Violence Level

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2006)

In regards to the violence of the film, I must say I was somewhat surprised. Based on the reviews and the online buzz surrounding the movie, I assumed I was in for a blood bath, with the camera lingering on each painful and graphic torture. I planned on watching people leave the theater in disgust but, in my theater anyways, no such thing happened. After all, Quentin Tarantino did help Roth evolve his idea for the movie as well as with the script and he must have been given a chance to lend assistance/his ideas to the torture scenes. After viewing the movie however, I thought that, while the violence was grisly and gruesome, it was not as bad as it was made out to be because the camera did not linger on all of the violence and torture actually occurring. Instead, we are left with the aftermath. I am not someone obsessed with violence whatsoever but I could easily name 5 movies that contain more graphic and brutal violence than Hostel. I was also disappointed that the scene with the toe in the bolt cutters cutaway before we are allowed to see what happens (although it is obvious), yet a severed chillies tendon is given a close up. I was disappointed with the chainsaw scene and had planned for it to be used more and for it to have "cut more up" so to speak, than it did. Again, I'm not a psychopath obsessed with violence but I thought that Hostel could have been much more bloody and graphic than what it was. A new and refreshing idea for a horror movie nonetheless and I look forward to Roth's next horror installment...7/10. Comments?