Hostel is a
2005 horror film written, produced and directed by
Eli Roth, starring
Jay Hernandez,
Derek Richardson,
Jennifer Lim,
Eythor Gudjonsson and
Barbara Nedeljáková. Due to the graphic nature of this film, its showing has been restricted in certain countries, primarily those with strict
censorship policies. The sequel,
Hostel: Part II, was released on June 8, 2007.
Plot
In
Amsterdam, after being thrown out of a
discotheque,
American backpackers Paxton (
Jay Hernandez) and Josh (
Derek Richardson), and their
Icelandic friend Óli (
Eyþór Guðjónsson) visit a
brothel. On their return to their
hostel, they meet Alexei (
Lubomir Bukovy), a
Russian man who tells them about a hostel in
Slovakia filled with American-loving local women. The backpackers board a train to Haganam, a small village, where they meet a
Dutch businessman (
Jan Vlasák). The backpackers check into the local hostel and find themselves sharing a room with Natalya (
Barbara Nedeljáková) and Svetlana (Jana Kadeřábková), two attractive single women who entice them into going to a
spa and a disco before sleeping with them.
The next morning, Óli is missing. A young
Japanese backpacker named Kana (
Jennifer Lim) also reports that her friend Yuki (
Keiko Seiko) has disappeared. A
MMS photo sent from Yuki's phone shows Yuki and Óli beneath a smokestack of an abandoned factory, with the word
Sayonara written beneath it. Paxton and Josh decide to leave
Bratislava with Kana the following day. They spot a man wearing Oli's jacket at a museum of medieval torture relics. Paxton later notices that the MMS photo of Oli and Yuki is faked. Later that night, while partying with Natalya and Svetlana, Paxton and Josh pass out, having been slipped tranquilizers. Josh stumbles back to the hostel while Paxton passes out in the disco's storage room.
Later, Josh wakes up handcuffed to a chair in a dungeon-like room surrounded with a bag over his head and sees a man entering a room; it is the Dutch businessman. He examines tools on a table while Josh asks to be released. The Dutch Business man chooses a drill and begins torturing Josh by drilling him in both of his
pectorals just above his
nipples and in Josh's thighs. After he is done, the Dutch businessman sits down and tells Josh his unfulfilled dream of being a surgeon. Josh begs to be let go. The Dutch Business man appears to comply but really cuts Josh's achilles tendon. He then frees Josh from his chair and tells him that he can go. Josh gets up but falls over and tries to crawl to the door. The Dutch Business man then murders him by cutting his throat.
Across town, Paxton awakens and returns to the hostel to find both Josh and Kana missing. In his room are a different pair of beautiful women inviting him to a spa, eerily similar to Natalya and Svetlana. When the local police chief (
Miroslav Táborský) proves unhelpful, Paxton locates Natalya and Svetlana, who drive him to a factory where Paxton sees the Dutch businessman cutting up Josh's dead body. He is then ambushed by thugs and is taken to a cell and restrained in a chair, joined minutes later by a German client, Johan (Petr Janiš), who tortures him. He cuts two of Paxton's fingers off. Johan runs toward Paxton with a chainsaw but slips and cuts his own leg off. Paxton gets himself out of the chair and shoots Johan in the head.
He escapes and disguises himself as a client. He hears Kana's screams and decides to rescue her. Paxton locates Kana and kills the man torturing her. Kana's face is badly disfigured. The two flee in a car from the building and get chased by some of the guards. while driving away Paxton sees Natalya and Svetlana talking to Alexei, confirming his involvement, and Paxton runs the three of them over killing them. With the help of some inner city ruffians, Paxton and Kana elude the guards and head to the train station. When Kana sees a reflection of her disfigured face at the station, she jumps in front of an oncoming train.
Aboard the train, Paxton hears the voice of the Dutch businessman, and in
Vienna follows him to a public restroom and throws the Elite Hunting's card under his stall. When the Dutch businessman reaches down to pick it up, Paxton cuts off two of his fingers, then kills him. Paxton then boards a train leaving Vienna.
Alternative ending
After following the Dutch businessman, off the train, Paxton sees the Dutch businessman's daughter. Paxton follows her to the ladies restroom while the business man is washing in the men's room. When he discovers his daughter is gone, he goes into the ladies restroom calling her name and then looks around the station. We then see Paxton restraining the Dutchman's daughter on the train with his hand over her mouth.
Cast
Production
Despite the fact that most of the movie is set in a small fictional location near
Bratislava,
Slovakia, actually not a single sequence was shot in Slovakia. The filming locations were at the
Barrandov Studios, Prague and in
Český Krumlov,
Czech Republic. In addition to the lower costs of filming in the Czech Republic, Barrandov has well-equipped sound stages, making it a popular choice for US productions set in
Europe. 95% of the film was shot on location in and around
Prague, and the stage was only used for the main torture rooms.
Originally the part of the business man, eventually played by Jan Vlasak, was offered to director Quentin Tarantino who turned it down only to regret it upon seeing the finished film.
Reception
Box office
The film's opening weekend North American box office gross was $19.5 million, making it the top grossing film that weekend. It went on to gross a total of $47.2 million in the U.S. The film's budget was around $4.5 million,
[Hostel (2005) - Box office / business] and the film went on to gross over $80 million dollars at the box office worldwide.
Reviews
The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes, 58% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 96 reviews.
On
Metacritic, the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 21 reviews.
Some of the Slovak public and their government attacked the film for its violence, while Roth defended it as a commentary on Americans' reluctance to travel far from home and ignorance of other cultures.
film critic
Peter Bradshaw noted that
Hostel was "actually silly, crass and queasy. And not in a good way".
[Peter Bradshaw: "Hostel" review, at Guardian Unlimited] David Edelstein of
New York Magazine was equally negative deriding director Roth with creating the horror sub-genre 'torture porn,' or 'gorno,' using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act.[David Edelstein: ]Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn, at New York Magazine, published on January 28th, 2006. Jean-François Rauger, film critic for Le Monde, a French newspaper, and programmer of the Cinémathèque Française, listed Hostel
as the best American film of 2006, calling it an example of modern consumerism.Hostel
won the 2006 Empire Award for Best Horror Film.
Slovak reaction to setting
The film's release was accompanied by strong complaints from the country of
Slovakia, and also from the
Czech Republic. Slovak officials were disgusted by the film's portrayal of their country as an undeveloped, poor and uncultured land suffering from high criminality,
war and
prostitution, fearing that it would "damage the good reputation of Slovakia" and make foreigners feel that it was a dangerous place to be.
The tourist board of Slovakia invited Roth on an all-expense paid trip to their country so he could see that it's not made up of run down factories and kids who kill for bubble gum. Tomáš Galbavý, a Slovak Member of Parliament, commented: "I am offended by this film. I think that all Slovaks should feel offended."
Defending himself, Roth said that the film was not meant to be offensive, arguing that "Americans do not even know that this country exists. My film is not a geographical work but aims to show Americans' ignorance of the world around them."
To many viewers,
Hostel appears to be misplaced, both culturally and geographically; the Czech pop songs used in the film highlight this disconnect because they were hits in Czechoslovakia between 1982 and 1989 but the movie was set in 2005. Roth said he did this intentionally, meaning to show American stereotypes of Eastern Europe, while the Americans in the film are portrayed accurately.
[Hostel: April 2006 Archives] Roth has repeatedly argued that despite the many films in
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, people still go to Texas.
[Close-Up Film Features][Really Scary Interviews Eli Roth]
