Slicker, more expensive unofficial entry in the GUINEA PIG series

Rating: 6/10 (17 May 2006)

HOSTEL may be effectively horrific to your average moviegoer who has never seen any of the notorious Japanese underground horror/gore GUINEA PIG movies. For those who don't know, these movies are virtually plot less, shot-on-video movies depicting women being tortured, dismembered and murdered.
Writer-director Eli Roth adds a story and snappy Tarantino-ish dialog to this obscure subgenre of extreme horror, but little else. Anyone who's seen more than one of these movies will find nothing in HOSTEL particularly shocking.
That's not to say the movie is entirely ineffective. There are some creepy moments, impressive make-up effects and clever story elements. I thought the trio of guys getting laid and smoking pot for the entire first half of the movie, juxtaposed with the scenes of torture, mutilation and murder during the second half was a clever comment on what constitutes subversive behavior for different classes of people. College aged guys go to Amsterdam, hook up with beautiful girls and get high; older, more socially refined men go to the Ukraine and pay for the privilege of torturing an innocent person to death.
Unfortunately, Roth doesn't do a whole lot with this intriguing set-up, and the movie's final moments fall in to the usual chase and revenge clichés.
Despite its similarity to the GUINEA PIG series, the movie that HOSTEL most reminds me of is Joel Reed's sleazefest BLOODSUCKING FREAKS. In fact, it is, in a way, simply a more elaborate, less misogynistic remake of Reed's movie. Like FREAKS, it also attempts to excuse its outlandish gore by purporting to be a pseudo-hip black comedy. The GUINEA PIG movies, love them or hate them, are what they are. They do not pretend to be anything else but tasteless exercises in extreme gore and sleaze, and do not apologize for it.
Roth doesn't have the courage to go all the way. He backs off, sprinkling the movie with hip, snappy dialog, stereotypical horror movie clichés and creepy music to remind the audience (and himself) it's all make believe, it's not to be taken seriously, it's safe.
If there's one thing to be said for such sickening exercises in extreme horror as GUINEA PIG, MEN BEHIND THE SUN, CANNIBAL FEROX, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and AUGUST UNDERGROUND, it's that they don't make excuses for themselves. They exist to disgust and shock the viewer, nothing more. Roth obviously wanted to make one of these movies himself with HOSTEL. But he doesn't have the stomach to get down there in the cinematic sewer to do it, preferring to keep his hands clean and distance himself from his own subject matter.
You can't pretend to be shameless. Roth tries and fails. Still, HOSTEL is worth a look.