by Conan Simmons – August 1, 2020 – 3:43pm
Widely dismissed by critics upon release due to its graphic violence Eli Roth’s ‘Hostel’ is fresher than ever. It is a scathing indictment of U.S. foreign policy dressed up as over the top exploitation film. What many hoped was only a product of the time soon to be forgotten ‘Hostel’ has defied its haters and become a horror film classic.
Naturally squeamish viewers will want to avoid this movie or at least close your eyes occasionally. For others Eli Roth’s directing keeps the audience engaged and willing to endure squirm inducing torture scenes that in the hands of a lesser director could easily have become dark cult camp. The makeup effects are at the level of previous gore films, especially the more graphic giallo films like ‘Zombie’. Much of the success of this picture comes from the directing/writing by Eli Roth and the lead performance of Jay Hernandez (television’s ‘Magnum P.I.’).
The story follows two Americans and an Icelander backpacking across Europe. On a quest to satisfy the ultimate sex and drug filled fantasy they quickly feel Amsterdam to be overrun with too many American tourists. Finding themselves locked out of the hostel they are staying at a kind stranger tells them of another hostel where beautiful women are easy and willing sexual conquests for foreigners, especially Americans. They quickly hop on the next train to Bratislava, Slovakia. What they encounter is not exactly what they expected.
When their Icelandic friend mysteriously disappears they start down the rabbit hole leading to a labyrinth of horror. A darker more gruesome tourist trade is happening in the shadows of an abandoned Soviet-era factory. Rich businessmen unsatisfied with sex pay for the extreme experience of murder.
Premiering in 2005 this is the film that prompted film critic David Edelstein to coin the phrase “torture porn” and declare “it’s actually not a bad little thriller”. What he and other critics missed is the message hiding behind the gore splattered exploitation trappings. How currency is exchanged for foreigners to go into a country and commit murder is a direct allegory to the Iraq War that began two years before this movie was made and continues to this day. The counterpoint of violence in other countries inciting Americans to equal and at times more atrocious violence should not be lost on audiences. It is ultimately what this film is about.
There are other themes aside from U.S. foreign relations that fill out the story. It’s also a variation on coming-of-age soaked in psychosexual identity. Racism and bigotry is also touched on in unique ways as with the German who wants to be sure his victim is American. America’s obsession with gun violence is presented with a character that could easily be a member of the family currently occupying the White House. All the violence that the movie exploits makes this film interestingly anti-violence.
Executive produced by Quentin Tarantino featuring an early starring role for Jay Hernandez as well as a cameo from popular Japanese director Takashi Miike. A very dark sense of humor pervades throughout with a gruesomely funny homage to ‘Pulp Fiction’ and a clever reference to the Minotaur from Greek mythology. Edelstein implies that gruesome films including ‘Hostel’ are not art. I say they are as much art as a Goya or Bacon from a Michelangelo or Warhol.