The Bottom Line
Eli Roth's "Hostel" movie is a real gore-o-rama portraying backpacker life as a hedonistic adventure, which it sometimes can be, ending in torture and death, which it usually doesn't. See Hostel if you like misadventures with chainsaws; the movie's also worth seeing for the sheer humor value. If gross is a problem, give this movie a pass, although lighting is so dim that limb amputations are tough to follow in high def detail. Needs tunes, too (Crabbucket!). More about the Hostel movie below.
Pros
- Truly gory flick if that's your thing
- Guest appearance of dubbed "Pulp Fiction" on hostel TV
Cons
- Bad lighting if truly gory flicks are your thing
Description
- Available on DVD April, 2006
- 1 hour 35 minutes
- Eli Roth ("Mothman Prophecies") directs
Guide Review - Hostel Movie Review
In Which Student Travelers Meet With Death and Dismemberment
2005 horror flick "Hostel" is mistyped as a backpacker movie -- it's really just your basic horror movie in which your basic obnoxious business travelers torture backpackers to death for fun in your basic Slovakian hostel basement. Spoiler: in an amazingly unexpected twist, heroic American student traveler escapes after saving Asian gal while American biz traveler is drilling out her eyeballs.
What We Wish
Here's what makes "Hostel" so unbelievable:- The movie's mythical hostel is really nice. The building housing the hostel is gorgeous, which is conceivable, but the interior is awesome, which is unlikely. A shot of a chair depicts unspotted, non-ratty furniture as a hostel possibility.
- Beautiful naked women are often seen in hostel spas. Backpacker lads can dream: gee, wouldn't it be nice if hostels really had spas?
- Gorgeous foreign women buy American backpackers drinks.
Is there a pattern here?
- Hostel breakfasts are amazing spreads.
Yeah. We wish.
What would make Hostel worthy of the Quentin Tarantino association would be some twistedly good tunes (I'd have had the torturing types bop through basement warrens to k-os' "Crabbuckit" -- think dancing while torturing, as depicted in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs).
