Review of Hostel (2011) by Francisco G — 10 May 2013

Eli Roth knows it's horror. It's knowledge on the genre is undeniable but as craftsman he still leaves a lot to be desirable. That knowledge helped a lot on the inception of Hostel: the premise is original, having a bunch of pricks as protagonists was spot-on, treating Europe as a shady place is somewhat questionable but the beating on american culture and consumerism pays of later on.

It's just a shame that the script and dialogues are so poor and drag on for too long. Come on, this is a typical old school video nasty flick, brought to modern audiences with all the best tool availables (Greg Nicotero anyone?), then why the hell have you backed of on the gore so much? Horror fans have flocked to see this one given the awesome promotion it had, sick and twisted posters and frightening premise but all that has kinda been thrown out of the window. The torture scenes work for some extent, because they are tense and leave some to your imagination. The ambiance is well handled and the desperation palpable but we can't really connect too well with these characters all that much. Fortunently, it drops some very dark and twisted humor after the nastiness is introduced that saves the movie to some extent.

The material is there, but it's not handled well. Hostel could've easily been a subversive take on the genre, criticizing it by showing too much nastiness, even by horror fans standards but also, with a polished plot, make it's good ideas work much better and making it's message come across. Like so, it doesn't stand above the rest of the lot.