Hostel - We Live in a Society

Hostel (2005) has been praised for body horror and a concept that will make you think twice about that lad's holiday to a dodgy hotel. It's probably better to take it as surface level, than anything meaningful.

The film follows those insufferable guys that linger around uni campuses as they go on a lads holiday. The aim: to get high and get with women. The outcome: they fall prey to a murder business.

The 'kill the asshole' rule in horror is most prevalent for the first twenty minutes of the film. None of these guys are likeable,so why do we want to see them survive? At least they do pull themselves together the morning after one of their friends goes missing to find out the truth. Despite the red herrings, they all suspect something more is at play, and it is refreshing to see characters be sceptical for once.

Even if Paxton (Jay Hernandez) still walks into a very obvious trap.

It's difficult to be too harsh on the plot, when the films main premise is torture porn in the same vein as Saw. It's fair enough to excuse flimsy characters in favour of some gruesome scenes. And the scenes are very gruesome, so there is a good pay-off. Jan Vlasák carries the film in giving a hugely unsettling performance that gives us a villain we want to see thwarted.

But it does also seem like the film wants something to say. The more that's unfolded about the murder organisation, the more it seems to push the message that deep down, everyone is horrible. Its one thing to say the very rich are apathetic and uncaring about human life (Parasite won for a reason), but another to say that everyone's a killer. (!!)'s rampage feels like a tiring and pessimistic beat. It becomes very 'human nature is terrible,' in a way that's just dull. (Especially when Cabin Fever had the same message, more or less.) Add to this the weird, last-minute suicide that feels mostly 'girls are so vain, huh?' and slightly ableist, and what the film's trying to say leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (And not from the sandwich meat fondling. Though, that too.) Everyone's inherently selfish and murderous...not a hot take, just an 'ow, the edge' one.

There are other, smaller things that feel a little strange. That human trafficking's a very real thing women do worry about. It would be an interesting inversion to explore this with a group of boy's on holiday, but we don't want to do anything too deep. That the film's pretty open about their destination. Not a bad thing, but did this effect tourism? Did it increase it? Is this allowed?

The escape from the centre is tense and exciting though. We're finally on our character's side and we want to see him escape. There's a satisfaction that comes with the ending. (And a bit of confusion, since there's actually two endings, with very different implications. I know which one I'd rather see a follow up to.)

If you're itching for a torture porn flick, this will satisfy that. It's tense and the gore's worth the weight. But its themes and messaging certainly leave something to be desired.

(The Ice Nine Kills songs great, though!)