Hostel

(2005) ****1/2

After reading JPX's and Summerisle's glowing reviews earlier in the contest, I made sure I was able to squeeze Hostel into the mix. Shortly after starting it up, I said "HEY! This is another Road Trip Gone Bad! I've been duped into more Mad Hillbillies! Arrrgh!" But no, that is not actually the case at all, and not just because the mutant cannibals have been replaced by hot Slovakian girls, although that certainly helps.

To further explore the difference between this and all the Chainsaws Have Eyes movies, I'll admit a rather basic confusion I had about Hostel right up until I saw it. All the talk about the Wonderful Love Hostel that suddenly turns into Horrible Torture Factory leaves out the fact that they're not the same place. I was seeing these stills of grotty industrial interiors and wondering how anyone could ever mistake that space for a sex haven. They don't: they get slipped a knockout drink while still partying and wake up several miles away cuffed to a chair.

Since you probably want to whack me upside the head right now for missing this piece of obviousity, I'll make a point. The reason Hostel is so scary and effective is that when you find out the whole town's in on it, it means the whole town. Not some half-wit, his grampa and some pigs. Everybody. That's how they can operate at two wholly different locations. When Paxton appeals to the police, it's not Sherriff Fuckyou in his stinky squad car, it's a guy surrounded by coworkers in a large bustling office. When our hero's journey is much further along and he's met some of the Factory's clientelle, the true, delicious shape of the paranoia reveals itself: these people have, collectively, made a horrifying choice. The odd stares you notice when you walk into the town bar are not harmless whiffs of disdain for obnoxious Americans, but evidence that you are the other side of a terrifying line here: you are product in the most brutal way possible. And they're not even going to have the courtesy to eat you afterwards.

With that bit of the town's character in place, the ominous behavior of the townfolk is pretty entertaining. When Josh and Paxton score with their hottie roommates on the first, non-torture night, the two girls share an interesting look while they're both going at it; you get the feeling they really like this tag-team Black Widow thing they have going on. (It also helped that the scene's music was the Sneaker Pimps' cover of How Do, Britt Eckland's naked song from The Wicker Man, in a deliberate homage.) And one of my favorite moments, the one I feel best lays out the predator/victim dichotomy, is Takashi Miike's cameo. Thinking that Paxton is a fellow Factory client, he smiles and says "be careful you don't spend all your money in there." The implied camraderie is cree-py.


The torture, when we get to it, is of a particularly nasty stamp. The barbarous acts themselves don't get a huge amount of actual screen time, but the few gory set pieces are chosen very carefully. There's a ghastly bluntness to it; these people are interested in straightforward damage, as when Josh just gets power-drilled in the legs, or when Paxton's torturer simply claws at his chest with one of those gardening forks. I figured we were shown the S&M scene in Amsterdam as a purposeful counterpoint to the Factory: this shit is not sexy. For the clients it may be, but the rest of us just really want to get out of that fucking chair.

Which, to me, was Hostel's other big achievement. After the wicked portrayal of the sociopathic town and the dark secret at its core, the bulk of the film is an escape story. It's a very good one, too, allowing further glimpses of gore while the movie shifts its stance to that of a thriller. And seriously, what's more frightening in the real world than going up against the Russian mafia? (I know these guys aren't actually Russian, but they're great big eastern European guys in leather jackets. Eek!) Each step of the way is aided by the teeensiest of lucky chances, and boy oh boy do you empathize with the need to get out of there. So much so that when the cavalcade of revenge opportunities begin, you don't question the circumstances, you stand up and cheer.

This movie is like taking a trip you know will be taxing but you're completely jazzed about it when you get home.

What they said. See Hostel.