|
 |
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
HOSTEL
Feature Film Review
You can check in…but no one really cares.
by Carlos R Savournin
Imagine a place where you can make the worst of you nightmares come true. Imagine a cold, dark, rank building that, upon entering, you are free to do whatever you want to whomever – and all you have to do is pay a price. Torture your enemy, get revenge on a lover who left you, kill the one person who stands in your way of that promotion…and there is no consequence.
Three young backpackers head to a Slovakian city to find just a place, only they are not the ones doing the paying. Someone has paid to have them picked off – their toes and eyeballs picked off, that is. However, when one of them makes a harrowing escape, the hostel leaves its dark building to track him down and finish the job.
Written and directed by Eli Roth of Cabin Fever fame, Hostel seems to be nothing more than a campy horror flick filled with the obligatory nude scenes and comedic undertones at first. Once the audience is allowed an understanding of how the hostel works, however, the makers of this film rely heavily on the gore factor rather than scare tactics of such films as Saw. The shock isn’t enough to keep the movie afloat, though. Watching as people are grotesquely tortured and killed goes a long way in preventing you from having that next handful of popcorn, and perhaps that was the point of the film; senseless gore. If that was, it succeeded. If the film set out to creep the audience out, it failed miserably and the writer’s guild should have Eli Roth’s card revoked.
The trailer for the film made a point to announce that “Quentin Tarantino Presents…” the film – and when his name shows up as Executive Producer, you can’t help but wonder why he would do this. Still, any Tarantino fan will quickly pick up the nod in his direction the film gives, and it was the one scene that I can remember feeling any excitement about.
The film lacks any real substance and in truth, one never really cares about any of the characters which is a major flaw in any horror flick. Where’s the horror if you don’t care what happens? In the end, you’ll watch the movie simply because you paid the $8 to see it.
With superior being a bright full moon, this movie rates:
© Savournin, 2006
