Justified "hostelity"

Rating: 1/10 (12 November 2009)

I can totally understand all the negative reactions Hostel has received.
The idea behind the movie is just half-good, and for sure nothing revolutionary... It could have been developed much better, but the premise, and the whole unfolding of it, are still deeply rooted in the land of horror/slasher cliché.
But well, in all honesty, a good movie (whatever its genre) doesn't necessarily need to be groundbreaking or innovative to be good. There are many "predictable" movies which are good, okay or just enjoyable for what they are.
Sadly, Hostel fails on that ground too. Let's see how.
1) DULL PLOT: Horny teenagers looking for sex end up in a creepy God forsaken town and get kidnapped and tortured by some sick rich bastards. Wow, color me surprised...
2) CARDBOARD CUT-OUT CHARACTERS: As if the plot wasn't predictable enough, the characters are so unidimensional it's impossible to empathize with them. And even the bad guys are left at the typical "evil for the sake of it" state. Just one, the wannabe surgeon, is given some sort of weak personality and "reason" for his violence.
3) PLOT HOLES GALORE: Sure, it's just a movie, but for a movie which claims to be a true(ish) story, there are just too many plot holes and weak/inconsistent events.
* Let's follow this creepy stranger's advice and leave Amsterdam to go find a fabulous brothel in the middle of Nowhere, Slovakia. Urban Legen anyone?
* The brothel exists indeed, it looks more like a 4 Stars Hotel and it's filled with Centerfold Material who'll sleep with pretty much anyone, for free... In the middle of Slovakian wasteland. No, not suspicious at all.
* A seasoned slaughter apparently can't handle a chainsaw, or stand on a vomit-wet floor.
* No, severed fingers won't be hindering your escape from the "fortress", and you'll look good enough to fool one of the Elite Hunters...
* The bad guys will allow you to escape, with an unknown Asian girl at tow (real heroes don't leave alone), without putting up much of a fight... If I was an Elite Hunter, I'd fill a complaint... For that kind of money, I'd expect a better security service!
* A semi-disfigured girl walking around won't draw attention on you.
* And most important, even with some fingers missing, you won't bleed to death, faint, or experience the slightest distress. And will have enough strength to kill your torturer, after a nice train trip.
5) EURO STEREOTYPE: So, according to this movie, Afghanistan is Disneyland compared to "Slovakia". I don't care if it was a tongue-in-the-cheek portrait of what many Americans think of Eastern Europe... Beautiful women who'll sleep do anyone for a drink, poverty and violence on the streets of dull, grey towns, crooked police, evil foreigners (better if half-Nazis) using the place as a private playground... That idea of Eastern European countries is outdated by like 25 years...
I'll stop there, as such a disaster of a movie doesn't deserve more attention.
Awful plot, awful execution, passable-at-best for the 15 minutes of torture. But not even some decently shot torture scenes can salvage such a train-wreck.
1/10, just because it wasn't possible giving it a lower score