Terry's Reviews
Page
|
||
| Movies | Music | Books |
Movie Reviews: |
||
|
Hostel (sicker and more twisted unrated widescreen cut) Sony Pictures Home Entertainment – 2006 Written and Directed by Eli Roth Starring |
|
| Two Americans backpacking through Europe find
themselves falling victim to a murder-for-hire organization. While staying in a hostel, 2
temptresses lure the guys into a club where they drug them, and before they know it,
they’re right in the thick of it, having been taken to a business-oriented
slaughterhouse factory. The first half of the movie plays more like a raunchy sex comedy such as AMERICAN PIE, PORKY’S or ANIMAL HOUSE, where the guys are all beer and sex obsessed, and the girls are in constant supply, holding the fresh cold beers. Eli Roth takes this film in a little bit of a different direction than his first film, CABIN FEVER. The aforementioned elements melt away into a bloodbath of morbidly disgusting mayhem. The cast is solid, with Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson excelling as realistically testosterone-driven American men. There are 4 commentary tracks, the first with Eli Roth giving a play-by-play monologue. He showed surprising restraint without losing his enthusiasm. The 2nd track features Roth with Quentin Tarantino, Boaz Yakin and Scott Spiegel. The 4 feed off each other, poking fun at each other’s quirks, making it fun to listen to. The 3rd is Roth with producers Mike Fleiss and Chris Briggs, which is somewhat mild in comparison to the previous track, and more technically oriented. The last audio track features Roth, actors Eythor Gudjonsson and Barbara Nedeljakova, editor George Folsey Jr, and web author Harry Knowles of www.aintitcoolnews.com, which could be the most enjoyable and informative of all 4 tracks. Other special features include a 3 part behind-the-scenes featurette titled, "Hostile Dissected". It was more relaxed and casual than I would have expected, which some will find easier to watch. Another item is a multi-angle interactive feature, letting the average Joe become a movie editor, using different angles to create your own mini-film centering around the manual destruction of a car. I viewed this movie for the first time at a horrothon, which was the perfect place to experience Eli Roth’s HOSTEL. The crowd became quite vocal over the first hour of pretty much non-stop sex, and then screamed and squirmed as the gore started to drip during the 2nd half of the film. Definitely recommend, but not for the squeamish. |
||
