Almost a disaster

Rating: 4/10 (5 February 2008)

Had it not been that this film reminded me slightly of one of the films I myself had written, I may have classed this as an massive pile of crap...
It takes absolutely ages to get the actual point of the film, and if someone says that it was just building character before the gore, because the gore isn't what the film's about, then you're wrong.
Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino obviously have some seriously deranged mental issues that they really need to get sorted out...
The reason the extreme violence and horrific torture is in this movie, is because there is absolutely no other substance to it.
I kept on waiting and waiting for something interesting to happen, but the entire second half of the movie is just completely filled with horrifyingly graphic and unnecessary mutilation, the only point of which is to indicate how horrific it can be for an American to leave California for any kind of exploration.
It is essentially bigging up America, and it's citizens; probably one of the reasons why Mr Roth bases the entire film in Europe... because the Europeans (of course) are all off their nuts.
(Just note: I am not genuinely taking a swing and Europeans, because I am one myself)
Quite honestly, the finale is also thoroughly disappointing, because it was one part of the film that they could have done something really effective with, and yet, it's just another damned gore fest.
Enough jabbing at the content of this turd-filled sludge of a movie; I just have to mention how completely awful the sound mixing is on the audio track. Most of the movie it's a perfect volume with good sound effects and a convincing sound scape; but where the crew were really trying to make an impact in the gore sequences (as I'm sure they were - because Eli Roth's directorial incompetence sure as hell wasn't going to make an impact anywhere else), this film fails miserably.
I know that maybe I'm being a bit too critical of a piece that's simply supposed to make witless teenagers scream and jump and be generally terrified... although, me being a teenager myself, this did none of the fore-mentioned things for me... I did not jump, scream or feel at all scared at any time... the only thing that I felt was severe nausea and a massive cringing sensation.
I'm glad to say that I managed not to throw up all over the place, but I heard reports of people having to be helped out of cinemas when this film was released because they were passing out and throwing up... I can't really admit that this could have been on any level a successful reaction to this movie, because at the cinema people just want to either: laugh, cry or be really really scared... what they don't want, is a day of bed rest with regular aspirin and stomach cramps.
All this put together makes a hideous formula that somehow produced this travesty of cinema... Hostel.