(Originally written on 6/6/06)
I'm completely torn.
"Hostel" was written and directed by Eli Roth, who is the jerkface idiot behind "Cabin Fever", which is in my top 10 of hated movies ever. But on the other hand, Quentin Tarantino helped produce it, so that's gotta be worth something right there. So I'm a little torn.
But I decide to go ahead and give Senor Roth another chance and hope he redeems himself from the misery that is "Cabin Fever".
We start off with some dude whistling while washing down a room. This would be foreshadowing, but the plot of the story has been pounded in our heads since it was first conceived, so we already know what's going down. I should mention that the credits just start without showing the name of the movie, and I think it was so Clever Eli could cut to a puddle and reflected is the world "Hostel".
Coming out of this Hostel is three BAD ASS MOTHAFUCKERS!! Paxton, Josh, and some Icelandic dude Oli. I'm gonna prepare you guys right now, the first 45 minutes of this film is like watching a slideshow of their trip in Amsterdam.
*CLICK* "Here's us leaving the hostel. We decide to smoke some weed, so-"
*CLICK* "We go to a hash bar. We smoke some pot, then smoke from a hukah. Afterwards-"
*CLICK* "We decide that Josh needs to get laid, because he broke up with his girlfriend and we decide he needs some pussay!! WOO!"
*CLICK* "So here we are at a bar. We make fun of Josh for having a fanny pack, and to make a long story short, we're tossed out of the bar and we arrive all late at our Hostel, so it was closed. It was then we met-"
*CLICK* "Alex. He gives us some pot to smoke while a drugged out of their fuckin' head couple is gettin' it on behind us. This is possibly distracting to the viewer, which is bad because this is where the main plot comes into play. That main plot is-"
*CLICK* "Alex knows this Hostel in Slovakia where there's nothing but women who want to bone American dudes. So we get on a train to Slovakia."
*CLICK* "We meet some creepy old dude on the train. GOSH, is he going to be important later?"
*CLICK* "We arrive at said Hostel in Slovakia and instantly meet some hot chicks who want to bone us. Needless to say-"
*CLICK* "We bone them."
Ok, you get the point, sorry I dragged that on.
So they're in the Hostel getting laid and whatnot, when suddenly the next day Oli disappears. Josh and Paxton search all over the city for them and we get Remember This Plot Point number 2 when they run into a gang of Slovakian children who'll bash your head in if you don't give them candy. Yes, this is important. It's stupid, but important.
Remember This Plot Point number 3 is a story Paxton tells about watching some chick drown and the screams bothered him. That too is stupid and important at the same time.
Ok, so they can't find Oli and there's a pointless scene in a torture museum, where you think "Hmm, maybe the things we're seeing in this museum will show up later when the actual torture arrives." But only a competent film maker would make that connection, so this whole scene is here to just waste about 20 minutes of our time.
Meanwhile us hardcore gore fans (yes I am one) are shouting at the screen "GET TO THE DISMEMBERMENT!!" Eli, hearing us, says "Ok, dickheads!", pisses all over us, then gives us a slight taste of dismemberment as some Random Japanese Chick gets her toe clipped off with a bolt cutter. But of course, a competent film maker would've showed us the toe actually getting cut off, even on the FREAKIN UNRATED "TOO SHOCKING FOR THEATERS" DVD!! But no.
Ok, back to the boring, serious version of "Euro Trip", the chicks Josh and Paxton hooked up slip them both something and Josh stumbles into his room and passes out. Then a man in a butcher's outfit show up and cart Josh away. Paxton gets lost and ends up locked up in a storage room.
Josh wakes up in the room I'm sure you've guys seen in the trailer and guess who walks in? Let's see if you remember one of the plot points from earlier. Go ahead and guess, I'll wait.
...
Did you say "The weirdo on the train that Josh met?" YOU ARE CORRECT!!! See, in the Roth universe, there are no coincidences. Now in case you've been in a cave during this movie's run in theaters, here's what's going on.
There's this place where people go and pay a shitload of money. They go into these rooms and torture, abuse, and eventually kill the shit out of unsuspecting people, like Josh here. Since we're focusing on Josh and his room for a bit longer, we think "YAY GORE!" and not, you know Al Gore. But all Train Dude does is drill tiny holes in Josh's chest, then cuts at his tendons, which looks like it hurts like a bitch, and makes him crawl out of the room. Of course Josh doesn't make it and we're probably gonna see some bloody action here and-
AWW JUMP CUT!! I HATE YOU ELI ROTH!!! JUST DIE!!
Paxton wakes up in the storage room and stumbles back to the hostel. He finds out that both Josh and he, Paxton, has checked out. Obviously confused, he does some investigating and finds the two chicks they hooked up with. One of them leads him to the place where the torture stuff takes place. It's here that it clicks in Paxton's head and before he can run, he's carted away.
Paxton is locked in a room and soon some skinny creepy German dude walks in. OH! I forgot about Remember This Plot Point Number 4: Paxton...KNOWS GERMAN!! WOW! And his torturer is German! You don't say??
