Hostel (2005)

As it turns out, there aren’t enough Saw movies to have every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in October dedicated to them. I’m left with three extra days during Saw-mhain, and you know what torture porn franchise has only three films? House of 1000 Corpses! And also Hostel, which is what we’re actually talking about today. And the first of the trilogy is… good? Better than expected, at least!

Three of the bro-iest men alive are in Amsterdam on a quest to get high and snag some snípur–the Icelandic word for clit. Classy. We’ve got Paxton (Mr. Jay Hernandez, who was also Diablo in Suicide Squad), Josh, and Óli. They’re obnoxious, but not quite so vile that what happens to them later feels deserved. Following a tip, they head to Slovokia to get the hottest babes in Europe. Ignoring a weird encounter with a handsy Dutch businessman–the entire time I kept thinking “Mi scuzi!” from EuroTrip–the trio book themselves in a hostel and check out the local babes. But things take a turn when Óli suddenly disappears, texting that he hooked up with a Japanese tourist and the two ran off together. His story doesn’t feel right, but only we the audience see that Óli was decapitated in some kind of murder dungeon. Soon after Paxton and Josh are drugged, but Paxton passes out in a locked room before he could get abducted. Josh isn’t so lucky and is tortured to death by the Dutch businessman. Turns out there’s a thriving market for people who have too much money and want to kill someone. Now realizing something is horribly wrong, Paxton corners the girls he and Josh met and ends up getting tricked into going to the murder warehouse. He starts to get tortured by a German guy, but manages to escape and kill his abuser, albeit losing two fingers in the process. Using video game-like stealth, Paxton creeps around the place confirming that Josh is dead, but finds one of the Japanese girls–Kana–alive and in the middle of getting tortured. While he manages to rescue Kana, he does have to cut her dangling eye off because we gotta reach a gore quota. The two escape, but Kana throws herself in front of a train when she sees how badly she’s been disfigured. You would think the movie would end with Paxton getting on a train and just riding away from the horror, but first he hears the Dutch businessman. One revenge killing in a bathroom later, and now Paxton is safely away. I’m sure he’ll be fine!

Eli Roth is gonna Eli Roth, so the gore is a lot higher compared to the Saw movies [I’ve seen so far]. This is also based on a true story… sort of. Roth found on the internet a website that purported that for $10K, you could travel to Thailand and murder someone. It’s okay, though! They volunteer for it and their family gets a portion of the money, because that’s clearly what you were concerned about! He wanted to do a documentary about the phenomena, but chose not to after realizing that… those people? Who organize and profit off murder? You probably don’t want them having your personal and credit card information. And so Hostel was the compromise. Probably for the best.

What this movie had that resonated with me more than Jigsaw’s films is that there’s an inherent political message to Hostel. Absolutely convinced it’s unintentional, but the film is about the rich elite flexing their money and power over “the little guy,” inevitably leading to torturing and killing tourists because they get off on it. Paxton fighting back isn’t just the protagonist trying to survive, but the story of a victim of this class warfare fighting back. And so I was really invested in Paxton’s efforts! Certainly helped that the story had some more twists than you would expect from a gore-filled horror flick.

So Hostel was pretty good, actually. I’m sure the quality won’t go down in the sequels, he said facetiously!

Next: Hostel: Part II (2007)