Quoted from shelbyoops Balt, I am prolly alone in saying this but I though of the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes was shocking... Don't go off on how poorly this movie was..blah blah blah.. I'm talking about the gore. That movie actually made me feel sick. Sorry for getting off topic.. I'll post a review I guess... Hostel was oddly better the second time. I saw it in theaters and it was just okay but for some reason I thought it was like two hours long because of the slow beginning. I recently rented the unrated dvd. I didn't notice a difference. The only thing I noticed that was different was when *I think his name was josh?* Was being tortured and it showed the drill stabbing him. It was alot better to watch the 2'd time... wierd second time I would give it **1.2 out of *****

Hills have eyes was too much for you, huh?  Alright, it still sucked and the gore was absurd at best! The "Hollywood" standard jelly they use for blood takes any and all realism out of any and all gore.

Watch the original HHE, even, and you'll see a disturbing look at "gritty" reality. Even though Craven is a SLACK JAW PONY PISSEr who stole every idea he's ever had, along with John Carpenter... < Who took the idea for Halloween from Bob Clark >

Pieces is simulated "SHOCK" horror. This is a movie that is "disturbing" Hills have eyes is not "SHOCK" horror, cause nobody can do "SHOCK" horror anymore... I'm sorry you all are set to the standards you are but in reality this shit has been done better by 20 and 30 and 40 years in H.G. Lewis's world.

Amen to that Baltis.

I'm going to go ahead and agree with that. I don't think shock horror can be done in a Hollywood setting. It's just not that feasible. And most of Hollywood's gore effects look like they came straight out of the K&B workshop. I don't agree, however, that shock horror can't be done at all in this day and age. I think Takashi Miike's really raised the bar in that regard.

Ironically, I think Takashi Miike was part of the downfall of Hostel. Once his name gets mentioned, that really raises expectations. I think it was a mistake on Roth's part to do so, especially since Hostel was pretty standard in the gore department.

The gore is pretty...gory, but only in small burts. For eg, the first fort minutes of the film contain not a single drop of blood, and eems more like a raunchy roadtrip movie. An hour later in the film, a girl is getting her eye chopped out in an extremely grpahic sequance.

Put it this way. Gore is hard to find. We'll never be satisfied as an audience. Hollywood ruins many things. If we want gore go on imdb.com, look up a movie called salo 120 days of sodem. go to the thread and click the thread that is like: disturbing yeah right?

In the thread everyone names the most disturbing and goriest movies made. If you want gore there you go.

Quoted from Balt Watch the original HHE, even, and you'll see a disturbing look at "gritty" reality. Even though Craven is a SLACK JAW PONY PISSEr who stole every idea he's ever had, along with John Carpenter... < Who took the idea for Halloween from Bob Clark >

Balt, I watched the original like you said. I will admit the MOVIE itself scared me but the remake made me sick more so than this. I think the original was definately better, you were right.

Well, I finally saw this one via Netflix. Hm. Well, I was pretty bored for the first twenty minutes. While I may appreciate a good sets of tits as much as the next guy, I was beginning to think Roth started his writing for The Red Shoe Diaries or some other soft porn franchise. It was some decent character development, but as a premise to get the film going, it sucked. These guys are touring Europe for the sole purpose of getting laid and they get snookered into a hostel of death. Kind of hard to have sympathy for them so far.

Then one of them disappears (amidst which we get a torture museum along with a cheap scare) and then, the nice one gets whacked. Hm, ok. The film still is not interesting. Sure, I'm curious enough to want to know what the hell is going on, but this building don't have a lot of blocks.

Finally, oh finally, the film got interesting. Survivor starts putting his two and two together and weird stuff starts to go on like there's an intricate plan in all of this rubbish somewhere. What kind of writers takes 40 minutes to...oh wait, I've done that....crap.

