Very little to like

Rating: 2/10 (28 February 2006)

I have watched some of the horror movies that have come out this past year, and most of the time i have been tragically disappointed with what i've seen. Watered-down remakes of Asian horror films mixed with even worse remakes of Hollywood-ditto. And on top of that we have absolute crap like "Skeleton Key", not a remake but still lacking all kinds of creativity and fresh ideas.
One of the movies i did in fact enjoy somewhat was "SAW". And when i read what was written about "Hostel" it seemed this would be something similar. But i think that it's pretty far from it. While "SAW" was no real masterpiece as such, it did have a couple of nice touches. It was fairly original and most of all it had a definite touch of evil ingenuity to it that gave a certain touch to all of the unpleasantness. I found that touch sorely lacking in "Hostel".
This movie starts out like a college-movie. Three guys in Europe enjoying legal drugs and loose women. Then they hear of a hostel in Slovakia where the women are apparently insanely beautiful and willing, and they love Americans. Too good to be true? Of course it is, this is a horror movie after all.
It seems to me director Eli Roth really went above and beyond trying to create as many disgusting effects as possible in this movie. And in that respect at least, "Hostel" was a success. But all the blood in the world, nor a shallow ending trying to make some sort of commentary about human nature, can't save a movie that lacks style as well as substance. Without either a sense of humor or a distinct message in all the carnage it's just blood, and blood in itself is not very interesting. I guess there is a huge crowd loving movies like this one and maybe i'm just not one of those people who can appreciate this kind of unpleasantness. Because when the movie ended i found very little to like or be impressed with.