Hostel is the movie Saw wanted to be

Rating: 8/10 (19 August 2006)

What is it with horror movies these days that believe that simply throwing buckets of cheap gore on a body equals scary? Cringing doesn't necessarily mean fear if it is ridiculous enough to be unbelievable. Movies like Saw have come close, but still never really achieve true fear. Hostel is the latest attempt at the gore flick, and for what it's worth, it is the movie that Saw wanted to be.
The basic plot of Hostel takes quite a while to actually get into. Two friends, Paxton (Hernandez) and Josh (Richardson), are backpacking across Europe with Icelandic hitchhiker Oli (Gudjonsson) in search of drugs and girls. The first forty minutes or so is mainly one sex scene or nudity shot after another, with some smoking pot in between. They get a tip from a man in Amsterdam about a hostel (basically a hotel) in Slovakia that has some of the best girls on the planet, and the threesome head out to Slovakia. While they do find girls, they become trapped in a sick nightmare to satisfy the bloodlust of a group called the Elite Hunters, who torture and kill for fun.
Of course, the torture scenes are meant to be the scariest. However, this isn't the case. It is not the physical act of torture that is necessarily scary. Sure, it is nice and gory, but it really isn't anything we haven't seen before. What is truly scary is that the movie seems as if it could actually be real. We all know there are true sickos out there who would pay for the ability to take a life in whatever way they deem fit. It has a degree of reasonable disbelief that makes the scenario believable, even if some events in the mandatory escape are a tad coincidental.
To be perfectly honest, the fact that people watch movies like this in the first place is proof that the urge to kill is present in all of us. There is an inborn bloodlust that begs to be able to take life, much the same as a sexual urge. The sexual urge and bloodlust are even compared in the movie in a great scene where an escaping hostage idly chats with one of the butchers (Hoffman). The movie strikes a nerve deep inside, which is much more powerful than a couple of gore shots could ever be.
Not that you have to look at the psychology behind the movie to enjoy it (I don't even know if the psychology was intentional). If you are the type of person who likes movies that rely on pure gore to unnerve you, Hostel definitely has what you need. The torture scenes are incredibly gory, especially one part where an eye is cut out. There is also the always painful tendon cut, chainsaw accident and drill insertion. Hostel doesn't necessarily break new ground in terms of gore, but it does rank fairly highly.
Where the most effective thrills come from is the escape sequence near the end. The whole time where the survivor is trying to escape the factory is incredibly tense and bloody, with the audience never really sure if the director is actually going to let this person live. The ending does get bogged down a bit after the factory is behind the survivor, as the movie then relies heavily on coincidence and revenge, but it still remains tense, which is a feeling unfortunately missing from most horror movies.
The acting in the movie isn't great, but it is better than the average horror movie. Jay Hernandez doesn't come across as anything special at first, but he actually seems to pull a good performance out of his ass when it comes his turn to face the hunters. Richardson is decent enough as the most three-dimensional of the group, as is Gudjonsson as the fun-loving Oli. Vlasak is very creepy as one of the hunters who meets the group early on. Bit player Rick Hoffman has an excellent cameo as a hunter who basically reveals all about the organization.
While Hostel does bog itself down with a much too long opening and a slightly unbelievable ending, the meat of the movie is some of the best horror movie stuff in a while. It taps a nerve that says a lot about the human bloodlust, and is actually a comment on the film itself. Why do we see movies like Hostel? We see them because we wish to satisfy our bloodlust, and this is the closest we can get, just the same way as someone may watch a porno when they are unable to actually have sex. Even if you don't appreciate the psychology, there is plenty of gore and tension to make the movie a scary ride. Basically, Hostel is what Saw wanted to be. It is a believable nightmare, and that is something truly rare in today's horror films.
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