What is there to like?

Rating: 1/10 (26 March 2007)

Ech, where to begin.
I went into my viewing of Hostel with extremely low expectations. I wasn't necessarily expecting to hate it- in fact, I was hoping to like it. But after hating Roth's previous film, Cabin Fever, I decided it was best to lower my expectations. Had I actually expected to love the film and been looking forward to it, it's difficult to imagine how much I would have hated it and how let down I would have been.
I figured there wouldn't be as much torture as the TV spots would like us to believe. I didn't think it would be "shocking" or "disturbing"- an enjoyable gore fest at best. However, because of Roth's own comments about the film, I was very surprised in how little torture there was, and how lame the scenes that did feature it, were. As a horror fan, I must say I was let down with the death sequences. First, there is the blonde college student who gets tortured. Drilled leg, barfs on himself, cut tendon, and that's pretty much it. Hernandez gets a couple fingers cut off and then is able to escape because his torturer accidentally cuts part of his own leg off in a terribly forced and out-of-place homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. After this, Hernandez saves a Japanese girl from getting tortured and cuts her half-dangling eyeball out of it's socket. The girl screams, Hernandez screams, pus squirts. Partially comedic, sure. Gross? Eh. Shocking? Yeah, right. And finally, the Japanese girl meets her bloody demise while escaping with Hernandez, by throwing herself in front of a train after catching a glimpse of her now deformed face, in yet another terrible homage to Sono's Jisatsu Saakuru.
Death scenes aside, Roth does not get a free pass from creating an intelligent, atmospheric, or even half-original horror film just because his apparent motto in life is "Gore and boobies- what makes a film great". Just because Hostel is a film about three cocky, annoying frat boys getting tortured, does not mean his film has to be void of any originality or intellect. Most recently, Saw is an incredibly overrated film in the horror genre that gets overpraised for it's use of violence and (self?) torture. However, I am quite fond of it's at least somewhat original story. The film also has a dark atmosphere that makes it fun to watch, even in it's moments of unintentional comedy (the clown on the bicycle? seriously?). Hostel, however, is a film about a few frat boys who mistake a torture chamber for a fun night out and end up getting picked off one by one.
Roth also said Hostel is America's reaction to Miike's Audition. Audition is a slow-burn horror, which starts out a carefree love story, then gradually becomes more disturbing until the final scene, which is pure insanity. Hostel, on the other hand, is 40 minutes of sex and nudity, then after the first friend goes missing, it immediately shifts into a paint-by-numbers thriller until the end. The comparison between the two films ends at their torture scenes. Audition is a genuinely creepy, unsettling, atmospheric, great horror/suspense film. I find it purely idiotic to compare it to generic kitsch like Hostel.
I was originally going to rate Hostel 2/10, only because I don't like giving films a 1. However, the only thing I remotely enjoyed about this film was Jay Hernandez. Not his character, an arrogant ass whom I wanted to die, but because Hernandez isn't bad to look at.
However, I'm not going to rate it higher because it's main star is attractive. What is there to like? I have no idea. 1/10.