This morning a 23 year old guy passed out watching it and when the ushers went through the theatre they found a lot of untouched food and drinks...
As film conceits go, this one, is um, different: Three young sex-crazy guys traveling through Europe end up in Amsterdam, where they can't get any action to save their lives. A greasy local flashes some cell phone pics of three-ways with buxom Eastern European chicks and points the way to a youth hostel in Slovakia. There, they are assured, the women are willing and the men are missing. (The war, and all, such a pity.) At the hostel, they are told, good times are guaranteed to be had by all.
But the greasy guy neglects to tell them that the hostel is actually a roach motel for bawdy backpackers: Here folks check in . . . but they don't check out! We soon learn that the management supplies gullible guys 'n' girls to an "art exhibit" in an empty warehouse where rich businessmen from around the world fork over thousands of dollars for the pleasure of torturing and then -- very slowly -- killing the pretty young people.
There's a reason why one goes to see cinematic gorefests like "Hostel," the latest offering to come out of the Tarantino camp of camp: to partake vicariously of the bloodfest, to get hopped up on the sickness of it all, the utter degradation, the fall of Western Civilization, yadda yadda yadda, and oh yeah, to hoot at the flying fingers, the guts, the blood, the bare breasts. Yes, our hero, in making his getaway, really does run over the Bad Girl and then back up and run over her again. (And yes, at the screening we attended, the audience really does hoot and holler with approval as he does so.)
You can make the argument, as some have with Tarantino (he executive-produced the film, which was written and directed by Eli Noth), that the gore itself becomes art, a la Japanese martial arts films where the carnage becomes an abstract, a toy to play with while making pretty pictures, all's fair in love and art. We're not particularly fond of that argument, having spent the duration of both "Kill Bill" movies with hands over eyes.
High art, this isn't. We can say this, however: It does what it does well. You won't be bored. You will be grossed out. Even if you like that type of thing. You could argue that, by portraying rich yuppies paying to sate their lust for gore, Noth is sending up American greed and sense of entitlement. Arguing that would be a waste of time. "Hostel" ain't that deep.
Noth builds suspense slowly, spending a good amount of time on the hedonistic forays of the three main characters, Paxton (Jay Hernandez), Josh (Derek Richardson) and Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), though character development is given exceedingly short shrift. We get that Josh is a writer (read: sensitive ) who just broke up with his college girlfriend and is so over it. Really , he's fine. Oli's a little older, and he comes from Iceland. Or maybe it's Israel; the film isn't so clear on this. And the California-born and -bred Paxton, who looks as Chicano-boy-next-door as they come, at one crucial moment, inexplicably claims he's not American and then breaks out in native-sounding German (or is it Dutch?). We never learn why.
Who cares about such trifles when there are bodies to be butchered!
Paxton, Oli and, to a lesser degree, Josh want one thing, and one thing only: sex. (They use another word for it.) And they'll pretty much do anything for it, even hopping a train through Eastern Europe where they share a car with a creepy guy who rubs Josh's thigh and eats salad with his hands.
"I'm a meat eater," he enthuses.
(This is called foreshadowing, people. Because you just know that they will see Creepy Train Guy again.)
They're weirded out, but they soon forget all about the thigh-rubbing-and-eating-with-hands thing once they arrive at the hostel, where "Pulp Fiction" is playing in the lobby and where booking a "semi-private room" means bunking with beauteous accented babes who seem to have misplaced their blouses.
"We're never gonna leave here," crows one of the horny guys.
Truer words have never been spoken.
Bwaaaaahahahahahaha . . .
Hostel (95 minutes, at area theaters) is rated R for brutal scenes of torture and violence, strong sexual content, profanity and drug use.
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SOME SPOILERS:
My manager had to screen it to make sure the video was okay...
The first half hour is like a ****o. There's a part where they cut up a guy with a chainsaw, pull body parts out, and in the last scene melt a girl's face.