Hostel (Director's Cut)

The ultimate tourist trap
The first time you watch "Hostel" you leave remembering two things: an insane amount of sex and nudity, and some truly brutal torture sequences. The media ignoranty dubbed it a new genre, "torture porn". This film is actually rather tame when compared to some of Italy's 70's horror, grindhouse flicks like "Cannibal Holocaust", and some of Asia's current horror masters. Nontheless, horror fans drooled, sqeamish movie-goers and media watchdogs were offended, then everybody moved on. The truth is this: "Hostel" is the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" of our generation. After taking this so-called "director's cut" re-release as an opportunity to revisit a recent horror film I remembered fondly -if mostly for the two reasons stated above- I came to realize why so many people (not the least of which is Quentin Tarantino) believe in Eli Roth as a horror savior.

"Hostel" is a film layered with subtle humor that builds suspense beautifully and gives the audience exactly what they want...

Dark, nihilistic, misogynistic...but somewhat flawed
I may be one of the few people who actually enjoyed Eli Roth's first film, Cabin Fever, despite the many inherent flaws to the story, direction and all-over-the-place feel. I never bought into the tagline for that film as once of the most horrific films this generation. I've been watching horror films for as long as I can remember and Cabin Fever doesn't even scratch the surface of what constitutes a great horror film. But it did show me that Eli Roth was serious about genre and acknowledges and honors his roots and influences.

Hostel is Roth's sophomore effort, and just like Rob Zombie with his second film (The Devil's Rejects) he shows improvement as a filmmaker and continues to show that he respects the genre he's chosen to be in. Hostel is an exercise in hate, pain and nihilism. There really are no sympathetic characters in the film. Roth instead shows just how debased, cruel and inhumane people can be towards each other. Whether its through verbal, physical and...

So it is that bad?
Look, for anyone rating this 1 star or hoping for a 0 star rating stop reviewing a genre that you hate. Maybe you like older movies, maybe you like love stories, maybe you like a film to be uplifiting. Whatever you like it is not horror. Sure, there are plot holes (all horror movies have those) and yes it has SO MUCH gore and nudity(which a horror movie is naked without) it offends you. But who asked you to watch this and rip it apart.

I love movies in general, own a couple hundred. I saw this in the theater because I enjoyed the very humerous Cabin Fever and Eli Roth as a director in general. If you like movies and can enjoy good humor watch the cabin fever extras. So simple and funny. And Eli Roth appearing in Both Cabin Fever and Hostel was really funny, I dug his cameos.

Overall I like Eli Roth's movies and think Hostel was not GREAT or anything but it was far from the 1 star ratings most of the close minded people reviewing it posted. So if you can...

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