I mentioned in my Till review that I did have some more traditional horror movies to review in the next couple days. There’s a simple reason for that: I had a couple on my HBO Max watchlist that were leaving at the end of October. Granted, there were a couple other movies leaving too, but I lost count of how many times I’ve seen both Outbreak and Snakes on a Plane are leaving at the end of the month. They must sneak back when I’m not looking. Regardless, I had a couple horror movies left, and I opted to go with Hostel first.
Honestly, Hostel is probably the one I was least interested in since it had torture as part of its central premise, and it does have a reputation for being rather gross, but I started with it for a very simple reason: it was the shortest.
American college students Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson), along with their Icelandic friend Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), are backpacking their way through Europe and generally being every stereotype of the ugly American possible while in Amsterdam, including Oli who isn’t even American. They’re brash, obnoxious, and engage in what can only be described as a lot of bad behavior. Looking for a way to get high, laid, or some combination therein, the three take a tip from a fellow they meet, a man named Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy), who suggests they try a small, out-of-the-way Slovakian town where they’ll get everything they are after while avoiding the sort of crowds that they seem to meet elsewhere. The three opt to take the trip because they are idiots.
Look, I had no sympathy for anyone in this movie, and I don’t think I was supposed to. More on that below.
Anyway, the town turns out to be exactly what Alexei promised, right down to the fact the bozos find two attractive young women are their roommates at the youth hostel. Sure, there’s a roving band of juvenile criminal types that will rob the three blind if given a chance, but Paxton at one point nearly chokes one out, so see above about my lack of sympathy. The kids aren’t the real problem, though. The real problem is the town has a secret: wealthy men pay exorbitant amounts of money to torture and murder the young people lured to the town’s youth hostel. Oli disappears first, an excuse left to a young Japanese woman (Jennifer Lim) that he ran off with her similarly missing friend. But don’t worry: Oli is also apparently too racist to run off with an Asian woman.
Cripes, it’s almost like the movie is daring me to think these guys get what they deserve.
Alright, I’ll get right to it: I didn’t like this. I can give director Eli Roth some credit. He doesn’t shy away from showing the gruesome stuff, and the movie is maybe not as gratuitous as its reputation. Oh, to be sure, there were moments when I was wincing at home, but by and large, he did construct a scenario where people might wander into this town and never come out again. And it probably would take a tourist as shallow as those three to go to this particular town and fall for this particular trap.
The problem is I really didn’t like anyone in this movie. Everyone, and I do mean everyone aside from maybe the Japanese woman, is a fairly awful person, and I only say that about the Japanese woman because I don’t think she got enough to do to be anything other than another victim. The tourists are obnoxious boors where even the responsible one is homophobic and starts fights in nightclubs. The people who act as bait to lure them in are obviously awful. The rich guys getting off on the bloody torture and deaths of others are obviously evil. Even that mob of kids can be bribed into doing horrific things without much prompting. It’s really hard to get into a horror movie where I end up asking myself how much everyone involved in this mess deserves something bad to happen to them. Even then, I might have looked the other way, but the climactic third act had a moment with a chainsaw that more or less shattered my suspension of disbelief, and I never quite got it back.
Yeah, don’t bother with this one.
Grade: F
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