Hostel
Saturday, January 21st, 2006HOSTEL, written and directed by Eli Roth, is essentially a protracted snuff film that represents the extreme of a new genre of horror films that have cropped up post-9/11. Intentional or not, the new emphasis on gore, torture and mutiliation is materially tied to the events of 9/11 and after, in what is now a fabric of American culture as is the milieu of torture and terrorism and so perhaps it’s not surprising that these films are making their appearance to offer cathartic release to American audiences.
The plot really isn’t that important, but basically concerns two average American college students on the prowl for easy girls in Europe, only to themselves being served up as the main attraction for pay-to-play thrill killers.
In an age when media outlets, most notably the internet, broadcast the video-taped decapitations, murder and mutiliations of Americans and other foreign nationals who were unlucky enough to be caught in the middle east, HOSTEL represents a kind of subsconscious repsonse to it. Intentional or not, Roth has made a statement.
The palpable xenophobia of Americans in foreigns lands is taken to literal gut-wrenching extremes, and the film on one level might actually function as a wish fullfillment fantasy for non-Americans who view the United States as tormentors. Thus by showing the deliberate torture and mutiliation of Americans, the film taps into an unconscious desire to see Americans hurt, at least by the more radical extremists. But HOSTEL, in its final moments, turns the tables on the tormentors by allowing the victim to exact a small measure of his own retribution, something the victims of Al Quaida and their like certainly can’t do. Roth’s message then is: America always wins.
The film might not have been financed prior to 9/11, but after after Roth’s success with the low-budget CABIN FEVER, this film seems like a good next step. Technically and artistically, the film is a quantum leap forward for this fresh filmmaker. Yes, a gory torture film can be artistic. If HOSTEL had been made in the 1970s it would be forgotten; whether or not audiences will remember it twenty years from now remains to be seen. The viewer will likely not forget HOSTEL anytime soon after leaving the theatre, unless they are horror-gore junkies.
MovieThink Says:
A disturbing gore-fest that works as both straight-up horror and metaphor for our times.