untitled
HOSTEL
Directed by: Eli
Roth
Internet Movie
Database Entry for full details
GRADE: C+
2005.
Eli
Roth’s new film is an out-and-out gorefest, arriving on the
coattails of the Saw
franchise's box-office returns. Roth’s first feature, Cabin Fever, was a
tight homage to horror classics that devolved in its final act into
absurdity and dark comedy. Here, again, his film changes
course mid-way, but while Cabin
Fever’s change of style was surprising and
effective, Hostel’s
feels sloppy and aimed to please those perpetually dissatisfied teenage
boys.
Two American college students, backpacking through Europe, grow
disillusioned with Amsterdam when they find it overrun with American
frat boys. On a hot tip from a cool piece of Eurotrash, they
haul ass to Eastern Europe in search of loose women and find death
instead. The first two acts seem to be a comment on
Americans' arrogant attitude vis-à-vis the rest of the
world, as well as the exploitation of women – the men treat
women as meat and are literally treated as meat in
return. Then the film collapses into a revenge fantasy that
seems to suggest that men are justified in using women for sex and that when
America gets some blowback from its pernicious policy abroad it
should respond by kicking ass? The sudden appearance of
Roth’s knuckleheaded Weltanschauung causes the
film to fall apart. Up to that point, though, it’s
kinda fun… -- Henry Stewart
--------------
“Good point on Hostel,
henry, and one that I imagine its makers would support: Eli Roth talked
about Takashi Miike's Audition as
being a primary influence on the film and you can certainly see how
that's the case-- the structure (looks like one movie in the first
half, becomes quite another in the second) is the same and the
characters are meted out disproportionate punishment for their
objectifying ways. In Audition,
a man tries to find a new wife by deceiving women into 'auditioning'
for the part; in Hostel,
these sexist Americans in Europe are, as you say, treated like meat in
return.” – Scott Tobias, AV Club
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