Decent buildup, silly final act...

Rating: 5/10 (2 November 2019)

Last night was Halloween, so I knew I needed to watch a horror movie. I went with Hostel, one of the films infamous for helping start the torture porn craze of the 2000s. I guess I'm satisfied, but I have no desire to watch it again, either.
Two Americans are backpacking across Europe with an Icelandic guy they pick up along the way. On a train from The Netherlands to Slovakia, they meet a man who tells them about a hostel with lots of hot girls. Slovakia in this movie is painted as some battered post-communist wasteland. Even in 2005 I doubt literally everyone was driving 80s Eastern block beaters. The first half hour of this film is somewhat meandering and plodding, with a subplot of the shy guy not wanting to get laid that goes nowhere. At least the Icelandic guy is funny.
Unfortunately, the Icelandic guy goes missing, so the other two try to find him. Every fishy character they meet is the most obviously evil looking guy and the ominous music plays, but besides a little cheesiness they build up the mystery pretty well. The cinematography/direction is particularly on point here. When one of the Americans is captured, the first torture scene is surprisingly held back and effective, and that quick shot of the Achilles heels always makes me cringe. The acting is good across the board, with the exception of the final guy/main character Jay Hernandez, who wasn't very convincing IMO. He convinces one of the sketchy girls from the hostel to take him where his friends have gone. He gets captured and tortured, and this is where the film goes off the rails.
In the final act of this movie, the torture scenes are so grotesque and over the top, it crosses the line of being scary or disturbing and starts becoming comical. I'm sure there was some intentional really dark comedy in there, but stuff like the German guy slipping on the ball gag and chainsawing his own leg, and the Japanese girl with her eye hanging out of its socket made me laugh. The implausible stuff our hero does from killing a dozen people to fitting a leather glove over his hand with 2 missing fingers without screaming in pain was also funny to me. On top of that, during his escape, he coincidentally boards the same train the Slovak man from earlier just happens to be on. The revenge deaths are satisfying, I'll give the movie that, but it's all just so, so silly.
Though an enjoyable watch, I don't feel the need to ever see this movie ever again. It has a plodding beginning, decent rising actions, and crazy ending that I found both genuinely and ironically entertaining. Feel free to give it a watch if it seems like your kind of thing, but there are much better slashers and torture porn movies out there.