Eli Roth.
The new wunderkind of horror, he's been called, and with his first outing, Cabin Fever, a film about five teenagers going to a cabin in the woods to celebrate their graduation, he actually seemed to fulfill that promise, delivering a slick and clever homage to Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, filled to the brim with gore, attractive people, gore, nudity, gore and a healthy dose of shock effects. And gore.
Decent film; fair enough.
However, just now I watched the first 20-odd minutes of his oft-advertised follow-up to Cabin Fever, the cleverly titled Hostel, a film about three backpackers traveling through Europe to end up in a (wait for it) Hostel, where they'll slowly be chopped to bits in a frenzy of gushing blood and agonising screams, and I must say, these first (let me check) 21 minutes and 24 seconds are among the worst I've ever seen in any film. The three main characters are stupefyingly one-dimensional, the 'comedy', if at all present, is horribly cliched, and there is far, far too much nudity in there. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for nudity, except when it's nudity for nudity's sake; it's obvious this film's target audience is teenage boys.
But what's worst is this: the film's downright offensively stereotypical portrayal of several European nationalities, including, naturally, the Dutch.
To all Americans out there (and yes, I realise I'm generalising here, too): We don't all go see hookers on a regular basis, we don't all smoke pot, and we do not speak fucking German.
And Eli Roth, do your goddamn homework before you decide to offend an entire continent.
That said, I'm a sucker for gore, and there's supposed to be plenty of that in this film, so I'm off to watch the remaining(let me check again) one hour, 17 minutes and 50 seconds of this film. Hey, what can I say? I have no shame.
Wish me luck.
Cheers
Addendum: Even the gore, which was copious and gratuitous, could not save this monstrosity of a film. Horrid, atrocious, and most of all, utterly pointless.
Decent film; fair enough.
However, just now I watched the first 20-odd minutes of his oft-advertised follow-up to Cabin Fever, the cleverly titled Hostel, a film about three backpackers traveling through Europe to end up in a (wait for it) Hostel, where they'll slowly be chopped to bits in a frenzy of gushing blood and agonising screams, and I must say, these first (let me check) 21 minutes and 24 seconds are among the worst I've ever seen in any film. The three main characters are stupefyingly one-dimensional, the 'comedy', if at all present, is horribly cliched, and there is far, far too much nudity in there. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for nudity, except when it's nudity for nudity's sake; it's obvious this film's target audience is teenage boys.
But what's worst is this: the film's downright offensively stereotypical portrayal of several European nationalities, including, naturally, the Dutch.
To all Americans out there (and yes, I realise I'm generalising here, too): We don't all go see hookers on a regular basis, we don't all smoke pot, and we do not speak fucking German.
And Eli Roth, do your goddamn homework before you decide to offend an entire continent.
That said, I'm a sucker for gore, and there's supposed to be plenty of that in this film, so I'm off to watch the remaining(let me check again) one hour, 17 minutes and 50 seconds of this film. Hey, what can I say? I have no shame.
Wish me luck.
Cheers
Addendum: Even the gore, which was copious and gratuitous, could not save this monstrosity of a film. Horrid, atrocious, and most of all, utterly pointless.
5 Comments:
Yeah, that movie was pretty disappointing. I didn't expect much of the plot, but everyone hyped up the violence/gore... that was the most disappointing part for me.
Did you check out the IMDb trivia?
I did just now - interesting, that he asked for a pardon for making Icelanders look like buffoons, and got it, too.
Otherwise, the trivia seems fairly .. trivial.
(See what I did there?!)
Cheers
Who do you think should be more insulted? Europeans or Americans? We (Americans) look like over-sexed morons...
I mean, who looks worse? The prostitute or the person paying for the prostitute?
I did indeed notice that, while showing us Europeans off as backwards idiots, he at least had the common decency to portray Americans as pot-addicted sex maniacs.
That made it slightly less offensive. But only slightly.
Cheers
Sounds like you thought as much of Hostel as I did of Cabin Fever. Guess I'll avoid it.
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