But when you weigh this movie as a movie against every other movie that's out there, it pales in many areas to a lot of films. For me, there are no genre barriers when it comes to watching a film. That's just a classification -- not a handicap. Should I give a little because this is horror? Should I be stricter on American Beauty because it's a drama? Should I allow a little leniency on Casino Royale just because it's Bond and action-adventure? Not at all. Every movie can be evaluated using the same exact criteria because storytelling is an art that applies to stories. Are these stories? Why, yes they are.

So from a storytelling perspective, I find that Hostel does very well in some areas, but very, very poorly in others. Did it give us some seriously grotesque and disturbing images? Yes, it did. Did it present us with a disturbing view of the world? Yes, it did. But so did Saw, and that movie did a hell of a better job in the dramatic areas.

Hm, isn't that interesting. Saw gave us some intelligent characters, an intelligent premise, some good drama, disturbing images, a ton of blood and gore, a killer twist, and didn't treat us like a bunch of morons. But it's still a horror movie put out not long before this one.

Now, Hostel has a larger scope to it, and that scope gives it a minor appeal, but while one or two strong threads will create an audience, it doesn't improve the movie.

Saw is another little flick that started a slew of imitators.  It was great in many ways, but it was terrible in many as well.  The acting was Grade D-.  The sets were piss-poor, but that's not the screenplays fault, I agree.

Saw is a phenominal success story...for all involved.  Was it "better" than Hostel?  Most would say Hell yeah, it was, but I wouldn't agree.  Hostel was much more shocking..and powerful.  And if that's all that Hostel brought to the table, then so be it...but what it brought, it BROUGHT!

Quoted Text Saw is another little flick that started a slew of imitators.  It was great in many ways, but it was terrible in many as well.  The acting was Grade D-.  The sets were p*ss-poor, but that's not the screenplays fault, I agree. Saw is a phenominal success story...for all involved.  Was it "better" than Hostel?  Most would say Hell yeah, it was, but I wouldn't agree.  Hostel was much more shocking..and powerful.  And if that's all that Hostel brought to the table, then so be it...but what it brought, it BROUGHT!

I think Saw is excellent, probably the best Hollywood franchise for years. It's inventive with the best Horror character created since Krueger (Jigsaw).

Hostel had emotion, but it was manipulative and mean spirited emotion based upon sheer savagery.

If I filmed a baby being cut out of a woman's body and then being stamped upon till death, it would be "emotional", but it wouldn't be good filmmaking.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films If I filmed a baby being cut out of a woman's body and then being stamped upon till death, it would be "emotional", but it wouldn't be good filmmaking.

Not to mention being in really bad taste. It would be grotesque for the sake of being grotesque. That was actually one issue with Hostel that I had. Torture is one thing, but what the hell was the deal with the people having drunken sex behind the guys talking about going to the hostel?

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, while not the best of that franchise, was a fairly decent film overall, yet it made one huge error. It delivered a lot of exposition during a very distracting dinner scene, where they ate some very odd entrees. The entrees were so completely odd (to us Westerners anyway) that it made the exposition difficult to pay attention to. Hostel made a similar error by delivering a scene with a couple having sex (yeah, full on nude action) in the background. I'm sure many people enjoyed that, but it was bad filmmaking since it distracted from the point of the scene.

Nudity is 90% pointless in most films since it doesn't typically forward the story. It's usually there to give some T&A to the target audience, and Hostel actually did that in several other scenes (to a veritable fault, actually).

Call the nudity in Hostel a mistake if you must, but understand that for T & A Connoisseurs all over America, seeing full on, butt naked Scando babes was a very wise move, and much appreicated.  The scenes were done in a way that harkens back to the big 80's, and although gratuitous, they definitely added to teh overall mysitique of the movie.

Quoted Text Call the nudity in Hostel a mistake if you must, but understand that for T & A Connoisseurs all over America, seeing full on, butt naked Scando babes was a very wise move, and much appreicated.  The scenes were done in a way that harkens back to the big 80's, and although gratuitous, they definitely added to teh overall mysitique of the movie.

No-one is denying that the film pressed the right buttons for a certain audience. Indeed that is one of the major complaints about it. It was very clear that it was intended as an exploitation piece and deliberately attempted to appeal to a certain group of people.

I don't really want to say anymore on that particular topic as it will delve into the realm of offence.

It did what it did (sex and torture) quite well. As an actual film, as a story it was severely lacking and was also morally repugnant on more than one level.

I really don't want to go on about the film too much, as it gives it more credit than it deserves, but for a film to use torture as a sales device at a time when The US was using torture in Gitmo was somewhat crass and the portrayal of Slovakia, a decent conservative country slowly re-discovering itself was outright racist.

The film had the chance to use these themes intelligently and draw analogies, but it didn't. It used them as outright exploitation.

It's a film that were it possible I would have given minus figures on IMDB, as I think the world would be a better place if it was never made at all.

Ultimately, for me, it's a film with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

OK, then we agree to completely disagree.

I saw it in the theater with my girlfriend, who is not a horror fan at all.  She was shocked, appalled, amazed, and horrified.  But when it was all said and done, she said that for what it was, it was extremely well done...and I obviously agree 100%.

But my complaint is not with the gratuitous nudity throughout the film. My complaint is with that one scene in this instance. You have lots of other scenes with scantiliy clad Scandinavians. My complaint is not with the idiotic mindset of "Let's get drunk and get laid." Why? Because I've overheard this very conversation myself. I know their age group hunts for this rather futile goal. In fact, that's the characteristic that carries them to their deaths showing that goal's futility. But the film didn't build them in any way. In fact, I recall being completely bored by the time something finally started going on.

Now, once we got rid of the morons and had our one and only character remaining as he tried to figure out what the heck was going on, it was fairly decent. The idea of an international organization that exists for the purposes of torture is ingenius. I enjoyed how the sequel built on that.

But getting to that interesting part was painful and boring. Coming out of it was irritating and futile. And meeting the girls on the street near the end was just cheap.

It had good points to it, yes. But on the whole, it lacked seriously.