As Good As It Gets

Absolutely the worst movie.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Eli Roth is a frontrunner in horror's underground. The only reason he is not as big or as admired as Wes Craven or John Carpenter is because Roth relies only on blood. The story is a last minute thing and the addition of nudity is immature fun, but his number one thing is blood. Three years before this he did the horror-comedy bloodbath 'Cabin Fever.' I used to like 'Cabin Fever' when I was a teenager, but then I grew up. 'Hostel' is not much of a step up...or down. The year before 'Hostel' was released, the brilliant horror movie 'Saw' was released. 'Saw' like 'Hostel' is a torture-porn gorefest. Difference is, 'Saw' has good acting and brains. Hostel's goal was not to capitalize on the success of 'Saw,' that's just Roth's style. Capitalizing on its success is just something that happened.The storyline is heavily cliched: two American friends backpack across Europe with their Icelandic friend. In Amsterdam, the trio get involved in tons of sex and drugs. The acting by everyone is bad and the orgies are not enjoyable. These people delivered their lines awfully or if there was no spark of originality or fun. Usually explicit sex and drugs amp things up. Not here! Then the movie switches gears. The Icelandic one goes missing, then the movie turns to a thriller. This gear switching gives some hope. We find out there's a crew of people that snatch up tourists and torture them. The torture is what the trilogy is known for. Unfortunately, it does not work here. The question that lingers in everyone's mind is "Why?" What on earth in the point of these people kidnapping the tourists and dissecting them? In 'Saw' it was a game and Jigsaw was basically a monster. But there is really no point in why these people perform these grotesque acts. Providing a clear answer instantly would have made this a better-liked film. And its really too bad because Roth does not dive into the horror right away. Remember in 'Halloween' when Carpenter waited before Michael Myers was clearly seen? Roth does the same thing. But too much negatives around it diminished this good quality. The final act makes this movie worth watching. Do yourselves a favour and just skip to when Jay Hernandez gets kidnapped. He tries to make an escape and its pretty exciting. Not perfect, but still much better than the rest of it. In a movie with no point and really bad acting, an enjoyable final act prevents 'Hostel' from being a piece of trash.

171031: A second rate slasher flick. Nothing really stands out to me, not even the story. Hostel II however...

Long answer: Eli Roth jettisons the satirical potential of his screenplay in favour of... not a lot to be honest. The thing is, the torture scenes, while repugnant and disgusting, mercifully don't take up too much of the film. As a result, this is mainly a film consisting of 3 repulsive guys going around objectifying women and having sex, before as always in a horror film their search for action leads to a very bad place indeed. I have heard this film described as a satire or sociopolitical commentary of some sort, and there is something there for sure. The trouble is, there just isn't an awful lot to Hostel. It's nasty and mean-spirited but mostly it's just tedious. There are intense moments but there's not enough atmosphere; basically, the film just wonders what to do with itself for an hour before exhausting the viewer with endless torture porn towards the end. It is undeniably disturbing and the acting is good for a horror film. There's definitely an element of fear, but Eli Roth, although his direction is perfectly fine, didn't quite manage to back up his ideas with a decent script. Watch Saw instead (The first one, not those awful sequels).4/10

There was a partial joy considering that man like Quentin Tarantino offered some help around the movie but that was not enough to save Eli Roth's movie from a disaster that it is. Journey around the Europe is going really good but one bad decision will change it all and that decision is next place that they will visit. Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson) came all the way from USA to see Europe and pick up a friend alongside on journey Oli (Eybor Gudionsson). After having ton of fun in Amsterdam they are persuaded to travel to town near Bratislava and there will horror for them and horror for audience start. There was a constant growth of tension and seeing them party and enjoy themselves it started to fell a little boring considering we are watching 1:30 horror movie with 45 minutes of story telling without horror on sight. Then after Oli disappears it was obvious something is wrong and he are flashed with his head on stick giving us sense of what might come. Actually there was some hope for the movie until horror came on sight and it was the funniest and the lousiest horror from a minimal budget movies without real horror and without any anticipation at all. Every scene inside old factory building is badly placed, horribly shot and directed that it looks like some comedy that that turned bad but is still funny. Nice try to make an horror movie with some story behind but considering how ridiculous it looks and even something like this that was put to people to see is offending to horror genre because of it's bad and not scary or terrifying or horrible or at least fearfulness scenes. It looks like a home-made badly written movie and it was supposed to end even before it started. 1.5/4