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| Director
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Eli Roth
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| Starring
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Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson,
Eythor Gudjonsson |
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| The plot of
Hostel |
Three backpackers head to a Slovakian city that
promises to meet their hedonistic expectations,
with no idea of the hell that awaits them. |
Hostel
Review
|
Review by JOHN
ANDERSON:
With a style as high
as its body count -- plus the imprimatur of gore connoisseur
and presenting entity Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino
-- "Hostel" may become something of a classic
among Fangoria magazine's readership, acolytes of George
Romero and audiences who thought "Saw II"
was for babies. Translation to the small screen will
be all but impossible given the rain of corpuscles,
but theatrical and DVD should spur a moderate downpour.
And the aptly termed "director's cut" is all
but inevitable.One of the better looking horror films
of recent vintage, "Hostel," which showed
as a work in progress as a midnighter at the Toronto
Film Festival, begins as a dream and turns into a nightmare.
Two college pals -- Josh (Derek Richardson) and Paxton
(Jay HernandezJay Hernandez) -- are backpacking across
Europe with an Icelander, Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), whom
they met en route, and pull into Amsterdam for a siege
of epic drinking, pot smoking and, hopefully, sex. While
there, they are told they should travel to Bratislava,
where the Slovakian women are crazy about foreigners,
especially Americans. They're just not told how crazy.Writer-director
Eli RothEli Roth's previous entry in the horror genre,
"Cabin Fever," was about young sex-crazed
vacationers attacked by a flesh-eating virus. While
never quite sure whether or not it was a parody of itself,
"Cabin Fever""Cabin Fever" had a
refreshing degree of unhinged gruesomeness. Likewise,
"Hostel."Roth apparently based his film on
a story about a Thai Internet business through which,
for $10,000, one could kill another human being (the
victims being so impoverished they were willing to die
for their heirs)..more..
Review By Tim
Knight:
2006 gets off to a gruesome start with Hostel, Eli Roth's
blood-splattered follow-up to his 2003 sleeper hit,
Cabin Fever. Heavy on the gore but light on bona-fide
scares, this reasonably well-directed piece of schlock
is yet another horror flick about sadists preying upon
clueless twentysomethings—in this case, three
horndog buddies backpacking across Europe. Although
Roth has a flair for creating an atmosphere of nightmarish
dread, he's far less adept at developing sympathetic
characters who talk in anything but "dude-speak."
Of course, Hostel's target audience won't care one whit
about such failings, once the extremely graphic torture
scenes begin. But if explicit bloodletting's not your
idea of quality entertainment, this picture will only
succeed at turning your stomach. Filmed in the Czech
Republic, Hostel stars Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson
as Paxton and Josh, two crass American party boys out
for good times and loose women in Europe. With their
obnoxious Icelandic friend, Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson),
in tow, they hop a train for remote Slovakia, where
they'll supposedly find a hostel filled with wanton,
East European beauties "hot" for Americans.
And sure enough, Paxton and Josh hook up with Natalya
(Barbara Nedeljakova) and Svetlana (Jana Kaderabkova)
within minutes of arriving. But, as all three backpackers
quickly discover, there's a horrific price to pay for
staying in this hostel, where many check in, but few
ever leave..More..
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