Anyway, from the point where there's one left and he starts the quest to learn what happened, the film finally gets some momentum. We still don't know what the hell is going on, but finally it's ok because there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. (I did think to myself it was going to be a very short movie if German guy pulled the trigger on Survivor, hehe.) Survivor survives (that's his job) and finally unravels the whole puzzle in no time flat.

We expect that, no spoilers there. Then...

SPOILERS

he goes back for Asian girl which whom he has no connection except a regret from childhood. he save her and (WTF?!?!) she kills herself. Not sure if he cleared his conscience or not there.

I am back and forth with this one. It has a lot of idiotic points and a moronic premise to it. The actual plot behind the hostel was bizarre and engaging, if not downright disturbing and believable.

Oh, and I don't believe the Salad guy was the owner of the hostel/kill-farm. Not at all. Just a client who wanted to try his hand at surgery. Someone else owns it. We never knew who that was but there were a lot of people in on it. It is this final point that will allow this film to have enough staying power to warrant a sequel. The question is: how can they add to the original?

I don't review too many movies -- and avoided saying anything on this one because I was so late in the game -- but since George has bumped this up I'm gonna chime in and say I detested this movie.  DE-TEST-ED!!  And I love horror movies.

The plot holes are ungodly.  Those chicks just "magically" appear in front of his car?  And that guy at the end just "happens" to be on the same train.  Coincidence is one thing, but this is absurd.  It's like he wrote this over the weekend or something.

The so-called gore was laughable.  That eye scene?  That was some of the fakiest looking crapola I have ever seen.  That yellow shite pouring out was just stupid.  And the asian chick can sure run around pretty well following the kind of trauma that would leave most people in complete shock -- if it didn't kill them outright.

The sex?  Completely gratuitous.  Offensively so.  I don't mean morally -- I mean as an author and someone who appreciates film.  They were boobs for the sake of tossing in boobs and saying "Hey look!  We got boobs over here!" and absolutely nothing else.

This was the laziest horror film I have ever seen.  If you actually liked this film you should be ashamed of yourself.  

This I didn't think sucked as horribly as a lot of people say. People speak of this like it is the worst horror movie ever made, at the end of the day you have to remember that it's just a horror movie. It's safe to say that it's not going to win an oscar, but compared to the rest of the shit that passes for horror movies today, I thought this was good. There's complaining about the gratuitous nudity and the drugs and the gore, but not very many horror movies havn't exploited these three elements in some way? But now all of a sudden it's so wrong for this to be in a horror movie???

I think the major handicap for this movie was just it's hype. I think if it wasn't as hyped up as it was, people would have had a more open mind towards it. I think everybody expected something great, when it's just another horror movie. It's better than a lot of other horror movies that come out (when they're not remakes) Other than Audition, the Blair Witch Project, and the Ring and other Japanese horror movies, and maybe scream I don't know many other good horror movies that have come out the last ten or fifteen years  that were any better than Hostel was. Cabin Fever I thought was okay too, neither movie was scary, but better than the other "horror" movies that come out today. I think the horror genre has become so ridiculous that it's hard to come out with another classic like The Exorcist or the Shining in the first place.

I think this idea had a lot of potential. I can see Eli chatting with Quentin about this "idea" he had. If someone described the idea to me, I'd be all over it too. Imagine this. Q has Kill Bill going and he chats with Eli over whatever Eli got special thanks for on that film. Before they part company, Eli chimes in:

Eli: Hey, Q, I've got this movie idea I want to tell you about. See what you think.

Q: Ok. I'll probably tell you to f**k off, but go ahead.

Eli: Well, it's about this hostel in Europe -- you know, the places kind of like hotels, but they're not?

Q: Ok, sure.

Eli: Well, these people run this hostel for the purposes of luring travelers to kill them.

Q: Why would they do that?

Eli: Well, it's kind of a game for the rich. You know, what would it be like to kill someone? So this exclusive club of people owns the hostel and takes the travelers and people pay to kill them, torture them, whatever and however they want to.

Q: That's cool. But what would the movie be about?

