I finally got around to seeing HOSTEL. Like a splinter under the fingernail, a quick, nasty horror flick for those not looking for depth or resonance.
Which is a shame because with a few tweaks it could have had resonance and lasting appeal. But ultimately some aspects and plot devices were handed too clumsily, or merely adequately, to elevate it to memorability. Three examples that occurred to me during or after the film: Paxton’s anecdote about the drowned girl, the pack of children, and the nature of the torture factory.
Paxton just blurts the story of the drowned girl to Josh as they walk around, and it comes from nowehere. It feels like the classic theatrical example of the pistol shown in act 1 that must be fired by act 3. It exists only to attempt to humanize him later on and give him an excuse to head back into danger when any sane person would be fleeing for their life. However, had he mentioned it while, say, in a bar trying to pick up a girl, as one of those tales meant to elicit sympathy from a potential pick-up, it wouldn’t have felt out of place.
The pack of kids also felt like a contrivance to be utilized later on. Personally, it would have worked better for me if, in the midst of the menace and ugliness of Bratislava, Pax sees this group of children playing and it makes him feel better for a moment, relieves some of the tension. Maybe they seem like innocents at first. Then when they turn out to be little savages, the menace would be amplified.
(The kids also were reminiscent of the gang of punks outside Dustin Hoffman’s apartment in MARATHON MAN. Menacing at first, but utlized to the hero’s benefit in the third act.)
Finally, the torture factory itself. It just exists, a cipher without explanation. Like the existence of the Cube in CUBE I don’t have any problem with the enigma, but given the revelations that it’s an actual business, it may have been interesting if it came about as a side effect of Slovakia’s move towards a capitalist society. It sounds like the kind of thing that would have been established in Russia after communism crumbled and the mob ran rampant. A line of dialogue or piece of evidence could have given it some more depth than merely being a threat to escape from.
(I admit that, given the business nature of the torture factory, I found the counterpoint of the children also willing to hurt and kill anyone for money [bubble gum] and being used against Pax’s pursuers to be chuckle-worthy.)
Some people have complained about Miike’s cameo and the car chase, but neither bothered me at all. The car chase was brief, and Pax had to flee somehow. I just didn’t feel any tension because it would have been all the same to me whether he escaped or not. And Miike’s cameo didn’t come across as a cameo to me. In Pax’s place I would also have questioned people to gain information before entering that fucking “art show.”
While the protagonists were basically grist for the mill, the torturers themselves felt much more like actual human beings. The Dutch businessman was the most fleshed out character in the film, not sympathetic in any way but certainly believable. Rick Hoffman as the American client was my favorite part of the movie. (It’s interesting how the movie can be simultaneously xenophobic and anti-American.) One would imagine that a first-timer would be excited, anxious and insatiably curious. Even Paxton’s unnamed German torturer, with his paroxysms of orgasmic bliss at hearing Paxton’s pleading, then his mini-tantrum when his victim has the temerity to beg in his native tongue, is cartoon sadist, but an ultimately believable one. Threatening Pax with the scissors, and then the chainsaw, seemed an awfully authentic touch to me.
Speaking of authentic touches, Pax vomiting in terror made it very real for me. Someone else in this thread mentioned there should be more terror-induced puking in films, and I concur. Blood, sweat and tears aren’t the only fluids released during these events. However, vomiting, pissing and shitting yourself in terror isn’t “sexy”, so are often omitted. But when they are included it adds to the realism. It makes it less fun, but (with some obvious exceptions, like DEAD ALIVE and SLITHER), violence shouldn’t be fun, or clean, or easy to watch. There was a serial killer named Gerard Schaefer, convicted of 2 murders, and there was evidence linking him to many more. Among his possessions during his arrest were pages of stories and notes that many feel were his actual depredations camouflaged as fiction (later published as “Killer Fiction.” He also corresponded while in prison, divulging awful details. He mentions kidnapping 2 girls, and keeping them bound and gagged. He stabbed and disemboweled one girl while the other watched, and this other girl vomited in terror, and being tightly gagged, asphyxiated on her own vomit. While estimating his own body count he once said, “One whore drowned in her own vomit while watching me disembowel her girlfriend. I’m not sure that counts as a valid kill.” It may be a fantasy, but I tend to doubt it. It’s just a horrible detail that has always stuck with me, and seeing Paxton’s vomit spewing from behind the ballgag just really made my hair stand on end.
That said, I found the violence to be much easier to take than I expected. I suppose you become inured to such things after a while, but the only time I winced was when Pax gets his hand chopped in half by the saw. Josh’s tendons were great for the sound effect, but again, I was expecting worse. The cart of dismembered body parts looked good. The Japanese girl, not so much. And if anyone ever asks for the definition of gratuitous violence, Pax snipping her enucleated eye and the following gush of goo pretty much fit the bill. Not the dangling eye itself, that could well be a legitimate result of torture, but the cutting and pus are just there for the squirm factor. I found it so cartoonishly over the top I laughed out loud. The Dutch guy’s finger amputation looked good, but that may have been because the scene was so comparatively well lit.
Many people have complained about the Eurotrip-like beginning, but I can’t fault that. Not all horror films are alike, and while I can appreciate it when a film gets rolling immediately (a la DAWN OF THE DEAD), taking the time to set things up is also appreciated. The mounting tension of being in a strange and menacing environment was a nice buildup to the terror and grue of the tortures. Being a semi-paranoid misanthrope anyway, I found the quiet threat of the foreign environments to be one of the most effective aspects of the film. I think those complaining about the slow burn to the meaty torture bits also hate it when nobody gets whacked in a given episode of The Sopranos.
HOSTEL is better than CABIN FEVER, but I kinda liked CF too so it seems natural that I would like this. For a sophomore effort it’s damn good, and Roth demonstrates he has the talent to go places. Let him make his mistakes now, and we might be seeing some great things from him a decade hence. But I think one reviewer (can’t recall who, maybe Devin) nailed it when he said Roth has to decide where his loyalties lie – horror fans or the mainstream audience. If he sides with the former, displays a greater willingness to take risks, and improves his plotting and characterization, I’ll reward his loyalty with my own.
