Cult movie without Cult factor

Rating: 2/10 (1 February 2012)

By the dawn of the 21st century, there had been a number of very low budgeted films ("Saw", "Cube", to name but two) who were, despite all shortcomings, able to breathe some fresh wind into the stagnant genre of splatter-horror. "Hostel" was one of those films but, considering that both "Saw" and "Cube" had their moments of brilliance, I could not for the life of me say what the "Hostel"-hype was all about.
The story of American students travelling Europe – oblivious that Europe isn't a country and that there are differences between Bratislava, Amsterdam and Paris – in search for the ultimate joyride, is well-worn. In "Hostel", our protagonists fall in with a ring of gangsters running what can best be described as a "snuff-club", where rich patrons pay heft amounts to live out their murderous fantasies.
"Hostel" sure has its moments, mainly those concerning themselves with realistically simulated tortures and killings, but that's all "Hostel" got running for it. I'm not going to talk about uncharismatic lead actors, lack of artistic talents or the pretentious style of directing; I want to talk about bloopers.
See, I'm not a very bright viewer and am virtually blind to things like errors, bloopers and inconsistencies. No, I never noticed that Charlton Heston was wearing his wrist watch in 'Ben Hur'. I'm completely oblivious and I don't even care – until it comes to the issue of "Hostel":
The film is riddled with errors to such an extent that after about 40 minutes I asked myself say, "dude, is this a joke"? Yes, partly it was. I remember director Roth explain that the constantly changing make-up of the Japanese girl in virtually every shot was intended because he wanted to do something to the audience – not sure what the purpose was because eventually my brain turned off to the rambling, having too often heard shoddy workmanship disguised as artistic innovation.
So how did this c-grade production ever become "cult" or hyped in the first place? Well, it would probably never have seen the cinematic light of day if it hadn't come with the over-sized headline screaming: "presented by Quentin Tarantino" and to Tarantino fans it seems to be all gold that shines (or rather has the moniker "presented by Quentin Tarantino").
I'd give it 2 points from 10 for a couple of the gore effects but that's where the sympathy stops.