It’s
sick, it’s twisted, it’s perverted, and it’s warped.
And that’s just writer/director Eli Roth’s imagination.
While I don’t quite wanna join him on the trip he’s clearly
on, I will say it’s entertaining to watch him at his highest.
Where his debut Cabin Fever
was a blatantly unapologetic dark comedy, his latest switches a prop
department plastic knife and trades it in for a razor-sharp
butcher’s knife.
And boy does it stick it in!
Immersed with blood, gore, nudity, drugs and anything else mumma doesn’t want to know about, Hostel
is Roth’s tribute to the vomit-inducing horror classics of
yesteryear. Quentin Tarantino loved the idea - based on true stories
discovered by Roth and Aint it Cool News’ Harry Knowles - and as
such, lent his credentials to the film. If that’s not going to
get young bucks into the film, then the goosebumpy synopsis might.
Three
ridiculously-horny youngsters, backpacking through Europe, book in at a
Slovakian city hostel that immediately meets their requirements:
comfort, neighbouring disco and drinks, but most of all, naked women
just wandering around beseeching a good spankin’.
Of
course, they’re being played. Seems these buxom beauties have
already sold the lads to a local firm that gives folks the chance to
chop up Americans. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter so much that they
didn’t use protection...
If there’s one thing you
can say about Eli Roth’s films, it’s that they’re
wickedly entertaining. You’ll cringe, you’ll laugh, and
you’ll smirk and most of all you'll feel as if you’ve just
been given a good time, every time. He’s a filmmaker who is
making movies that he loved growing up, and they weren’t the ones
that especially appealed to the voting members of the Academy.
Hostel
- as if you haven’t heard already - is quite disturbing at times,
but it’s more of a ‘what you don’t see’
situation that plays on your fears. You’ll hear their shrieks,
you’ll see the blood splatter…but you don’t get a
zoom-in on anything slice or dice. Well, besides one good ‘eye
popper’ of a scene.
It’s not as ‘enjoyable’ as Cabin Fever
per se, but it has enough ingredients to make a tasty, well-blended
cocktail of horror that blood buffs won’t need a straw to sip
down. Hostel is 4 star accommodation - complete with complimentary continental chills.
3.5 out of 5
Hostel
Australian release: Thursday 23rd of February, 2006.
Cast:Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Barbara Nedeljakova, Jana Kaderabkova, Eythor Gudjonsson. Director: Eli Roth.
Website:Click
here.
