Hostel

Review

After I finished watching Hostel 'wow' is all I could think to say. This movie is probably the best of the best when it comes to torture porn type movies. This is the first torture porn movie I’ve seen in years and I still don’t feel like Saw (2004) even comes close to this movie. Overall I enjoyed it but holy shit is it hard to watch. I will also say that the second half was much more enjoyable to me than the first half was even if the second half was grosser.

This movie is about a group of three young guys who are backpacking through Europe with the goal of partying a lot and having lots of sex. While they’re in Amsterdam they hear of a slovakian town called Bratislava where girls will do anything for a foreigner when asked. Excited by this prospect the three guys head out that way. Once they get to Bratislava, one by one they get kidnapped and tortured in the town’s main attraction, a den where people can pay to torture others. The movie ends with one of the guys, Paxton, getting out and presumably heading back to America after this traumatizing experience.

The first half of this movie is a little bit of a slog. It’s filled with that mid-2000s objectifying misogyny which is not fun to listen to and it also is filled with a lot of gay jokes and the f-slur. So seeing these misogynistic, homophobic guys partying isn’t necessarily the most fun thing to see. The second half of this movie is a lot more interesting because all of that is dropped for focusing on Paxton escaping which is where I eventually came around to his character and started rooting for him.

As for things that I liked about this movie, I really thought that the setting of the torture dungeon was super cool and scary. The opening credits with the visuals of the dungeon overlaid with a man whistling was such a scary way to open the film and I wish that the rest of the movie had kept up a similar vibe because the opening credits was probably one of my favorite parts of the film. However, no matter what vibe someone is going for, the industrial nature and the tables upon tables of wrenches, pliers and other tools is so scary knowing how many people have been tortured and killed down there.

I also really liked how capable Paxton became when he starts his escape. He was a very smart horror character who was willing to go through anything just as long as it meant that he would survive this whole thing. I personally am a big fan of characters like this which is why I came around to him at the end. Probably the only decision I would disagree with was him going back to save Kana but also if I’m in that situation it would be my life before anyone else’s.

Another thing I really liked was the reveal at the end that all the torturers are just normal people who wanted to come out and have a good time which is so fucked up but so realistic. It just adds another layer to this movie because when you rewatch you know that these are everyday people committing these horrific acts which allows the horror to go beyond the movie as it sparks the question of who in your life would take this opportunity.

And one final positive, I thought the gore in this movie was really well done and disgusting. For one of the original torture porn movies, this movie had a lot less gore than I was expecting. The moment where Paxton cuts off Kana’s eye was so genuinely disgusting, I was watching it with my hands over my eyes which I don’t think I’ve ever done before but it was just too much, I genuinely don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

Now onto the things that I didn’t like that much. Notice how all my positives came from the second half of the movie. Anyways, probably my biggest complaint for this movie is how exploitative the whole film is towards women. I know that that’s kind of the point but it just felt really gross to me and it was not enjoyable to watch.

Another issue I had was the amount of puke in this film. I know it’s realistic but that doesn’t stop it from being gross and I hate puke so it was a no from me.

Overall I would say that I enjoyed this film. The second half of the film really reminded me of American Psycho in terms of the themes and the gore and hey I enjoyed American Psycho so this gets a thumbs up from me. I don’t know if or when I’ll ever go back for a rewatch of this but I’m glad I took the opportunity to watch it once.