Pretty good horror with some faults

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2016)

This film starts out with 2 good looking college age guys and a drifter they picked up while backpacking. We see them wondering around in Amsterdam, doing drugs, drinking, ya know typical college kid antics. They then talk to one guy who informs them about a hostel in Slovakia where there are "unbelievably hot girls". Now of course they get excited and decide to go to this place. First of all, I would like to compliment Jay Hernandez and his co-star on their acting, they were very convincing in the lead roles of this movie, I enjoyed them here. The sexual content was just a little too much for my taste, I didn't care to see so much nudity, and the nudity was all female too, no male nudity, so sorry ladies and gay guys, but to be serious, the female nudity got to be a little overwhelming. The violence in this film is very graphic and will disturb some viewers, it is important to go ahead and be aware of that when u go in to watch this film. Also the two main characters in the film really are good guys, I mean yes they did a little drugs and drank and had some sex, but that doesn't make then bad guys necessarily. This movie really made me care about the 2 main guys. One of the guys really does have a big heart and is sweet and nice. Now, the violence includes an image of a severed head, it shows a girl about to get her toe chopped off, it doesn't actually show everything, but you know what is about to happen, there is also an offscreen showing of a guy getting drilled, and more stuff similar to those type of things. Just wanted to let you know all this, because if you are faint of heart, then this movie is definitely one to skip over. Now, I enjoyed the script for this movie, the script and dialogue worked very well, and nothing was cheesy and cliché about it. I really loved the atmosphere in this movie, the building in which things go on was very creepy and very atmospherically creepy. This premise of this movie is very interesting, I liked how they executed the plot. Now is the movie's violence too brutal? I think it is a little too graphic for my own personal taste, I was expecting it to be brutal, but they took the torture scenes just a little too far in my opinion. But hey it could've been much worse, movies like saw, and others of that kind have been much worse, so I am thankful that it wasn't any worse than it was. At least some things occurred offscreen and just showed screaming and the victims reaction. There is some justice served here, one of the torturers does in fact get what he deserves, so it's not like evil triumphs in this movie. A couple victims do in fact vomit while in the torture room, from fear and just sheer shock I suppose, that wasn't really pleasant, but I guess it was realistic. The movie shows very graphic images of carnage: severed hands, legs, rooms with cut open bodies and blood on the floor. Yes, some of this aftermath and carnage was an overload and was too grain graphic and unnecessary. And there is one scene in particular that was just NASTY, I mean it was very disturbing, that was the scene where one of the victims is shown hiding and sees a guy just sawing severed limbs with a chainsaw and other instruments, too graphic for my taste. Oh and also the eye scene was wayyyyy too nasty and disturbing, that was just unnecessary. Although I am glad that the characters in this movie weren't like bad people, the main characters were good guys, that was refreshing to see. This movie was not the best in the world, but it certainly was not a bad movie, it was a 7/10, I have to take off points for the overwhelming gross out imagery that didn't improve the movie, but in fact made it worse, and in my opinion, dumbed it down. But it gets points for being well written, that includes script and characters, and being well acted. And I assure you that the bad guys do not go unpunished. Hostel ended on a good and a bad note, a partially happy ending. I won't go any further about how it ends, you'll have to see for yourself, that is if you are in fact brave enough. Enter at your own risk.