Prejudice and Bloody Aprons

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 2006)

This is yet another Texas Chainsaw ripoff. It seems that is the trend in horror these days. Filmmakers are either extremely class-phobic or they are banking on the idea that the movie going public is. It seems like every horror movie these days is about some sort of sadistic person or group living in an isolated, impoverished area getting their jollies by torturing and killing snotty, over-privileged kids.
Films like TCM(especially the remake), House of Wax, Wrong Turn, Wolf Creek, House of 1000 Corpses, etc. all play on the idea that poor rural people are dark, dirty and evil things to be feared. It may be because this stereo-type of rural bumpkins is unattractive to an image and wealth-obsessed youth culture and it's easier to fear those who are unattractive.
Another reason for TCM type villains may be because the rural American image is usually shadowed by a reputation for racism and modern horror audiences are so saturated by urban pop culture that subliminally tying a villain to racism makes said villain even more despicable.
Obviously "Hostel" does not fall into this category. Though the prejudice in this picture is just as prevalent. Here we substitute poor foreigners for poor Americans. With the fear of the foreign ever increasing in an age marked by widespread Anti-American sentiment abroad, it only stands to reason that we we have evil, poor, foreigners looking to torture and kill Americans kids just out to spend spring break innocently spending their money exploiting eastern Euro whores.
So, if you count that Eli Roth combined the fear of the impoverished and the rural and tied it with American xenophobia as being original, than yes "Hostel" is original. Taking "Texas Chainsaw" and re-locating it in a war torn country that deserves America's pity more than it's fear, was a stroke of genius. The same kind of genius that decided to send John Wayne hero character to Vietnam for "The Green Berets." Roth may not be a good writer but he definitely knows how to profit off of people's prejudices. If he were around Hollywood for the early eighties we might of had "Night of the Living AIDS Victims" with zombified homosexual men hell bent on spreading a disease. I'm guessing that Reagan would have exec produced.
In summary, Roth's latest picture's incredible lack of plot or originality is the least of its sins. The greatest sin of them all is that I'd be willing to bet this steaming pile knocked more than one superior project off track for release.