Basically, Its Saw Without The Brains

Rating: 4/10 (10 January 2011)

Hostel is a film that appealed to me for two reasons. Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino. Roth make a big hit with Cabin Fever, and I was really interested to see what he would do next. Also, I am a huge Tarantino fan, so if when I saw his name on the poster as the producer, I knew I had to see it. I expected there to be strong gore, which there was. The problem is thats all there was.
The first half of Hostel feels a bit like American Pie abroad. We have a group of male Americans who are travelling across Europe hoping to strike it lucky with the ladies along the way. However, one by one they disappear and end up in an abandoned warehouse where they end up being horrifically tortured.
Eli Roth is a fantastic director and whilst watching the film, you can tell that he has put time and effort into the film. He is a better director then a script writer, as the script and story let the film down. It is hard not to compare Hostel to the first Saw film as that set the standard for the so called "torture porn genre". What made Saw so great was the involvement with the characters. We didn't know who the killer was, we learnt more about the characters as the film continued, the gore and horror was more suggestive then in your face and most importantly the twist all worked. Hostel is all style and no substance which is a big disappointment.
The gore is very graphic and disgusting which is great, but a good horror film needs more then just terrible images. A good horror film needs to take the audience and put them through the struggles of the characters and feel the tension and suspense in the film. In Hostel, I found my self left out of the film and just a spectator to torture and gore. Eli Roth, you have a great talent as a horror film maker, so please make a great horror film thats not just all style, but some depth as well. Tarantino said in an interview that he thought Roth was "The future of horror". Well Quenten, I am not seeing any signs of that yet.