Hostel is a cut above (no pun) the level of most modern horror flicks.

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2008)

Hostel is about three young men named Paxton (Jay Hernandez), Josh (Derek Richardson), and the sex-crazed Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson)who take a trip to Amsterdam. While there all their fantasies of sex and drugs are met. But while on a train heading back to their hostel, they meet a strange dutch businessman. He tells them that if they head to Slovakia there is a spot where they can find anything they want, promiscuous girls and drugs beyond their wildest expectations. So the three of them head there and soon realize that the businessman did not lie. Slovakia is like a dream come true for the three of them. However soon one of them goes missing after a night of partying. Neither one of the two understands where he went and are starting to worry. Until finally the tables turn on them, and they are transported to a secret torture chamber. This torture facility is an enormous place where, as it turns out, rich people can pay to act out there sickest murderous desires. Once the people pay they can do whatever kind of torture they want to these kidnapped people. Once the two realize what is happening to them, they struggle to survive and elude recapture within the facility.
Horror movies have become the epitome of crap lately in my opinion. I'm writing this review in 2008, over 2 years after this film was released. But the horror genre has stayed the same since this film's 2006 release. Recently we have been getting boring PG-13 horror flicks that are not scary in the least. As for the R rated horror, some of it is good, but there's a little too much "Saw sequel" for my liking. But Hostel rises above it all because this is one of the most suspenseful horror films in years. The director Eli Roth obviously knows horror like the back of his hand, and it was also very evident with his first movie Cabin Fever, which had a handful of homages to classic horror flicks that inspired him. Hostel overflows with gripping suspense, and a mostly constant impending tension that something bad is lurking right around the corner. One scene I'd like to mention is where one of the three men is trying to elude capture in the torture facility, but ends up being confronted by a psychotic, demented businessman. The businessman asks the guy what it was like to torture a person, and if he got a real good rush from murdering a person. The guy literally doesn't know how to respond to such a wacko, and is frightened by how gung-ho and pumped up this businessman is getting, knowing that in a few minutes he'll be torturing and killing an innocent person. This scene is absorbingly brilliant, and is so well acted and quietly insane that I knew it would be a classic horror movie scene for years to come. There are also a few scenes where the movie becomes half-horror and half-thriller, with finely shot suspense-charged chase sequences.
The movie is basically split into three sections. The first section is basic pornography with gratuitous sex scenes. The second section is purely twisted torture and terror. And the third section is mostly suspense with just a twinge more torture. The one section that works the least, and actually detracts from Hostel, is all the sex scenes. They were laid on (no pun intended) a little too thick, and were mostly just downright unnecessary. Another issue with Hostel is the underdevelopment of the three lead characters. This defect detracted from the experience as well. In my opinion they could have just cut out most of the sex scenes, and put in scenes to develop the characters instead which was much more necessary.
Other than these weaknesses Hostel is a very strong movie with a potent message. The torture scenes are very well done and interestingly shot. They are also much more psychological than gory, which only makes Hostel that much more disturbingly riveting. Whereas Eli Roth's Cabin Fever was just an all-out, no holds barred gore fest. Hostel is more mature and leaves far more to the imagination. But that's not to say Hostel isn't gory, because believe me it is. There are many scenes in the movie that are audaciously violent, and also very cynical and vile. An example is that we see a man's Achilles tendon snipped with a scissor, and I actually just shivered writing that down. There is also another graphic scene where a certain part of someone's face is hanging off after being burned with a Bunsen burner. So if you ask if Hostel is violent or not, now you know the answer is an indefinite yes. However the fact that Hostel isn't an all out gore fest definitely adds to the film's effectiveness.
As a thriller Hostel is good, and as a horror movie Hostel is a cut above the rest of the junk that gets released. The underlying message of Hostel is that many people do have a dark side to them, and actually may desire murder and blood. The parallel showing one man's fight for survival relays the message "kill or be killed" very well. But of course the story had a few flaws, just like any normal horror flick. I give Hostel a 3 out of 4. It is original and rises above the common torture porn standards to deliver a good horror film, with a few classic scenes.