4. When a European hottie invites you for a dip in her hot tub you run like Hell.
Okay, that last one didn’t really happen. And if it did, I’d still run--but for personal, marital-related reasons.
Hostel starts off innocently enough. Two American college
students, Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson), are
backpacking their way through Europe, their primary goals appearing to
be hitting the clubs and getting laid. To director Eli Roth’s credit
the film moves along at such an easy pace that if you had not known it
was a horror film you would think you were watching a sequel to Eurotrip. But soon things get weird. While hooking up with an
Icelandian named Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) the greedy, self-indulgent,
ugly Americans are told about a wonderful Slovakian hostel (hotels
designated for low-budget travelers) where the women are beautiful and
very accommodating. Before long, they’re meeting strange men on trains,
mean little boys on the streets, and yes, hot tubbing hotties. And just
like your parents told you, if it’s too good to be true, it probably
is--because something is definitely rotten in Slovakia.
Feeding on half-myths and post-communistic stories of wide scale
corruption, Roth creates a world where every indulgence is
available—for a price. Drugs and sex are easy enough, but the boys soon
find themselves not as tourists, but as commodities themselves to be
sold and “used” by other tourists looking for the ultimate
indulgence—the torture and killing of another human being.
When Oli disappears, the American friends become mildly concerned.
But when Josh vanishes, Paxton’s search leads him to a true house of
horrors. His ensuing adventure offers up some of the most excruciating
and terrifying scenes you can imagine. Just looking at the room full of
tools a “customer” is given to use on his victim is enough to make you
fidget in your seat. But when the tools are used, the fidgeting turns
into a seat-squirming, stomach-wrenching tremor. And at the same time
it’s all things ugly and wonderful about movies.
There’s almost a sense of guilt in enjoying a film like this—as if
witnessing such grotesque and twisted acts can make one equally
twisted. But Hostel isn’t a movie that requires one to act, or even
react. Roth simply wants us to feel. And if being “totally creeped out”
is a legitimate feeling, then Roth succeeds beautifully.
