[Film Review] Hostel (2005)

Dear torture porn, it’s really hard to defend you when you act like this. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Love, Ariel. 

Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005) follows the fates of three young men on a European backpacking trip. Paxton (or Pax), Josh, and Oli are “boys’ night out” personified, in pursuit of drugs and sex in Amsterdam. They meet a local named Alex, who tells them that the best girls can be found in hostels in Bratislava, Slovakia. He says that these women will be particularly interested in American men. Taking the advice, they head to Bratislava. In one of the most unrealistic scenes of all time, they immediately meet conventially only gorgeous women who want to fuck them, and they begin what they believe to bethe vacation of their dreams. As guests of the hostel start to go missing, Pax, Josh and Oli slowly uncover the truth. Alex and the women from the hostel are working together to sell American tourists to Elite Hunting, a secretive group which accepts money in exchange for the chance to torture and kill a person.

If horror fans are looking for torture porn, the first hour of the film is more porn than torture, with some bigotry sprinkled in. There are a lot of naked women, several sex scenes, and a leering camera. Throughout the first act, and much of the second act, Hostel does not feel like a horror film. While it is horrifying to hear homophobic slurs thrown around without a care, the film takes a long time to give the audience any reason to feel fear on behalf of the protagonists. When the third act kicks off, we finally get to the anticipated torture scenes. There are suspenseful fights and stomach-churning gore effects, in particular the “eyegasm scene.” This section of the movie also has much more creative cinematography and editing compared to the rest of the film. The first part of the film seems competently made, but the third act looks and feels like someone who loves horror put a lot of thought and care into its creation. It’s somewhat frustrating to have to sit through what feels like a lesser movie to get to this impressive third act. 

It’s impossible for me to look past how this film treats women. While we don’t see very many women in danger, most of the women fill one of two roles: sex object, or evil monster. One could say this movie is about taking shots at objectification and misogyny, and women ultimately having the power. After all, objectified women use their looks to their advantage. Our three male leads would never think to worry for their own safety, especially in regards to beautiful women. But then those beautiful women sell them to a torture club. However, that fact is not enough to counteract the sexism we see and hear from the characters, and the camera. Many misogynistic comments are made, such as from Paxton as they are leaving a brothel, when he jokes that he hopes beastiality is legal in Amderstam because “that girl is a fuckin’ hog.” Later, the camera forces the audience to take part in the objectification of women when it pans up and down on the body of one of the hostel staff. It’s not that we see a character look her up and down, the audience is forced to do so. There are many more scenes throughout that make it clear Hostel is not a movie about misogyny, it is misogynistic. 

This movie’s ideas about consent are inconsistent. Consent is acknowledged a few times, albeit crudely. For example, the guys meet a woman who is clearly stoned, and Paxton says, “We can’t rail a girl that’s in a coma. I think that's illegal, even in Amsterdam.” At a later point, when the boys are on a train, a strange man touches Josh’s thigh, and Josh reacts by jumping up and yelling at the stranger. While Josh’s reaction is certainly coming from a homophobic place, the movie (maybe accidentally) makes a point about consent. But then there are scenes where consent is completely ignored or outright dismissed. When the boys go to Alex’s apartment for the first time, they see a naked couple having sex. Oli excitedly sits near the couple and stares at them, which Alex encourages, because “they are so fucked up, they don’t even know what planet they are on.” A few minutes later, as Alex is encouraging the boys to go to Bratislava to find women to sleep with, he remarks, “you just take them.” Hostel was released in 2005, and culturally we have a much better understanding of consent now than we did then. But I think even in 2005, Alex’s comment would have been a red flag. For a movie that’s all about bodily autonomy, regarding either sex or torture, it really doesn’t make a clear point about consent. 

Overall, Hostel doesn’t deliver as a satisfying horror film, and it doesn’t have anything special to say. It had a chance to explore topics such as human trafficking, American exceptionalism, or exploitation of women, but it misses its chance. If you can make it to the third act, you’ll at least get a suspenseful, gory payoff. For all its flaws, Hostel is an important movie in horror history, and you can’t talk about the torture porn sub-genre without talking about Hostel.

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