Hype can do a lot for a film, in the case of some it can lead to disappointment and overblown expectations, but for others it can bring them on to people’s radars and create a hit from nowhere. Hostel, when it comes down to it, is not the film I expected, nor really the film it is advertised as. Eli Roth’s fratboy sensibilities don’t mingle well with the ideals for a full blown serious horror film and the end result is proof that having grimy posters and shoving Quentin Tarantino’s name above the tagline do little to alter what is in essence a tarted up splatter movie, with ideas above its station.
Most people know the premise of the film, some friends that are backpacking around Europe for their summer are drawn into a seedy world where people pay to torture and kill people, and despite the protests of the makers that this is somehow a highbrow effort looking at truths about how we treat each other, the exploitation of people (how the guys objectify the women is how they themselves are objectified by the end) and the good old notion of naivety breeding ignorance, this is little more than an immature, if at times very watchable, revenge film.
Hostel starts out in the vein of various teen movies, guy friends looking to get laid and have some fun, and whilst normally this portion of the film is used to build character and set up the events of the film to come, here it seems an excuse to show women wearing very little and clumsily composed scenes of lads being lads that seem like they wear dreamed up by a bored teenager. Roth may be good at shooting the horror elements of the film, but he clearly struggles to make much of the rest rise above mediocre, characters don’t ring true, the dialogue is pretty lacklustre (the overemphasis on swearing in this case seems to genuinely indicate a lack of imagination) and there is a falseness to it all that feels like a cheat and stops you getting at all attached to these characters. Add to this the fact that they come off as unlikeable jocks and there is little tension built towards the horror.
The most misleading aspect of the way the film has been sold and promoted was the focus on the torture, while those scenes are rather graphic and intense they don’t last long and in fact the focus on the film is not this at all. That said the scenes are the best directed and executed in the whole movie, as if you could feel Roth gleefully relishing the fact he gets to put these images on screen after faffing about in Amsterdam for the first half an hour. Like it or loathe it he constructs the environment well and the way the factory was realised and presented was the most effective part of the film. The torture I bought, but it seems like that was all Roth cared about as well. As soon as it passes the film changes gear again into a chase / revenge thriller with some unintentionally funny moments and bizarre character decisions. It’s hard to say why I was so put off by this, but again I think it comes back to insincerity. I just didn’t believe it and so the tension is lost, the pay off is unnecessary (though that may have been the point) and by the end the whole thing is verging on farce, its attempts at serious moral choices come off as ridiculous leaving the exercise floundering. The overly serious tone conflicts with the fanboyish sense of glee at all the violence leaving the message murky at best.
Ultimately Hostel falls short because it just can’t come clean about its true colours. Taken as an over the top gore fest this could have worked for the niche horror market, but as a mass market horror film that falls woefully short posing as something more serious but without anything beyond the bluster. Eli Roth is clearly a horror fan, but the human aspects of the story clearly don’t interest him and that emanates from the whole film leaving a rather nasty taste in the mouth.
A triumph of marketing over substance this is average horror fare endowed with the requisite shallow characters and teenage sensibilities, but that it aims for a higher moral ground makes it more offensive than if it had simply stopped pretending it had anything important to say.
Hype can do a lot for a film, in the case of some it can lead to disappointment and overblown expectations, but for others it can bring them on to people’s radars and create a hit from nowhere. Hostel, when it comes down to it, is not the film I expected, nor really the film it is advertised as. Eli Roth’s fratboy sensibilities don’t mingle well with the ideals for a full blown serious horror film and the end result is proof that having grimy posters and shoving Quentin Tarantino’s name above the tagline do little to alter what is in essence a tarted up splatter movie, with ideas above its station.
Most people know the premise of the film, some friends that are backpacking around Europe for their summer are drawn into a seedy world where people pay to torture and kill people, and despite the protests of the makers that this is somehow a highbrow effort looking at truths about how we treat each other, the exploitation of people (how the guys objectify the women is how they themselves are objectified by the end) and the good old notion of naivety breeding ignorance, this is little more than an immature, if at times very watchable, revenge film.
Hostel starts out in the vein of various teen movies, guy friends looking to get laid and have some fun, and whilst normally this portion of the film is used to build character and set up the events of the film to come, here it seems an excuse to show women wearing very little and clumsily composed scenes of lads being lads that seem like they wear dreamed up by a bored teenager. Roth may be good at shooting the horror elements of the film, but he clearly struggles to make much of the rest rise above mediocre, characters don’t ring true, the dialogue is pretty lacklustre (the overemphasis on swearing in this case seems to genuinely indicate a lack of imagination) and there is a falseness to it all that feels like a cheat and stops you getting at all attached to these characters. Add to this the fact that they come off as unlikeable jocks and there is little tension built towards the horror.
The most misleading aspect of the way the film has been sold and promoted was the focus on the torture, while those scenes are rather graphic and intense they don’t last long and in fact the focus on the film is not this at all. That said the scenes are the best directed and executed in the whole movie, as if you could feel Roth gleefully relishing the fact he gets to put these images on screen after faffing about in Amsterdam for the first half an hour. Like it or loathe it he constructs the environment well and the way the factory was realised and presented was the most effective part of the film. The torture I bought, but it seems like that was all Roth cared about as well. As soon as it passes the film changes gear again into a chase / revenge thriller with some unintentionally funny moments and bizarre character decisions. It’s hard to say why I was so put off by this, but again I think it comes back to insincerity. I just didn’t believe it and so the tension is lost, the pay off is unnecessary (though that may have been the point) and by the end the whole thing is verging on farce, its attempts at serious moral choices come off as ridiculous leaving the exercise floundering. The overly serious tone conflicts with the fanboyish sense of glee at all the violence leaving the message murky at best.
Ultimately Hostel falls short because it just can’t come clean about its true colours. Taken as an over the top gore fest this could have worked for the niche horror market, but as a mass market horror film that falls woefully short posing as something more serious but without anything beyond the bluster. Eli Roth is clearly a horror fan, but the human aspects of the story clearly don’t interest him and that emanates from the whole film leaving a rather nasty taste in the mouth.
A triumph of marketing over substance this is average horror fare endowed with the requisite shallow characters and teenage sensibilities, but that it aims for a higher moral ground makes it more offensive than if it had simply stopped pretending it had anything important to say.
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