Eli: Well, um...some guys who go there and get killed?

Q: Cool. I could go for some good torture scenes. Go with it.

<<After Hostel is released, Q is in the audience watching the film.>>

Q: Damn, I should have asked to read the script first...

Oh man, can you see this as an Oliver Stone movie? Talk about some cross genre mixing. I wish I could convey the hilarity of the images passing through my head right now... First, it would be at least an hour longer while we explored the life history of the chicks they screwed and why they're in the business. There'd be this long drawn out travel montage while he explains how they happened to end up in front of our survivor's car. Not to mention the suicide speech before that one jumped in front of the train. Ah, good stuff...

Hostel...the frightening new drama from Oliver Stone...

Sure, double post, but totally different topic.

This occurred to me after awhile. In the scene where the boys crawl up the fire escape into that room where they are told about the evil hostel in Slovakia, there is a couple theoretically having sex right there. The woman is on top of the man gyrating or whatever. Anyway, this movement continues in the background of the ENTIRE scene. She keeps moving. He keeps running his hands all over her.

Not to make it a pornographic post, but in retrospect, that's a bit unrealistic, isn't it? I mean, alcohol lowers your inhibitions while simultaneously being an anti-aphrodesiac. Therefore, he might screw whatever moves, but he'd be pretty limp trying to do it. If he were high or drunk, he'd never last through a scene that long.

I guess virgins shouldn't direct porn either... Sorry, Eli. Nice try.

As Bert said, I feel ashamed. I thought Hostel wasn't as bad as people said, though I do see the gaping plot holes and gratutious sex scenes that were not necessary to say the least.

I think what catches me, and what catches me in many films, is the concept. I can sometimes see over poorly executed films because I enjoy the concepts. I mean, a Hostel that people are abducted from so the rich can torture and kill a person for a price. That's pretty good. In the right hands, it would have been a killer of a movie (no pun intended).

But, saying that, from about 30 minutes onwards - it's a pretty decent film until the end choices by our protagonist (who I did'nt feel was a true protagonist to begin with).

I should stop typing this post, because I'm starting to contradict myself too much so I will...

Quoted from bert If you actually liked this film you should be ashamed of yourself.

Umm... I liked it, own it, and am ashamed. Call it a guilty pleasure. I guess I just dig the idea of a horror movie set in the backpacking universe as well as wealthy businessmen paying to torture people just for kicks. While I agree with a lot of what people said they hated about the movie, somehow I was able to forgive it. I know. Sorry dude.

I do agree that Eli Roth is an immature filmmaker however. Someone sent a letter to Fangoria criticizing Roth's use of anti-gay slurs. Roth actually wrote back saying he was shocked that the writer was offended by the language rather than the violence of the film and attempted to defend himself simply by saying everyone uses those terms and that the writer is being to PC. His retort was so bad that it actually yeilded a barrage of letters from horror fans basically calling Roth spineless.

He's also done several interviews where he's said things like "people go to the moves to get laid" and "if you can't get laid after seeing Cabin Fever, you're pathetic," making himself sound like a total fratboy douchebag.

And a remake? Nah. Wouldn't work at all. Good directors wouldn't touch it and I think Oliver Stone would just try to turn it into some political statement like all his other films.

Quoted from MacDuff As Bert said, I feel ashamed. I thought Hostel wasn't as bad as people said, though I do see the gaping plot holes and gratutious sex scenes that were not necessary to say the least. I think what catches me, and what catches me in many films, is the concept. I can sometimes see over poorly executed films because I enjoy the concepts. I mean, a Hostel that people are abducted from so the rich can torture and kill a person for a price. That's pretty good. In the right hands, it would have been a killer of a movie (no pun intended). But, saying that, from about 30 minutes onwards - it's a pretty decent film until the end choices by our protagonist (who I did'nt feel was a true protagonist to begin with). I should stop typing this post, because I'm starting to contradict myself too much so I will...

Good to see I'm not alone .