Guest Author - Andy Boxall

Hostel – DVD Review

Director – Eli Roth
Starring Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson.
Region 1, Unrated, Lions Gate
Out Now

What is there to say about this movie that the hype machine hasn’t already said? Described as a rival to Cannibal Holocaust in its brutality, ‘immoral’ by Christian movie reviewers and accused of creating a new horror sub genre; that of ‘gorenography’, Hostel has to be the most anticipated and over-hyped horror movie for many years. Say what you like about Roth, but he knows how to market his film.

The premise is simplicity itself. Two Americans (Paxton and Josh) on a European backpacking holiday join up with a hedonistic Icelander named Oli and go off in search of beautiful euro-babes who want nothing more than to pleasure some annoying Americans. Their search leads them to a remote Eastern European town, where they are abducted and used as torture toys for rich businessmen.

For me the three big horror movies of the last two years were High Tension, Wolf Creek and this one, which unfortunately comes last in the race to be the best. It’s not that Hostel is a bad movie, it’s just it could have been so much more. The whole idea that someone could pay enough money to buy a person to torture and ultimately kill is a scary one and it’s easy to see what attracted Roth to this supposedly based-on-truth premise. But this is only capitalised on in two or three scenes (the torture itself, the gurney journey through the halls for example) and the rest sits dangerously above the cliché threshold.

The first act of the movie contains the few infamous softcore sex scenes, which serve little purpose except to titillate pubescent boys, and also introduce the characters. The Americans are difficult to like with their ‘better than everyone’ attitude which means that in act two, I was cheering on the other guy when they start getting tortured. The third act is formulaic and is a further let down. As for the infamous torture scenes, well, they are certainly sadistic, but gory? No, the editing cuts them down into flashes, rather than the long, lingering looks favoured of the movie this is supposed to rival.

The locations that Roth finds, however, are superb. Czechoslovakia and Prague are rarely used and are suitably unusual to emphasise the other scary part of Hostel, that Paxton and Josh are way out of their league and truly don’t belong in the worlds they are entering. When the bright, multi-coloured beauty of Prague gives way to the blacks, grays and dusty beiges that dominate the second half of the movie in Slovakia, it echoes the shift in the story’s attitude nicely.

It’s not that I didn’t like Hostel, I was just disappointed. If I am honest, I wanted more terror, more insight into Elite Hunting (the gang behind the abductions) and more grit, dirt and squalor. A much bleaker ending would have also redeemed Roth too, as his was way to Hollywood pleasing for such a potentially depressing movie. Hostel is likely to disappear for a while after the hype has died down and when this happens, maybe a revisit or two will make it a better experience.

The Disc

Being a modern movie, Hostel looks great on DVD and is presented in its original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen format. The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 and is uninspiring up until the scenes in the chamber, when the music silences and the sound effects take over. This whole sequence makes great use of the surround channels.

A documentary is featured on the disc and to make it easier to watch, it has been split up into smaller featurettes. This is actually a decent insight into the making of the movie and is happy showing how hands-on Roth was and how small the crew was in comparison to a larger budgeted movie. It is clear from this how much of an egotist Eli Roth actually is and whilst this doesn’t make him unlikable, he can grate after a while.

The same can be said of the four (count ‘em!) commentary tracks featured on the disc. The first is just Roth which is interesting enough, the second is better as if features executive producer Quentin Tarantino who riffs so well with Roth that you can really feel their friendship, the third is Roth and the other producers and the final one is with Roth and Harry Knowles of Aintitcoolnews.com fame. If you have the will to listen to all these in there entirety, you are a better man than me!

Conclusion

The depressing tone and deep underlying menace that is evident in several sequences is unfortunately not exploited competently throughout the film. The Elite Hunters made a terrifying unseen force and deserved a lot more attention than the infrequent, but nonetheless tedious nakedness in the first act. The idea was there, the executive producer, the locations and the marketing was there and yes, even the director was there (I do have faith in Roth), it’s just a shame that the script wasn’t. Watch it for its notoriety and flashes of brilliance, but consider it a missed opportunity.