The best modern horror film I have seen in years

Rating: 10/10 (26 December 2008)

I have decided to add a comment because I am so shocked and surprised by all the negative reviews that appear on this website. Hostel is quite simply a great story in the classic tradition of horror movies - I can even draw parallels with Hitchcock in the way the atmosphere is created and the story unfolds with the audience guessing all the time. As a 45 year old mum, I am still able to identify with the main characters and whilst I was never a sex tourist, I certainly did the trip to Amsterdam staying in a hostel in the red light district as a teenager. I visited the bars and clubs and got locked out of the hostel one night - the guys are totally believable. I know from my husband's experiences in Amerstam in his youth that young guys definitely go there to experience sex and drugs and live it up before settling down to marriage or college or whatever the normal, humdrum existence has in store for them - I was with them all the way.
Almost every sex scene in this film is suggested, not graphic. Apart from naked breasts and Oli's bare bottom you actually see very little and the fornication is all in the mind. Contrast this to the sex scenes in 'Where the Truth Lies' with Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth which I found so graphic - especially featuring actors with whom I am familiar - that I was unable to watch. The torture scenes as well leave almost everything to the imagination - you see the instruments, you see the blood but you don't really see anything happen. The gore is artistic in the Clive Barker tradition and when the girls talk about an art show, that is truly what the torture scenes amount to. There is a definite parallel between the exhibits in the torture museum and the exhibits the characters become and in my view this kind violence constitutes the art form typified in Barker's Hellraiser.
The pace of the film is break-neck. You are gripped from beginning to end. You can't look away for a second in case you miss an important lead. The film actually feels longer than it is because so much is crammed into such a short space of time. Nothing unnecessary has been retained and everything you see is crucial to the outcome. This is quite simply a beautifully structured, well-acted, artistic and atmospheric film with its roots firmly in a reality we may prefer to ignore. In my view a lot of writers on these pages have completely missed the point.