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Hostel
Directed by: Eli Roth
Starring: Jay Hernandez
Genre:
Horror
Run Time: 94
min.
Release Date:
January 2006
On The Web:
Official
Site
Teaser:
Movie Trailer
Reviewed by
Byron Merritt |
Horror films need more than
just sex and slashers ...so if you're looking for something with higher
level cinema, you best look elsewhere. HOSTEL is designed for the
young man with an appetite for video-game style plots.
The films premise is, at least, interesting. A Hostel in a Slovakian
city is a jumping-off point for nightclubs, sexual encounters, drugs
...and murder. The hostel owners are secretively helping a select group
of the rich and demented. These wealthy and twisted individuals pay to
kill people, and an "art house" on the outskirts of town acts as the
facilitator of horrors. For those unweary travelers who happen to fall
victim to the wiles of the hostel owners, ending up drugged only to
reawaken in Hell on Earth is a gruesome and life-ending discovery.
Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and his friends Josh (Derek Richardson) and Oli (Eythor
Gudjonsson) are three college students traveling through Europe. They
stop at this hostel and are quickly enraptured with a couple of young
women who have an appetite for sex. Once fully involved with these
women, the boys begin dropping off one by one. First Oli vanishes, the
Icelandic disco-lover. Then Josh, the nice boy. And soon even Paxton
finds himself strapped to a chair with an axe-wielding and
chainsaw-ripping psycho standing over him.
But Paxton escapes and with him he takes another Japanese girl who was
also being tortured to death. Once out, Paxton loses the Japanese girl
and soon spots the "main man" responsible for this death camp. Can
Paxton exact revenge on him? Or will he get caught and killed? The main
problem with the film were its characters. Josh, the likable guy who
seems to be the brains of the trio, is killed off in short order.
Paxton, who I thought was a bit of an ass, lives on to exact revenge on
the man responsible for doing in his friends. But this revenge sequence
felt very flawed as I had no empathy whatsoever for Paxton. Josh, on the
other hand, should've been the guy to figure out everything and avenge
the death of his buddies. Even Oli would've been a better choice. He was
at least fun to watch and had a great personality. Perhaps the script
writers weren't sure who should live and who should die ...and I think
that really showed in the revenge aspect of the film.
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Image from Hostel
DVD cost: $15.99
Purchase:
BestPrices.com
Film Review Stew
Favorite? No.
Stew Poo-Poo? No.
Newsworthy:
The movie was written,
produced, directed and released theatrically all in a twelve month
period, which is three times faster than the average Hollywood film.
Movie Quote: "Why
are you doing this!"
Other Actors/Actresses
from Hostel
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