So Paxton pleads in German, but ther German dude won't listen and ends up cutting off two of his fingers, but the German dude slips on the gag that was used in "Pulp Fiction", which is just HILARIOUS cause of Tarantino's involvement. This, along with "Pulp Fiction" actually being played on a TV somewhere makes it the funniest in joke in the world. Laugh, damn you, LAUGH!
So the German dude slips and ends up chopping his leg off. Paxton gets free and shoots the German dude, then one of the beefy security dudes come in and Paxton shoots him too. So now it went from "Euro Trip" to "The Great Escape" as we spend the remainder of the movie focusing on his escape.
In short, Paxton narrowly misses all the beefy security dudes and even has to pretend to be a dead body in a scene that goes on for way too long. Eventually, Paxton FINALLY does something and makes it to the part of the building where the torturers change. Here he meets Hey, It's That Guy! I don't know who he is per se, but It's That Guy! You know, That Guy! He one of the asshole business guys in "Day After Tomorrow". The asshole lawyer dude in "Cellular". Yeah, That Guy!
Anyway, That Guy is an American business dude who just wants a thrill and I suspect either That Guy is an asshole in real life, or he's type casted a lot cause here he's a major asshole.
Paxton manages to leave the building finally and is about to escape when he hears screaming. Ah, yes, Remember This Plot Point #3, he can't ignore a woman screaming. So he runs back in and finds that That Asshole Guy is buring off some Japanese chick's eye. This scene is kinda gorey but at the same time the whole thing looks like it was just placed on her face, so I was a tad dissapointed. Paxton kills That Asshole Guy and now he and Japanese Chick must escape.
By now the entire compound or whatever is aware of their escape, so they chase them and Paxton finds out that the cops are in on this (of course they are) so that's not an option. While driving through the city, Paxton finds the two chicks they hooked up with and...ALEX! Yes, Remember This Plot Point Number 1 appears and now the entire thing meshes. So...Paxton runs everybody over with the car. Several times. This is one of the good scenes.
Paxton and Japanese Chick make it to the train station, where they're surrounded by police and beefy security guards. Japanese Chick sees herself in a mirror and decides life isn't worth living with only one eye (I dunno, eye patches come in some sexy colors) so she jumps in front of a moving train. This is cool scene number 3. (The sex/nudity scenes at the beginning was the first cool scene.) With this distraction, Paxton gets on the train and it gets the hell out of there.
On the train, Paxton hears The Train Guy and when they arrive at wherever they arrive at, Paxton follows him into the bathroom. The Train Guy is taking a crap when Paxton just bursts in and cuts off Train Guy's fingers, yes same two as Paxton, and then finally, drowns him in his own crap. Eww...
I'd like to know how Paxton knew that Train Guy had something to do with Josh's death or even that whole torture scene. But oh well.
Paxton gets back on the train and it heads off. Ahh, yes, the final twist or shocking climax to the entire thing. The thing that horror movies are made of. I can't wait for this!! This should be good! Will one of the beefy guys be on the train? Maybe Train Guy didn't die? Maybe the stoned couple in Alex's apartment is behind the whole thing? I can't wait and...
Fade out? The title of the movie?!? CREDITS!!! NO!! WAIT!! What the fuck, Eli!!! Arrgh, you suck, you know that. Don't ever make another movie ever again, ok? You don't know what the hell you're doing and I hope you go to hell and are forced to watch your own movies while some dude sodomizes you with a Vin Diesel movie. ARRGH!!
So anyway.
Just remind me to try not to get laid when I'm in Europe.
-Jason
3 comments:
I, too, loathed this movie. I was expecting "THE MOST SHOCKING AND SCARY MOVIE EVER!" as constantly advertised back when it first came out. So I eventually rented the DVD and wanted to beat my head against the wall repeatedly. The first half is boring skinemax-lite. The second half is full of cut-aways and incredible fakeness that it's ridiculous. You don't see most of the gore. The gore you do see looks so fake it takes you out of the movie.
I hate Eli Roth with a passion and can't stand when people say they think Hostel was super scary.
I really like Hostel (and the sequel) but I have a fondness for gory horror movies. I don't think it's a life changing movie, but I do think there's more to it than just the gore.
...And I don't mind jump cuts as much as you do, apparently. :P
Also, if you liked the Japanese girl jumping in front of a train, you should check out a Japanese flick called Suicide Club, because Roth basically cribbed out two minutes of that movie scene for scene and stuck it in Hostel as the "Japanese girl jumping in front of a train". Also, the opening of Suicide Club is THE BEST EVER.
Ugh, Cabin Fever is the bane of my existence.
back to the boring, serious version of "Euro Trip"
It's funny b/c it's true.
Hostel is better than Cabin Fever, maybe it's because of the softcore intro or the other cool scenes you mentioned. Still, I haven't run out to put Hostel II at the top of my NFQ, either.
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