I'll have the extreme violence with the side of vomit

Rating: 7/10 (11 March 2006)

Now this was a horror movie. You all probably know what its about so I won't elaborate about it here. Director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever) has made one hell of a horror movie. Finally an original horror movie. I'm so sick of the redundant slashers, remakes (sans a few) and crap that they throw out nowadays. This was quite a refreshing movie.
What made this movie great? First off a solid cast. Jay Hernandez does an excellent job in his role, he stands out among the rest in my opinion but that's not to say that the others were bad, they were good as well, Jan Vlasak, who played a business man on a trip to the same place, took the role of the main villain (even though he might not quite be the real bad guy) and he was great as well, really creepy. I know the one question, for those who haven't seen it, as you're reading this: "Is it really that gory/disturbing/bloody?" The answer is: No. It's not as bad as you think it will be. Sure there's blood, sure there's torture but not to the extent that its played out to be. A lot of it is suggested. Of course, that's not to say that its a slouch in the gore department. There are plenty of dismemberments and moments that'll make you cringe. The movie gets off to a fairly slow start. There's lots of nudity (Roth even gets away with a full frontal) for the first half and throughout that first half there isn't really any horror aspects. I think Roth put so much nudity in to take the MPAA's attention from the torture. It worked too, I can't believe this movie didn't get slapped with an NC-17. It's a dark toned movie with blood and torture and nudity. Once we get to the second half, the parts that everyone really came to see, we get a hell of a show though. One problem though is that at some points the movie is so dark (contrast-wise) that you can't see what's going on most notably during the "eye" scene, there was a clip posted on the internet, dunno if anyone caught it. Anyways, it actually looked much better and much more convincing on the screen than it did during that clip on the internet, it also doesn't fade to black when he's cutting the eye out either like it did in the clip, the camera stays right on the face and damn is it great. I don't think that was done on purpose to make you think you're seeing something and make it more intense, it's just too dark, they should really think about lighting it up for the DVD release. Now I'm going to compare these two movies now; it was more intense than last October's release of Saw II. Much more. I guess the one major flaw is that it takes so long to really get going that it seems over a little quickly. Call me sick but I came for some gore and torture and I think that they could've shown more torture and really gotten to the audience. Don't get me wrong though, what they did show was freaking awesome! Now, I'm not saying that movie need a ton of gore, that's not what makes a movie, not at all. A horror flick needs suspense and this movie has suspense and lots of it. Don't let the slow start sway you though, it's not boring (the first half) it does set you up for the rest of the movie and makes you feel like the friends are really connected. So no, this movie is not perfect but it's a great one, certainly one I'll pick up on DVD when it hits around May-June (in the inevitable Unrated release). The score was pretty good, nothing over the top but that may have been a good thing. Oh and another problem that just came to me was that Roth uses the F-Bomb way too much. I understand in some parts, hell if that was me getting tortured or in those situations I'd be yelling it out too but he used it at such awkward times, it's like he just said "Hey, let's use that here!". After this movie, I vowed to never EVER hit a Slovokian city. Check that one off the list (not that it was ever on...).
So yeah, this was a good horror movie. I didn't really touch on everything (I don't think) so I may go back and edit this later if I think of something else to say. So if you're a horror fan then do yourself a favor and see Eli Roth's Hostel.