The tagline says it all...

Rating: 3/10 (28 February 2007)

"Welcome to your worst nightmare." This movie really is a nightmarenot in a good way so much. I was really amped (especially after I found out QT was attached) to see this movie when it came out and had expected to see it in theaters. Unfortunately I was out of state when all my friends went and really didn't feel like going by myself. So, I waited a while to see it after hearing mixed reviews. Whenever I hear mixed review about a movie I try going into it with an open mind, as I did on this occasion.
I'm not a big Eli Roth fan, but I feel like his heart is in the right place. He is really just a great fan of the horror genre and feels like he can deliver a pop horror that everyone will love by using the formula he knows and loves. He has now proved that he doesn't have the film vocabulary to express his views. There is a gross lack of anything that resembles character developmentbut there are boobieswhich is really no consolation at all. If you love soft-core porn then you will love Hostel. However you better finish up quick or else you'll lose whatever erection you have to the completely unnecessary sh#t that the second half of the film is comprised of.
While the violence is "new" and "stylized", that really doesn't amount to much in the end. You feel no other connection to the character during their prolonged deaths save that you feel their emotional pain. But you are generally complacent about the deaths otherwise. It makes me sad that movies like these are regarded as art now a days. I feel sorry for Roth in that I think he is really destroying a genre of film that he truly devoted to.
I hope that Roth will look at the movies that he loved when horror was great and maybe channel a little more "Evil Dead" or the first "Nightmare on Elm Street" into his movies. I want to be scared by a combination of great story (maybe even some good dialog if it's not too much to ask) and brutal visuals, but the last without the first is what we're dealing with here.
A less then o.k. 3/10