It's either a severely mis-advertised comedy or a terrible horror film - but I will admit I was entertained

Rating: 5/10 (26 June 2006)

I still can't decide whether "Hostel" is a mis-marketed comedy or a terrible excuse for a horror film. It's no surprise Quentin Tarantino produced it - he loved "Wolf Creek," which was also very gory - but "Wolf Creek" was scary and well-made whereas "Hostel" was cheesy, humorous and so unbelievably over-the-top I didn't know whether to laugh or be afraid.
I had heard people talking about the excessive gore - but it's all goofy. The girl with her eyeball hanging out looks like she has a cheap '80s monster movie effect glued to her. A few parts made me cringe in anticipation, because I _thought_ something gruesome was going to happen - but it always turned out being more funny than anything.
Some critics said it's a satire of American tourism. I doubt it. I don't think Eli Roth is that smart. I think he wanted to make something fairly tongue-in-cheek while at the same time satisfying his lust for blood. (He loves blood in horror movies - check out his list of favorites or his previous film, "Cabin Fever," which is what attracted QT to producing this movie.) The first hour is a teen sex comedy with three guys (Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson and Eythor Gudjonsson) traveling to Europe to experience a good time. They visit seedy Dutch locales and see loads of American tourists ("Are there even any Dutch people here?!"), then travel farther east and wind up going to a hostel where they share a room with two hot, constantly-naked babes who apparently are unaware of the material we would refer to as "clothing." This is where I began to feel my intelligence become gradually insulted. Was Roth satirizing American stereotypes of Eastern-European countries? Was he satirizing the horror genre's gratuitous nudity? Or was he just buying time to get to the blood n' guts and figured he'd fill up the running time by getting some really gorgeous women naked on set for the hell of it? I think it was probably the last one.
After all the random nudity, sex and American machismo, the movie suddenly veers into "horror" territory by showing weird Slovakian perverts slicing n' dicing American tourists for their sick pleasure. Uh, yeah! I forgot to mention something: this film purports to be based on "a true story." Riiiight. (According to Roth, he saw a mysterious website once - that he strangely hasn't seen again since - advertising a similar experience for paying customers. I think perhaps Mr. Roth was smoking something at the time, but we'll never know, I guess.) The rest of the movie is pointless to divulge any further into. Suffice to say, if you like really cheesy movies that rely solely on gratuitous violence to scare you, this will be right up your alley.
Personally, I didn't find it scary at all. The beginning - the sex stuff - is scarier than the actual violence later on because it has atmosphere and an air of anticipation - you know something bad is going to happen. And the movie works best in this mode. Once it starts exploiting the torture and violence, it just becomes laughable and predictable. And then, of course, we get the stereotypical hero who is too stupid to realize that if he escapes alone he can send back help for ALL the people rather than risk his life to go back into the hostel to rescue ONE person.
Eh, what does he know, anyway. Dumb American tourist. (See - I can make fun of tourists like Mr. Roth, too!)