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
Two college grad students, Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and his friend, Josh (Derek Richardson), along with their Icelandic friend Óli (Eyþór Guðjónsson),are backpacking together across Europe on vacation. After being thrown out of a discotheque, the three visit a brothel, where Josh chickens out of having sex with a very attractive prostitute. When they return to their hostel, they meet a Russian man named Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy) who informs them about an undocumented hostel in Slovakia filled with beautiful, American-loving women.
The three subsequently board a train to Haganam, a small village, where they meet a pecuilar, Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasák), who (more or less) "freaks" Josh out by placing his hand on his thigh. The man moves to another cab on the train immediately after Josh expresses his obvious disapproval of such an unexpected action. The three check into the local hostel, finding themselves sharing a room with two beautiful, single, Russian women Natalya (Barbara Nedeljáková) and Svetlana (Jana Kadeřábková), who entice them into joining them at a spa and a disco. At the disco, Josh is saved by the pecuilar Ducthman whom he had unpleasantly encoutered on the train after the Dutchman intervened and prevented him from being attacked by a gang of impoverished children constantly looking for free money and/or candy. Josh apologizes for his overreaction on the train and buys the Dutchman a drink, at which point the Ducthman assures him there are no hard feelings. Later that night, Paxton and Josh have sex with Natalya and Svetlana.
The next morning, Óli is missing. A young Japanese backpacker, Kana (Jennifer Lim), approaches Paxton and Josh, who are searching for Óli, informing them that her friend, Yuki (Keiko Seiko), is strangely missing as well. 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. Not long after, Óli's decapitated head is shown sitting on a table in a dark, dungeon-like room with a man in surgeon-like attire leaving the room. Under a feeling of intense discomposure and suspicion, Paxton and Josh decide to leave Bratislava with Kana the following day. They spot a man wearing Óli's jacket at a museum of medieval torture relics. Paxton later notices that the MMS photo of Oli and Yuki has been feigned. Albeit Josh is anxious to leave immediately, Paxton talks him into staying just one more night, so they can have sex with Natalya and Svetlana one more time. Josh reluctantly agrees. 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, where is inadvertently locked in for the night.
The next day, 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. After he examines the tools on a table, while Josh asks to be released, the Dutch businessman 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 desperately him to let him go. The Dutch businessman puts on the facade of complying but really cuts Josh's achilles tendon. He then frees Josh from his chair and tells him that he is "free to go". However, when Josh gets up, he falls over and tries to crawl to the door. The Dutch businessman then brutally murders him by slicing his throat. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of town, Paxton comes to and returns to the hostel this time, much to his chagrin, to find both Josh and Kana missing. In his room, there are a different pair of beautiful women inviting him to a spa, eerily similar to Natalya and Svetlana. Paxton merely observes them suspiciously, with a look of confusion and discomposure on his face, realizing something is definitely fishy and wrong. When the local police chief (Miroslav Táborský) proves unhelpful, Paxton locates Natalya and Svetlana at a dismal bar. The two women are without make-up, looking very rough and different. Paxton furiously interrogates them on the whereabouts of Josh, and the two girls lie to him, telling him that Josh and Óli went to an "art show" together where the factory is. Although Natalya and Svetlana tell Paxton to relax and have a drink, he is furiously unyielding and demands he be taken to where Josh and Óli are. Natalya, and the man to whom she is sitting next, complies, and they begin to leave the bar to take Paxton to the factory. When Paxton looks back to Svetlana and asks if she is coming, she replies, "I already seen this show." When Paxton enters the factory, he shockingly witnesses the Dutch businessman cutting up Josh's corpse. 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 on the spot of blood from the slicing off of Paxton's fingers and cuts his own leg off. Paxton gets himself out of the chair and shoots Johan in the head.
He escapes, disguising 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 slices his throat, and slams his head into the toilet with blood flowing all over the floor. 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,[1] 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.[2] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 21 reviews.[3]
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.[4] Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw noted that Hostel was "actually silly, crass and queasy. And not in a good way".[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] 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[8], fearing that it would "damage the good reputation of Slovakia" and make foreigners feel that it was a dangerous place to be.[4] 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."[4]
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."[4] To many viewers,[who?] 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.[9] Roth has repeatedly argued that despite the many films in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, people still go to Texas.[10][11]
References
External links
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