A Disappointing 'horror' film that has its moments and its gore but nothing much else.

Rating: 5/10 (17 January 2007)

The general feeling I got after seeing this film was that it was split into three different segments, or thirds. The first third was something out of a teen comedy film; resembling something such as 'American Pie' or 'Eurotrip'. The second third was the gory part; with the film relying on violence and shocking images to see it through with the final third solely guilty of resembling a gritty, criminal revenge film. Although these things were done correctly and the director made the most of the material he had in mind, 'Hostel' was a disappointment overall.
Some things that went well early on included how the film represented women. Going into it in a first viewing, you might feel a little disgusted at the way they are represented as loose and as absolute tramps in comparison to anybody else. Each female character seems to come onto the other male characters very easily and none of them have any problems with any of them seeing them naked despite the fact they don't even know each others names. Although this actually fools you as later on in the film, when a twist involving two of the girls at the hostel in revealed, the general feeling throughout this opening segment is that girls are mere objects whom don't care who they pull or how they do so. Even if the representation is accurate in Amsterdam, you have to doubt whether or not a lot of the happenings in this film actually occurs on holidays or wheather it's just a screenwriter's wild imagination at an attempt to shock a film-going audience.
Another clever piece of film-making was the sole character of Josh. Although relatively unsure throughout the film, nervous even; I feel the audience maps onto him the most. The character is not sure of his surroundings, weary and rather tentative. I feel that any member of the film's target audience watching the film, whom have not been to Amsterdam, might be represented through this character as the surroundings seem new and intimidating for him. Evidence of this can be seen when he is unsure about paying for sex at the brothel whilst his friends jump at the chance and even earlier on in the film when he tries to convince his two accomplices that maybe they should visit a museum or something, instead. This was quite clever and since the first proper death/torture scene is him as the victim, it made it all the more disturbing since the audience may have mapped onto him the most.
Where Hostel goes wrong, apart from its three thirds structure flaw, is suspense and horror. Yes, the second third is 'horrible' but is this really a 'horror film'? There are no jumps, there is no real 'bad guy' monster/villain character and there is nothing uncanny in the film at all; just a bunch of European Patrick Bateman's whom want to let off some steam on young adults. In fact, because of its realism, it's more of a comedy at first, tragedy in the middle and then it ends with revenge, action and drama. We are shown the house of pain too early on when we learn what has happened to Ollie, spoiling the surprise/suspense and to be honest, the film feels like a documentary for most of the opening thirty minutes as we follow these kids around as they smoke drugs and get laid; it's really quite disappointing as the film goes absolutely nowhere. I realise that this was supposed to build up sympathy as we begin to relate to the characters but how can we relate to them (the other two, at least) if we dislike them more and more due to their antics? This is what happens when people think with their balls instead of their brains. In fact, an example of a better build up would be 'Wolf Creek' which is a similar type of film.
Even if the final third is a gripping revenge tale with a good mix of suspense as they try to escape, disturbance as our hero has his conversation with an American torturer and gore as a girl's eye falls out; Hostel in the long run is a very disappointing and poorly structured film with too many incidences of content taking precedence over style.