IN DEFENCE OF: HOSTEL (2005, ROTH)
I remember discussing horror cinema and the classics of the genre with a group of friends prior to Hostel's release. I hadn't known anything about the film, only that it's directed by Eli Roth, who'd previously brought us the delightfully gruesome Cabin Fever in 2002. One particular friend of mine had been reading up on the mysterious film and told me it was going to be the most frightening American films of all time. We went on to chat about the film's premise and how cool it sounded and if the apparent levels of violence would actually be as extreme as reported. Needless to say, by the end of the conversation, I was pumped. Months passed and the film continued to gain notoriety and I just got more and more excited to see it. And then, finally, in March 2006, I snuck into the local Omniplex and caught the film. I loved it (obviously, as it wouldn't be this week's In Defence Of otherwise) but my bubble was almost instantaneously burst by the overwhelming amount of hate the film was receiving off the general public. My friends hated it, the critics had dubbed it 'Torture Porn' and it came to a point that if you loved it people shot you a bewildered look.
Let me first state that I fucking hate the term 'Torture Porn'. It's a ridiculous term coined by critic David Edelstein upon the release of Hostel. The idea that Eli Roth is portraying violence like a sexual act is simple, silly and thoughtless. Comparisons could surely be made in that the point is to terrify you until a climactic release of tension, but Edelstein's theory reeks of someone who was so offended by the film he felt the need to call it out and tag it as a 90-minute sexually-disturbed freak show. If you'd actually watch, you'd see a large portion doesn't contain any violence whatsoever and the 'torture' maybe makes up 15 of the film's 94 minutes. Can you imagine a porn movie where there's only 15 minutes worth of banging?
The film starts out with three friends (two American, one Icelandic) travelling through Amsterdam in search of girls, booze and drugs. When the trio are locked out of the hostel, they meet Alex, a young man who tells them a story about a hostel is Slovakia that has the most beautiful women in the world. This intrigues them (especially as these women are supposedly obsessed with Americans) so they venture onwards to this small town. When they arrive, they meet Svetlana and Natalya, two gorgeous hometown girls that agree to show the boys the sexier side of Slovakia. The next morning, Paxton and Josh awake to find their Icelandic friend, Oli, has gone missing. Their search for Oli then uncovers a horrific, mysterious industry operating right under their noses.
Eli Roth described the film as a slow-burn horror film, which means it starts out like a regular movie and then descends into madness and horror and I'm inclined to agree with him. Hostel pretty much kicks off like your average stoner comedy, with three overeager young men salivating at the thought of women and weed. It maintains that tone for much of the film, until the abduction of Oli (which we don't see). There's a great juxtaposition when we finally see the Elite Hunting's chamber of horrors, as previous to this it's been a much lighter film, then suddenly we're shown this insanely barbaric scene (think the board game operation, but on a much grizzlier scale) and it works perfectly. The tone is then reset as one of fear and isolation, with Paxton essentially all alone in a foreign country being hunted by these seedy, slobbering giants.
I won't spoil the ending, but let me stress that for fans of the genre, Hostel packs it's final twenty minutes with chainsaws, guns, blood, crushed heads, murderous child gangs and a neat little twist to cap it all off.
Sure, Hostel isn't the kind of film they made it out to be. It is not the scariest movie of all time. It is not the most violent film of all time, not even close. But it is one of the shining achievements in American genre cinema of the last decade and it should be remembered as such.
