Not half bad, though not as violent as you might think

Rating: 8/10 (11 June 2012)

Although I'm a huge Horror fan, I never really got warm with the whole "torture porn." It was therefore relatively late that I got to see both Saw and Hostel, probably the best known exponents of the genre, and both I only watched them because they are so well known and I wanted to know what everyone was talking about.
I found Saw to be better than I expected, which isn't generally saying much, but at least it didn't suck. As for Hostel, I read somewhere that Eli Roth liked Saw, but found the final "twist" (which I obviously can't talk about) to be silly and unbelievable. A sentiment I strongly agree with, so I had to see this one as well. And I was positively surprised with it, more so than with Saw.
The story is that three backpackers tour Europe in search of women to have sex with, and drugs to consume. The first half hour or so introduces the characters and their motivation, as they get stoned and rent prostitutes in Amsterdam. A slightly creepy Russian dude they meet tells them of a hostel near Bratislava, that doesn't appear in any guide book, and is supposed to be some sort of insider tip for hedonistic travelers. The description entices them enough to cancel their previous plans and travel there immediately. At first it appears to be everything that was promised, as they hook up with beautiful girls and take lots of drugs in a disco, but gradually, the atmosphere becomes more threatening, until the first of their friends disappears.
I won't go into any detail as for the events that follow except that it involves violence and torture, as should be expected from the genre. Both are, however, not too graphic or shocking, especially if you have seen films such as Tokyo Gore Police, or pretty much anything by Takashi Miike (who has a cameo here BTW). A lot of the violent acts are shown in gore discretion shots, which makes you wonder why the camera suddenly pans away if you're familiar with aforementioned films. In the first part of the film, we get treated to lots of gratuitous nudity, even by horror film standards, which my girlfriend didn't like all that much, but as for me personally, things could be worse.
The acting is generally decent, especially considering that there's no big names among the actors. Particularly outstanding was Rick Hoffman as The American Client, as remarked by lots of other reviewers. But I also liked Jan Vlasak as The Dutch Businessman, who was very creepy from the first shot he appeared in. Also, Eli Roth has shown again that he knows how to integrate dark humor and suspenseful horror - a feat that is in no way easy and can fail spectacularly at times. Yes, I'm looking at you Rob Zombie. What ultimately sold me, however, is that he builds up tension and suspense very well, and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end. This is also what mainly sets it apart from Saw, which I found kind of tedious at times. Not to mention the solution to the plot - say what you will about Hostel, it is a lot more believable than Saw's silly twist. On a side note, the beatings Hostel takes while Saw is generally praised makes me think less and less of the cumulative IMDb ratings, and is one of the reasons I wrote this review.
A final word to common points of criticism from other reviewers. Lots of people seem to complain that it wasn't made by Quentin Tarantino. I don't know how they managed to write this in reviews, as they must clearly be illiterate: the movie starts with the words "presented by Quentin Tarantino" followed by "written and directed by Eli Roth." Seriously, have you ever considered how many films and TV shows Alfred Hitchcock "presented" without having anything obvious to do with it? It is a common device in Hollywood. Also, I don't get the complaint by Slowakians. Sure, it is portrayed as a pretty bleak and impoverished place, but who in their right mind would watch Hostel as a source of real world information on Eastern Europe? Roth clearly takes artistic liberties here. Deliverance portrayed inhabitants of Georgia as inbred rapist crackers and you don't hear them endlessly complaining about it.
Ultimately, if you don't buy into the hype and don't expect too much, you will find that you could have spend 90 minutes far worse than watching this. If you squirmed at the violence in Kill Bill, and somehow expected another Tarantino flick, this isn't for you. If you thought Koroshiya Ichii was too tame and hope to see a more violent and gory film, stay with Japanese productions. But if you're looking for a nice, suspenseful horror flick with a small dose of dark humor, and don't mind looking at naked girls in between, this is worth a try.
Final Rating: 7/10 might watch again, but I added a star in the final rating to countermand the plethora of unjustified one star ratings.