Hostel (2006)
Directed by Eli Roth
Three backpackers head to a Slovakian city that promises to meet their hedonistic expectations, with no idea of the hell that awaits them.
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Acknowledging his Eastern god, Roth also tosses in a cameo from the ice-cool Japanese director Takashi Miike, whose psychotic ''Audition" (1999) is a deserved cult treasure.
It takes a turn toward the unapologetically violent, as mean and visceral as the limb-chopping finale of Audition (Takashi Miike has a memorable cameo as a persona of evil in Hostel) or the gory, Greek tragedy tongue slicing in Oldboy .
Look for lots of asides and insider nods — homage to The Wicker Man as The Sneaker Pimps cover of Britt Eckland’s “How Do?” plays; Audition director Takashi Miike cameos as a bloodthirsty businessman; Paxton and Josh chase a coat-clad character ala Don’t Look Now, and so on — but watch for what’s all Roth, too.
The idea of snuff for sale has been around for a long time though - Johnny Depp made a film back in 1997 called "The Brave" (it was never released in the U.S.) based on the same concept - yet Tarantino claims to have never heard of this 'sick idea' before.
The idea of people being kidnapped in order to be snuffed by clients wealthy enough to pay for the privilege goes back as far as ”The Most Dangerous Game,” a tale from which Roth appears to have appropriated his ending (in the press notes, Roth says he was inspired to make ”Hostel” by a Web site about a Thai pay-per-slay industry).
If the second half of Hostel is laden with grimy gore, sleazy slashers, and disturbing dispatches, then the first is more or less a mild remake of An American Werewolf in London, mixed with liberal doses of Porky’s-style boobiness.
Written and directed by Eli Roth (''Cabin Fever"), the movie tells one of those nightmare-abroad tales, like ''An American Werewolf in London" or ''Eurotrip."
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Look for lots of asides and insider nods — homage to The Wicker Man as The Sneaker Pimps cover of Britt Eckland’s “How Do?” plays; Audition director Takashi Miike cameos as a bloodthirsty businessman; Paxton and Josh chase a coat-clad character ala Don’t Look Now, and so on — but watch for what’s all Roth, too.
The director, Eli Roth, who made a splash on the horror scene with his first film, the phenomenally popular "Cabin Fever" (2002), says he got the idea for this picture from an actual Asian Internet site that offered, for a huge fee, to pair aspiring murderers with willing victims.
After the hit Cabin Fever and now Hostel , the cult status of director Eli Roth might grow into something big—and so will his wallet.
The awful stuff here is truly awful, much more than in Cabin Fever, his first movie.
There are a few different ways you can approach Eli Roth's follow-up to his 2003 Sundance favorite "Cabin Fever," but originality isn't one of them.
Hostel is more sophisticated than Roth's jokey, derivative Cabin Fever (2002), and plays keenly on Yank xenophobia via queasy allusions to Hammer's '60s pop-gothic potboilers, their harsher Italian and German kin, and such real-life horrors as the Holocaust and, briefly, post-A-bomb Hiroshima.
Eli Roth is another American abroad, following the indigenous virulent horrors of his ingenious debut Cabin Fever with the dark-heart-of-Europe dread of the new Hostel.
There's no hint of existential conundrum in these pictures--and although my saying that may cause you to roll your eyes, consider that the best grindhouse films (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes , Black Christmas, Deliverance, The Evil Dead , and so on) have something going on under the skin whether you care to engage it or not.
That’s Asian Extreme master Takashi Miike (”Audition,” ”Ichi the Killer”) as the dashing-looking Asian ”client” and talented American character actor Rick Hoffman as the psycho version of an Enron executive, if that isn’t redundant.
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"Hostel" is the most vicious, mean-spirited, horribly violent and sadistic collection of events committed to film, and that's saying a lot given the spate of recent movies hell-bent on conjuring up every depravity their filmmakers can muster, including the two "Saw" flicks, Rob Zombie's "House of 1,000 Corpses" and its sequel "The Devil's Rejects," the French thriller "High Tension" and "Hostel" director Eli Roth's own "Cabin Fever."
There's no hint of existential conundrum in these pictures--and although my saying that may cause you to roll your eyes, consider that the best grindhouse films (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes , Black Christmas, Deliverance, The Evil Dead , and so on) have something going on under the skin whether you care to engage it or not.