awesome

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2006)

i don't even know where to begin. HOSTEL is, in short, a great idea that is revealed slowly with a lot of nudity and humor along the way. Eli Roth knows how to film breasts just as well as he does gore and horror. but is this a horror movie? it reminded me of THE WICKER MAN in that the first half and the second half were so radically different and instead of being scared i was more physiologically invested in the characters and scenarios than anything else. the 3 males are all likable and your standard frat guys which is important to make this a universal 'this could be you' situation. for all the 'this should be nc-17' talk i was hearing, it really wasn't that bad - and the torture scenes weren't as gratuitous as i had been led to believe. the 95 minutes felt much more full and structured than recent outings like SAW II and i, like most the audience, clapped when it came time for the movie to end on a note of revenge - THE American WAY! i came to get shocked and i left shocked at how good the film actually was. very respectable to its genre while paving new way for the future.