Dark genius that's unfortunately destined to be ruined by idiots.

Rating: 9/10 (26 March 2006)

I can't help feeling that Hostel is going to become the Clockwork Orange of my generation. What I mean by that is a movie that provides a genuinely original narrative told in a daring fashion that's seen as a cheap 'sex and violence' flick by everyone who either didn't have the balls to see it or had the balls to get in the cinema but didn't have the stomach for it once they were in.
Firstly some cold hard facts: There is less nudity in Hostel than there is in Shredder, Detour or Bloody Murder, or any 80s or 70s horror you care to mention. There is also far less violence than there is in High Tension, Creep or Dog Soldiers. Also, the nudity and the violence are part and parcel of the continuation of the plot line, not gratuitous and pointless as some have continuously harped on about. The nudity in the first half-hour is A: Used as a device to display the differences between the three main characters, and to set up Paxon as a character who steadily becomes more aware of where his bachelor habits have got him, B: Initiated by unscrupulous characters in order to manipulate the three weak-willed males into a false sense of security.
In a similar fashion the violence (of which there is at a stretch about five minutes of on-screen, not exactly a lot when you consider that Friday the 13th Part 6 has a total of 21 on screen deaths in it's 80 or so minutes) is used sparingly to flesh out the initially unseen horror you can feel creeping up on the cast, and to provide those all-important scares that a horror requires. To be honest, the most frightening thing is that Eli Roth manages to make the killers both worryingly real and believable as people. These are not knife-wielding zombies with vendettas, they're accountants, doctors...lawyers lol. Scary stuff.
That said, Hostel is intense, uncomfortable viewing. I would never make the ridiculous claim that this is an easy film to watch. Hostel generates an atmosphere of dread and tension that you could cut with a knife, taking the morbid and inescapable feel of Roth's earlier Cabin Fever all the way up to 11. It's a hard, tough watch that'll leave you gasping for air afterwards, and I have to honestly say I've never been this on edge during a movie since Seven.
Really, this is a movie that needs to be watched with an open mind and preferably an understanding of the horror genre. It's a morbid, downbeat and disturbing terror-ride, and it won't be for everyone, but I implore people not to make their mind up before you see it. It IS shocking, it is violent, but it's also intelligent and cultured, a film made by a film-maker, not a film made by committee, and it needs recognition as such.
On a final note, everyone who says this movie is sexist can shove that where the sun does not shed light. You need to look at the first act again and get it through your dumb skull that the two Russian girls are in the pay of the 'Extreme Hunters' to entice backpackers to their death. You also must have missed the fact that Paxton goes back to save his Japanese friend instead of leaving her. Also, true fact, I went to see this with my friend who isn't particularly big on gore films or indie horror, preferring things like Team America, Matrix and the like, and she really dug it. Oh, and the theatre was 50/50 girls and boys, so shove it. Really, get off your damn high horse.