The hostel is to a hotel as Dr. Mengele's lab is to home

Rating: 7/10 (7 August 2006)

After seeing Cabin Fever and falling into a healing coma after-wards, I was quite skeptical of this much hyped Eli Roth movie. Hostel, while not perfect, is still better than Cabin Fever.
Two American 20-something males are on a backpacking tour of Europe. On the way, they pick up an Icelandic male. These are not sympathetic characters. You could be quite happy "taking care" of them yourself (think of the typical AMS Heineken tour group). The triumvirate is fully stocked with clichéd characters : the crazy and wild foreigner; the uptight guy (a.k.a - Mike); the R-rated guy you're not so sure about (Trent). The movie starts out with all three of them arriving in Amsterdam with their quest being the search for weed/drugs and sex. After doing the standard Amsterdam thing (smoke lots of weed, go to clubs, smoke more weed, go to red light district, smoke more weed), they resolve to get to the final quest. On the same night they are kicked out of a club, they are locked out of their hostel. It is there that they are introduced to another traveler, a young Russian. He shows and tells about a hostel outside of Bratislava, Slovakia that boasts the hottest women willing to do anything, especially foreigners. This hostel ,mind you, is not located on any map and can be found only with a broken compass. I'm sorry, wrong movie.
They predictably detour their next destination from Barcelona to Bratislava. On the train they meet a creepy Edward Salad-Hands. Arriving at the hostel, they discover truth in advertising. The next morning, the Icelander disappears. While out and about, creepy salad hands shows up again. This is when things take a turn (I would time this about 40 minutes into the movie).
The remainder of the movie is a veritable butcher's shop filled with graphic mutilations, but little reason to the carnage. Eli uses a few techniques to keep us off balanced and uncomfortable. Initially he distracts us by showing us lots of breasts and skin, and a general light fare. He then turns to techniques such as : creepy whistling (think Daryll Hannah from Kill Bill), the first person eye-hole view, scenes of utter darkness, the foreigners with their respective languages (non-subtitles), yellow puss, and lots and lots of blood. He seems to be feeding off our fears. The fear of not being on your home turf, of not knowing the language and customs of foreigners, and the fear of being hunted. Some of the scenes are reminiscent of Pet Cemetery (a.k.a - the death of Herman Munster), the end of Wonderland, House of 1000 Corpses, the Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Ichi the Killer. For a little genre flavor Takashi Miike makes a cameo appearance and even has a few words to say.
Ultimately, once the plot is revealed, I felt somewhat disappointed. It wasn't enough to ruin the movie, but I couldn't get the image of Rutger Hauer hunting Ice-T out of my head. I think I was enjoying the devastation of really annoying and obnoxious characters (i.e. - like seeing a politician being tortured). The plot seems to be a modern, gruesome adaptation of the Most Dangerous Game, minus any "noble reasoning". I would definitely recommend this movie for fans of the horror genre. Please skip Cabin Fever. Hopefully part two explains a bit more of the background, without delving into the realm of Saw 2 or reverting to Cabin Fever quality (btw, I am not holding out hope. It will probably suck). It really is too bad that the Slovakian tourism had to take a hit for this movie to be made, but I guess it's worth it.