Too Silly to Scare

Rating: 5/10 (7 January 2006)

Just to be on the safe side, I'll acknowledge that parts of this review might spoil the film for anyone who hasn't 1) seen the previews or 2) read any of the major reviews. Everyone else should be able to proceed with confidence.
Based on IMDb message boards and various reviews, I'd guess that HOSTEL is supposed to be controversial; some have even applied the label "exploitation film" to it. There are a few disturbing moments--the previews allude to at least one involving a toe and some pliers, if I remember correctly--but the movie didn't scare me, or even gross me out, that much. More than content (which is of course disturbing), I'd say that this is a matter of timing and the balance between humor and horror. As with his film CABIN FEVER, Roth indulges in a lot of silliness. The beginning sequence of exposition (which is rather long) establishes a goofy tone that I don't think the balance of the film effectively subverts. In fact, while I'm no prude, I found the overt sexuality of the movie's first half perhaps its most disquieting element--not because the characters are indulging in it (and in fact, I think their weaknesses are critical to what eventually befalls them, a pretty class move), but because the director is so clearly indulging in it. I think he'd claim some higher artistic merit, too, which is the maddening part. (Not T&A in general. Horror films and T&A generally go together, right?) Now for the torture sequences. Sometimes Roth puts it all out there for you, and yes, there's gore--nothing particularly new, though; the HELLRAISER movies of my childhood were much worse, I think. Sometimes he plays coy and darts away, which is perhaps a relief but also irritating. What he fails to do, though, is offer any of that slow, unbearable suspense or slap-in-the-face surprise that has distinguished earlier horror films. (Even CABIN FEVER--I'm thinking here of the scene when it's revealed what the dog did to that girl's face.) The film is both breakneck in its pacing (again, once you get past all of that set-up) and completely predictable. You know which characters are going to do bad things later on as soon as you meet them. You know what that unfortunate, disfigured girl is going to do before she does. And so on.