The Bates Motel Was Cleaner.

Rating: 3/10 (25 September 2008)

This movie isn't so much horrifying as sickening. I'd been warned that it was of the 'slasher' genre, but these days that can mean anything.
It begins, quite frankly, as utter tripe. Three boring young men engage in one sex-n-drugs session after another. They are seriously hedonistic - I think I get the message. This preamble goes on for so long that I only persevered with it to find out how the slashing started. It is slow and contrived, to say the least. The director just doesn't seem to have a clear idea as to how he is going to disclose the plot.
When the slashing does start it is of such a graphic nature that I was moved to mute the volume and look away. You can call me squeamish if you like, but I think anybody who finds movies entailing torture and cruelty of this kind the least entertaining would very likely be the sort who - given the opportunity - would pay to participate. I suspect they would be masturbating as they watched.
After two of these young man are taken and butchered, eventually, the third gets his come-uppance. But he manages to effect an escape at the cost of a couple of fingers. And it is here that the plot finally begins to reveal itself and things start to gel.
I like a chase movie. And after a few executions of his own, our victim now has an opportunity to escape. I rather thought that when he went back to spring the oriental girl, he was pushing his luck and would be taken again, but no. The bit with her eye is too gross to describe. With the bad guys on his case, he and the girl head for the station. Her suicide in front of an oncoming train is almost inevitable. You can see them both coming a long way off. Such is vanity.
Naturally, I had expected a twist. These cheap shockers almost always have 'em. But here it is one of revenge rather than recapture.
Somewhere in this crude, voyeuristic mess there was the basis of an extremely tense and exciting movie. If the director had just got on with his story instead of obsessing over the orgasm, he would have saved celluloid and plenty of money whilst delivering a far more coherent plot, and three-dimensional characters we could care about instead of so much giblet-fodder. By the same token; had he toned-down the snuff-like brutality and emphasised the tension and the chase, this might have been a thoroughly gripping suspense drama.
How many times have modern film-makers got to be reminded that its not necessarily what you show that matters so much as what you don't show. Imagination will fill the gaps. Clearly; these people assume we have as little of that stuff as themselves. They should be compelled to stop-over at the Bates' motel and study the shower sequence.
There's not much point in commenting upon the technical aspects of production; there's just so much wrong with it up-front.
Finally, rather than locating it in peaceful Slovakia, perhaps the hostel should have been more aptly set in Serbia. Recent events demonstrate that there is no shortage of mass-murdering psychopaths in that merry little land. You could almost say it was the national pastime. One suspects that their tourist board would have helped fund the enterprise.
I'm afraid I couldn't recommend this movie to anyone for any reason. Only the last 15 minutes or so begin to measure-up, and its hardly worth being put off your dinner for that.