Hostel
This movie’s plot revolves around three backpackers who make their journey towards Slovak city without the slightest clue that it will not be what they are expecting to see.
1980, London, England, UK
8 May 1976, Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]
3 June 1957, Prague, Czech Republic
5 February 1968, Iceland
19 June 1979, Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]
August 28, 2015
This is a grim, gory, and unapologetically grungy piece of "survival horror." I dug it.
August 30, 2009
A series of interesting ideas floating around a sea of blood
June 24, 2006
Sadly, as with [director Eli] Roth's promising but flawed debut feature, its central conceit is more compelling than what ended up on screen.
August 03, 2007
A stern moralistic rebuke to ugly-Americanism. The movie is in-your-face but not pointlessly so.
January 13, 2006
Although I spent much of the second half staring into my lap while listening to a cacophony of screams and shop tools, I processed enough of the first to appreciate Roth's sinister evocation of a Slovakian provincial town.
November 27, 2006
Hostel's merely unpleasant and more than a little dumb.
January 10, 2006
The film is too casually misanthropic and enamored of its expulsive prosthetic virtuosity to be politically relevant, and it's not clear what response -- shame? outrage? titillation? -- Roth is after.
January 14, 2006
All this in a 94-minute movie that takes 45 minutes getting started!
October 25, 2013
Whereas most modern slasher films cut straight to the flesh-ripping for no purpose of art or psychological stimulation, Hostel marries them with skillful execution and, somehow, a relevant subtext.
July 10, 2007
This is routine Roth as usual. Homophobia, attempted nihilism, vapid writing, paper thin plot, and nonsensical all the way...
December 29, 2006
Whether or not this kind of horror movie is your cup of tea, you have to at least admire Roth for the daring and creativity with which he illustrates that concept.
July 03, 2008
Roth is able to change the focus from frolicking raunchiness to extreme chilliness in a way that's quite sobering.
