The most effective horror movie I have ever seen

Rating: 9/10 (26 August 2008)

There are a few things I love about this movie, and most of them are pretty unusual. Probably the thing I love most about it is the fact that so many people hate it; if you speak the words "Hostel" and "Eli Roth" in the same sentence, so many people crap on about how it is the worst movie ever, it's disgusting, its repulsive, I never want to see it again, and so forth.
The funny thing about that is, in going on about how disgusting it all is, they're just pointing out what is so good about it. This is a genuinely effective horror film, and the fact that so many people in this day and age are disgusted by it proves that there hasn't been a horror movie nearly as effective as this in years. The fact is that these days, people aren't used to seeing a horror movie that actually does what a horror movie is meant to do, so when they see something like Hostel, they can't take it.
Another thing I love about it is why it is so effective. Think about Hostel in comparison to other similar films. The example I'm thinking of is Saw 3, because it came out around the same time. Saw 3 is a significantly more violent film than Hostel, yet it doesn't have anywhere near the impact that Hostel does. This is because it relies on straight blood and gore to get it from point A to point B (point A being calm audience, point B being audience going "ew" on regular occasions). Hostel, however, plays on our biological urges to intensify the feeling of horror. Many people describe this film as "part pornography, part gornography". Its pretty accurate description, because the first half of the film does have a lot of nudity and sex. Many people call this gratuitous and pointless - how wrong they are. They obviously haven't thought about the fact that the purpose of pornography is sexual excitement. Hostel is about human beings getting excited by the idea of hurting each other, so when the second half of the film portrays graphic violence and the first half portrays soft pornography, the result is that by the end of the film the viewer is left all the more horrified by the violent second half because not only was it disturbing by itself, it is all the more disturbing that the violence appeared almost attractive.
I will also just say that when I say the violence is "graphic", ignore anyone who says that this is a film based on violence. It's not. Certainly it is a violent film, but it is not an hour and a half of non-stop butchery.
Another thing that is great about this film is the setting. The fact that the main characters are backpackers in Europe makes them appear all the more vulnerable, and I love that the film is almost like a light comedy until they wake up and one of them has disappeared. There's that unsettling feeling of not knowing what has happened and having no way to find out what happened. And the hostel itself, which was initially a fairly warm and comforting if still apparently weird place, suddenly seems like a claustrophobic, inescapable prison. Furthermore, by the end it feels like everyone everywhere is an enemy, and there's just nowhere to go.
The character development in Hostel is also superb. The contrast between the character of Paxton at the start and end of the film is startling. He begins as just another young man in Europe following his sexual urges around, and I don't want to give away how the film ends, but lets just say he's a long way from where he started, and the transition is completely natural.
I could probably go on for a lot longer, but the most important thing I can tell you about Hostel is to ignore anything you've been told about (except, hopefully, this review). If you're a fan of horror, do yourself a favour and sit down and see its best entry in many many years. If you don't want to be genuinely affected, steer clear.