DVD | Hostel

Rating: R18 - Contains Violence, Offensive Language, Drug Use & Sex Scenes.
Duration: 95 mins.
Genre : Horror.
Actors: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Jan Vlasák, Eythor Gudjonsson, Lenka Vlasakova.
Release Date: Available now.

Hostel revolves around the antics of three young backpackers in Amsterdam, looking for a good time – drugs, sex and more sex. But when they get kicked out of a promising club, only to return to their hostel to find they’ve missed curfew, it seems like they’ve missed out on all the fun. That is until a local rescues them and offers his place for the night. Here he enthrals them with tales of this Hostel in Eastern Europe, where the girls are beautiful, easy, and most importantly, they just LOVE Americans.

Not seeing the obviousness of their host’s bad acting they decide to set out and find said hostel, and when they do, it seems like all their dreams have come true. In reality their worst nightmare is about to erupt in their faces.

Hostel is billed as being ‘In the tradition of dread-inducing terror-rides like Saw and Wolf Creek’. Sadly it falters in comparison to Saw and has little in common with Wolf Creek (apart from the sadistic violence quotas of the two movies). What sets Saw apart as a masterpiece is its cunning, dastardly plot that twists and turns in unexpected and original ways.

Hostel on the other hand doesn’t have a grain of originality in its merge plot. In fact the only thing is does well is bring new meaning to the word gratuitous. The acting is bad, and the plot doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be. As an action/horror/survival movie, it doesn’t really kick in until the last 15 minutes, where in sheer desperation for some action, you’re posed on the edge of your seat with the familiar nausea of knowing exactly how the movie will end.

Disappointing in just about every way.

Food for thought
The three backpackers are lured to their nightmare with promises of a self serving hedonistic lifestyle, but they soon find that the pursuit of pleasure has its consequences. Now there’s nothing wrong with being happy, but if we can’t find it in our current situation, can we really find it elsewhere?