Hostel (2005) Review - Directors Series
After Cabin Fever's release, Eli Roth was praised by several people in the industry. Most notable was Quentin Tarantino. Roth was offered several jobs, mostly remakes, but Quentin advised him to make an original film.
Eli and Quentin became quick friends and while swimming in Quentin’s pool together one day Eli told Quentin about “murder vacations” in Thailand he read about on the “dark web”. Quentin thought it was a great idea and it became the foundation of his next film Hostel.
The film follows two college-age American friends who are backpacking through Europe. When we pick up with them on their journey, they’ve made a friend, Oli, from Iceland who joins them. One night they stay out too late and get locked out of their Hostel.
They meet Alexi who takes them in and tells them if they want to meet the girls of their dreams they should go to Bratislava, Slovakia. There in the local Hostel, they meet two beautiful super model type women and have the night of their lives. However, things take a turn the next day.
As stated in my Cabin Fever review, Eli was on the forefront of the “Torture Porn” movement in horror films. Starting in France in the late 90s and moving here into the early 2000s Hostel and Saw are the two films to popularize the “Torture Porn” genre.
I’ve never liked the term “torture porn”. It feels like a term used to dismiss a type of film. Just like any genre it will be saturated with bad versions of itself. However, upon a rewatch I am here to defend Hostel.
On its surface Hostel seems like schlock horror with cheap imagery to disturb. It’s easy to see it that way. 20-year-old bros who speak in a slur-specialized lexicon. Lusting after societal perfect women who are down for fun and never shy from nudity. Then add gore for good measure.
However, there is a deeper message within this seedy Eli Roth film. Firstly, much like many films from the early to mid-2000s, this is a 9/11-coded film. When 9/11 happened everyone was so affected by it that every film began to take on some kind of 9/11 message.
Much like Trump has done now, in every movie, someone can say that a certain film is Trump-coded because of this or that. Even if the filmmaker intended for that message to appear, it’s what we put into the film.
Americans’ fear of foreigners, especially middle-eastern, went sky-high after 9/11. So making a film where foreigners are out to kill Americans in 2005 was like making Arachnophobia, it’s terrifying because it’s playing on a natural fear now.
Along with the post-9/11 xenophobia we were experiencing, us 99-percenters have had it with rich billionaires having their fun while the rest of us have to choose between getting groceries or gas.
Hostel may have been ahead of its time in that aspect, but now we are inundated with eat-the-rich films like Knives Out or The Menu. While these films have always existed, it’s only recently that they have become the zeitgeist.
Watching this in 2024, the scariest scene is when Jay Hernandez is escaping. He puts on another man’s clothes in a locker room-esque room and runs into a patron of this torture facility, character actor Rick Hoffman.
Rick gives a scene-stealing performance as a rich man who is doing this for fun. He’s become so bored with life and the amount of money he has that he decides killing someone will be his next thrill.
It’s a dark but honest scene about how the rich treat the poor, and what the older rich generation is doing to the younger generations. Not only financially but environmentally, the Boomers have depleted both, and what the future holds for the next generations is uncertain.
Prior generations have done so much damage to the environment they might as well be sitting us in chairs and torturing us because there won’t be a world to live in in the coming years. With time films can take on new meanings, not sure if Eli intended this message but it speaks it loudly now.
The torture sequences still hold up in their queasiness. The dialogue has not aged well at all, but given our protagonists are two college bros in 2005, what they say fits the character. Just every slur now hits with a cringe.
It’s not a perfect movie, but when a scene like Rick Hoffman’s can rattle you after 19 years and a film stay relevant, it still has its worth in the world.
4/5 Stars
