up is simplicity itself: three tourists (two Americans plus a shiftless Icelander who has glommed onto the duo along the way) are traveling Europe for a last chance to go wild.
In Amsterdam, they're told about a hostel located in Slovakia where the girls are all gorgeous and ready for anything. On the train to this stately pleasure dome, they encounter a creepy Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasák) who provides the foreshadowing, much the same as that hitchhiker did in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Our heroes kick the creep out of their compartment, but we know we'll see him again.
The hostel proves to be everything as advertised, but visible in the distance is the smokestack to a large former plastics factory where all our horny Hansels and Gretels are taken to be tortured and killed for the sport of jaded wealthy business types. Cost of each victim, we learn, is dependent on their nationality – with Americans being the highest priced commodity. When one of our threesome escapes his businessman captor, we're treated to a long and lurid tour of this gruesome facility, and let me tell you, it definitely put me off the idea of ever touring any former Soviet bloc countries.
Per this type of genre exercise, characterization is minimal - so much so that when one of our trio is given the tiniest patch of personal back story, we (wrongly) assume he'll be the one to survive the excursion. When early in the hostel visit we see a dubbed version of Pulp Fiction being played in the background, we can't help wishing that Roth shared Quentin Tarantino's knack for sketching character. Still, the Pulp Fiction connection is an apt one. In a lot of ways, Hostel is an extended riff on the Bruce Willis story from that flick.
Article comments
1 - Iloz Zoc
The dangling eye + scissors scene in Hostel is intense, and paced to drag out every last ounce of tension and terror. I couldn't stay in my seat watching that one. Should be interesting to see the franchising effect take over with Hostel 2.