Is Eli Roth a jackass, or is it just his characters?

Rating: 3/10 (8 February 2006)

Eli Roth is either a satirist with an amazing poker face, or 12 years old. The man responsible for the execrable "Cabin Fever" is back now with "Hostel," another Dead Teenager movie. While the thought of anyone enjoying any aspect of the stinky "Cabin Fever" made one weep for the species, "Hostel" is a notch or two above that moist pile of rankness. Yet it's still an ugly, ugly movie.
First off, what is it with Roth and the "gay" epithets? He populated his first film with smarmy rich kids who called each other "gay" with every other breath, as if 1987 (indeed a fine year) had never ended. Now here's "Hostel," with its dopey frat types backpacking through Europe, dropping the casual g-bomb like it's gone out of style. A memo to Roth: IT HAS. As in "Cabin Fever," Roth has presented us with such loathsome characters that we're almost glad to see them get what he has in store for them. "Hostel"'s young jerkoffs seem like the types to take such a clichéd coming of age trip just to prove their masculinity to their brothers back home. I'm beginning to form a picture of Roth as a once-persecuted bookworm made good, who now can get back at all his childhood bullies and their "gay" taunts in multiplexes nationwide. I really hope I'm onto something, as the alternative implies that Roth is simply as retarded as his characters.
But anyway, there's a movie here. Our two young homophobes are Finding Themselves on a tour of the whorehouses of Europe, along with a giddy Icelandic drifter who would likely be played by Peter Stormare in an older, and much better, film. A guy in their hostel in Amsterdam quickly pegs them for the dumb f**ks they are and tells them about a joint in Bratislava; "girls you won't believe," "will do anything," "love Americans," etc. Of course they're on the next train, and find themselves in the titular hostel, which is conveniently populated exclusively with young, nubile women of the type normally found online. The DKE brothers are beside themselves, doing everything short of shouting "boobies!" outright (and I can't even be sure that doesn't happen at some point). Drinks are laced, and the Greeks find themselves in one of those dank, wet movie basements in which the only thing not covered in grime is the glistening row of saws, drills, scalpels, and other instruments that are generally preceded with a stern call of "nurse" Turns out one can still play the Most Dangerous Game in Slovakia, except the rules have evolved so that the prey is now handcuffed to a chair. I can't wish these gory punishments doled out by the unfeeling rich on anyone, but Roth really seems to dislike his characters, and wants us to as well. If that's the case, he has a lot of bottled up anger to deal with. If not, he's simply a sadist. Either way, "Hostel" is cloaked in a weighty unpleasantness that makes it hard to enjoy its few nice touches.
Roth occasionally flirts with statement-making in "Hostel." In his pay-to-torture men's club, taking one's aggression out on an internationally-despised American will cost considerably more than hacking up, say, a Russian or European. The idea of the socially numb elite dropping mad coin to slice people up just to feel something echoes, well, all of "Fight Club." Roth has some pretty usable material here, but is more interested in icky shock thrills than social commentary. By the end, our lucky survivor has gotten revenge on a character he couldn't possibly have known was involved, and we wonder exactly what is the point of "Hostel." It can be summed up in two of the film's favorite terms (after "gay"): "jugs!" and "ahhhgh!"