Surprisingly well made and effective, one of the best new horror movies in YEARS

Rating: 7/10 (6 July 2006)

I'm not going to comment on the plausibility of elements of Hostel's plot, which doesn't really interest me. What's important here is that Eli Roth has made a horror movie that represents a significant step up in style and horror storytelling from the merely okay Cabin Fever, a horror movie that even harks back to the days when quality horror movies were made by auteurs such as John Carpenter and David Cronenberg, intelligent up-and-coming filmmakers with talent, style and vision to burn.
In these days when the horror genre consists of pretty much nothing but lame sequels and even lamer remakes that rarely even achieve basic watchability, it's almost a relief to see a movie like Hostel again. Not because of its unrestrained violence, but first and foremost because it looks and plays throughout like a real movie, with actual characters, interesting and varied settings, genuine atmosphere, steadily mounting tension and an increasingly sinister and threatening sense of mystery. Compare this movie to the hyped-up video game commercials, goofy "concept" garbage like those awful "Saw" movies and soulless spazzy remakes that the studios have been vomiting forth to capture the "horror market" in the past few years, and Hostel almost looks like a Hitchcockian masterpiece in comparison. Of course, in reality, and by any earlier standard of competent film-making, it's not quite THAT good. But it's good enough.