Good but not great...

Rating: 6/10 (9 January 2006)

After waiting for some time with much anticipation for the Tarantino/Roth horror film, "Hostel" finally made it's way to my local cinema. After an assembly of ridiculously bad horror previews, the film finally came up and I eased back in my chair. The film's first half or so was albeit, not horror in any way shape or form, and more so was a closer relative to a National Lampoon sex romp. The three main actors were thankfully enough, good at who and what they were trying to emulate: horny, college grads who want sex and drugs...but they were funny and occasionally kind of down to earth.
Eli Roth did a fair job of setting up the story, though i felt it took a little long for a horror film. As great a storyteller Miike is, and as much as Roth adores him, I would've figured the film to have an overall creepy quality, but alas no. The music was well done, especially when the horror comes crashing in, and the direction was pretty good, showing us a good amount of gore, and then a good amount for us to leave to our sick imaginations.
My only complaint about the film was the tiresome nudity and sex, teens will love it, as will college students, but it gets old fast. I never knew Roth relied on such frivolities to make a film move along, then again "Cabin Fever" did the exact same thing.
The latter half of the film was very good, and occasionally bordered on the awesome. I wish there was more gore, though there was some, and I was hoping to get more glimpses into the other rooms that lined the slaughterhouse. The best scenes were easily inside this "factory" and if the whole movie was set up faster for more time inside the "farm," this movie would've been great, and not just good.