Chilling quasi-documentary

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2006)

If we are to believe it, HOSTEL may be based on real-life goings-on in Asia, although the director has changed the setting to eastern Europe, a place few American tourists visit. Some backpackers are lured from the relative safety of western Europe to Slovakia on the promise of hot sex. But after the hot sex, they are drugged, tortured and murdered, along with hundreds of others in an old mental asylum refitted as a series of torture rooms in which affluent males from around the world pay heavily to play torturer. Jay Hernandez leads the unlucky backpackers, and the film takes a good 50 minutes before it gets down to business. The suspense is killing, and the last 40 or so minutes is all about killing. The gore and the production values are great, although most of the torture is suggested rather than seen, with terrific sound effects for those things we are not permitted to see. A good thing, too: the few scenes actually showing nasty deeds being done are patently fake, and had us alternately laughing and groaning. SPOILER: Sole survivor Hernandez has a great time avenging his buddies' deaths, and we're right there with him as he gets every last one of them in various, novel ways. You too will be screaming for their blood after you see what they have done.