Movie Review: Hostel (2005) - NSFW

I have always believed that taking survival instincts, libido energies and Death Drive, and making it all subtle and craftily ingrained into a movie is the key to ending up with a successful film. At the same time, I don’t think I have said something extraordinary here, and I don’t think I’m the only one seeing that as a view of someone who prefers vanilla aesthetics over ultraviolence in a horror film. Be that as it may, Eli Roth’s second film Hostel had, in my opinion, managed to take all those Freudian things and, while playing them right, make them also look quite post-soviet Eastern Europeanish.

Three guys, two of whom are college students from the US, travel in Western Europe, and their libido reacts quite positively to a pitch about girls in certain post communist country with whom one supposedly can do literally anything.

One of the things that is not part of equation in that pitch, but, I think, plays certain part in the film's plot later on is the pleasure and gratification one gets from spending something that in one’s mind holds certain value, on something that creates a sense of having paid for something that’s not so easily obtainable (the ego gets its boost; the feeling of being a laudable individual is elevated). Instead this is more about a new unknown that almost sounds too good to be true for a college student with limited funds. No one tells the student that such intriguing unknown might be related to the overall quality of life and opportunities in that country, all of which in turn should rise certain suspicions about dangers that come with that kind of quality of life. Besides, people in circumstances like that usually develop a mastery in cutting corners everywhere. Thus, when something looks post-soviet Eastern Europeanish in 2005, it usually has its corners cut in the same manner as when choosing hostel with occasional dormitory sex over hotel room, for instance. Wouldn’t then it make sense that the value of human life comes with its corners cut too, and the survival instincts of those that bring life into this world have been the reason behind conclusion that life can be a commodity, have a price and be even more profitable than the imitation of the act of creating that life. Old soviet Volgas and abandoned industrial buildings can help by providing more context and mood.

Back in the day Hostel was called a "torture porn", which was something not that common in mainstream horror films. The change in trends could already be witnessed in the original Saw movie, which was released the year earlier. With the legendary controversial Japanese director Takashi Miike in a cameo role, and Quentin Tarantino’s name involved, I think Hostel producers took a good shot at establishing it as a landmark horror movie of that decade. I think with its $4.8 million budget they had largely succeeded, generating close to two hundred million dollars in revenue.

Looking back and re-watching it, I notice how meticulous had been the attitude not to the torture per se, but building the suspense in those scenes. Death almost never is a simple event in Hostel; almost as if Roth wanted for this particular aspect to be at odds with the whole notion of cutting corners. Not only it’s not simple; the number of tools dedicated to inflicting it is indeed praiseworthy. The result is Death Drive blooming in slow motion, when people of different backgrounds and nationalities use violence as a means to communicate their trauma.

It is generally thought that Hostel is about an Eastern European country, where life is, generally speaking, bad and criminality is abound. After this movie was released, Eli Roth even received an invitation to have all expenses paid travel through that country so that he could see how different from the film the actual life there was. My personal opinion is that films like Hostel can indeed inflict damage on a not so well known country and its image, especially at a time when there is no social media where people can quickly prove something different to be true. However what usually fails to reach the audience of Hostel, in my opinion, is the message that the movie is about more vulnerable being taken advantage of by those who like to think that the power money can give equals to the degree of power over people one is entitled to. A notion that looks even more obnoxious when you think how individuals with such mindset from more well to do countries enter those with poorer conditions to indulge in things they are not able to enjoy in their homelands. This, in my opinion, is not about just post-soviet Eastern Europe of mid noughties, but about perversity of unlimited power of money, and how its tied to entitlement. The notion that the most monstrous of all monsters is real gets terrifyingly realistic.

Peer Ynt