Hostel

Rating: 4/10 (15 August 2006)

It had been a few years since I saw this film, following on from Saw and Saw II, continuing the "torture porn" or "gorno" subgenre in a way, I knew I had to watch it again for a proper opinion, directed by Eli Roth (Cabin Fever). Basically American college students Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson) are backpacking across Europe with their Icelandic friend Óli (Eyþór Guðjónsson). They are in Amsterdam and get locked out of their youth hostel, they meet Alexei (Lubomír Bukový), he tells them about a hostel in Bratislava, Slovakia, filled with beautiful European women who love tourists, they are convinced to travel to this place. As soon as they get there the boys start having the time of their lives, they are indeed surrounded by hot, promiscuous and sexy girls, including Natalya (Barbara Nedeljáková) and Svetlana (Jana Kaderabkova) from Czechoslovakia, they indulge in many sessions of heavy drinking and sex. But soon after the boys learn of the hostel's dark secret, one by one they are taken to an underground surgery, run by a sadistic group who call themselves the Elite Hunting, The Dutch Businessman (Jan Vlasák), who they met earlier, is the psycho in charge. Óli is first to disappear, the boys do not think anything serious about it, but then Josh is next to vanish, Paxton knows this is out of character and is desperate to know where his friend has got to. Eventually Paxton is kidnapped and falls victim to the torture, his fingers are removed by the deranged surgeon, however he manages to break his restraints and slowly makes his way out. Before escaping Paxton finds business clothes, he is mistaken as a customer for body parts by an American client (Rick Hoffman), but he gets away, he also finds Japanese girl Kana (Jennifer Lim) along the way, but she commits suicide after seeing a reflection of her mutilated face. In the end Paxton boards a train, but then he overhears the voice of the businessman, he follows him into a toilet, grabs his hand to cut off his fingers, nearly drowns him in the toilet and finally lets the man see his reflection before his throat is slit, Paxton then leaves on another train. Also starring Takashi Miike as Japanese Client, Petr Janis as The German Surgeon and Eli Roth as American Stoner. It takes a while to get to any threatening stuff, it certainly grabs your attention when it gets there, with characters cut up, their limbs and insides removed, and the amount of blood going everywhere, but that is all that is memorable really, the story is a bit predictable and does not maintain its atmosphere, all in all a slightly disappointing horror. Okay!