"That's a nice-a donut."
Friday, July 28, 2006
Hostel (2006)
The makers of Hostel were wise to highlight the involvement of executive producer Quentin Tarantino by proudly stating "Quentin Tarantino presents" all over the promotional posters and other advertisements. It was wise from a business standpoint, of course, because the Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill director brought big name recognition and cachet to the project. But that's where his involvement appears to have ended; or at least anything good that came from it. Because the end result, from director Eli Roth, is a piddling sloppy mess.
It's hard to really know where to start in critiquing a movie like this, as so many pieces should have been changed, cut, added, or just done in a completely different manner. But the plot of the film starts off adequately enough, with plenty of room for promise. Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson) are two American college students backpacking their way through Europe, and Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) is an Icelander who they have befriended along the way. They are using the economical route by taking trains and staying in hostels; it's really a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But it's not so much a life-changing worldly experience, as it is an excuse to party. A stranger on a train informs them of a hostel in Bratislava where they will find many beautiful, horny women. So they head there, and soon enough their nightmares begin.
I was very surprised by how much time is spent before any gore or life-threatening moments were shown. It is a long buildup of the guys just having fun, followed by us wondering, but not really caring too much about what happened to their Icelandic friend. But once it does happen, you wish it hadn't, as any semblance there was of a decent story completely disappears. In Roth's world, a groundbreaking character revelation is something like explaining that they need to get laid so they can have something to remember when one of them is in law school and one is writing a thesis.
The most amazing thing though, is that even the scares and the parts that should be frightening are very weak. Atmosphere and tension that you might expect from a horror film are missing. In their places are double and triple doses of gratuitous nudity (not necessarily a bad thing) and unspeakable gore (not a bad thing either) - but that's all it has going for it. Hostel fails to provide much suspense until the final moments in a semi-thrilling chase sequence that probably seemed thrilling only relative to everything that came before it. Any explanation or reasons for the mayhem are only provided sparingly, and when we do learn about it it's is more of an "eh" rather than "wow." To top things off, one death scene which I presume was intended to be sad and a very dramatic touch was instead rather unintentionally humorous.
When you add it all up, you have a total waste of time. There are several much better "horror" efforts from the last couple years such as Wolf Creek or High Tension. I'd love to see Tarantino eventually direct his own horror film; hopefully it is nothing like this one.
The Verdict: D+.
Michael Bentley 8:46 AM
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