Author’s Note: All articles on MK Horror contain spoilers.
Article written by Maggie K. Ward
Distributed by Lions Gate Films. Poster design by Art Machine, A Trailer Park Company
Three backpackers, Paxton (Jay Hernandez), Josh (Derek Richardson), and Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) head to Slovakia in search of the hottest, horniest women. Their arrogance is paired with the horrors of a foreign city with terrifying surprises.
The Hostel franchise brings viewers an interesting concept: how much would you pay to kill someone? And in return, how much is your life worth to you? Hostel introduces the Elite Hunting Club, an organization that deals in the business of selling people for others to kill. The first film in the series is told from the prey’s point of view. We witness their capture and their torture by strangers.
The eerie part about Josh’s death is the fact that he has already met his killer. He met this Dutch businessman on a train and over reacted to a potentially homosexual (but unlikely) gesture. The next time he meets the Dutch businessman he is handcuffed to a chair in his underwear, and tortured to death.
The torture itself isn’t shown in great detail. The power of editing, allows the creators to use the viewers’ imaginations against them. We see the Dutch businessman put a drill to Josh’s knee but the scene cuts to torture equipment and miscellaneous scenery. We hear Josh scream, and even see a close up of the drill penetrating the skin, but the torture itself merely teases the audience. Painful reactions to off screen attacks, and blood effects take the place to the visuals.
Paxton’s torture (or lack thereof) is very different. Clearly the torturer is nervous and Paxton lashes back by informing him in German, “If you kill me, it’ll destroy your life.” Both torturer and victim send mentally torturous blows, but Paxton’s comment causes the torturer to storm from the room and bring back a gagging device to shut him up.
According to IMDb, more than 150 gallons of blood were used in the filming of Hostel. The scene with the best use of blood was the “butcher.” After the torturers are done with their victims, what’s left of them are piled onto a cart and taken to the butcher to chop them into smaller bits and destroy them. Blood and body parts are everywhere. The details in this room are amazing. Blood is smeared on the floor, body parts are piled on a table, and walls are covered with splashes of blood. Even the butcher has blood splattered across his clothes and face.
In the original Hostel film, we get a taste for what the experience is like from the eyes of the torturer. While Paxton is attempting to escape, he finds one of the torturer’s coat and gloves, and puts them on. Another killer comes in the room and nonchalantly discusses the stupidity of the outfits. He asks Paxton if he enjoyed the experience and chatters on about the cost and his expectations. This concept, the story from the killers’ eyes, is explored deeper in the second film.
Paxton stupidly runs back inside to save a girl her hears screaming. It turns out this victim belongs to his new “buddy.” He shoots him, and releases the screaming girl. Here’s the best part (the use of the word “best” can be disputed): Paxton decides it’s a good idea to cut off this poor woman’s eyeball that is dangling out of its socket. Ugh. Disgusting. The cherry on this sundae is the disgusting yellow liquid the pours out of her eye socket. Makes me gag every time. Good job Eli Roth.
Honestly, when I first saw this movie, I couldn’t see beyond the surface. I assumed it was needless violence for the sake of violence. However, a few years later I am able to watch this film from a new perspective. Certainly months of studying torture porn as a sub genre of horror has helped me to understand why violence in cinema has taken the drivers seat. All in all, I give this film a positive rating, and recommend it only to those who don’t mind a bit of violence.
Have Questions or Comments? Feel free to e-mail me at: MKHorror@yahoo.com
Like my Facebook Page or Follow Me on Twitter for updates on everything MK Horror.
Nice post – definitely makes me want to rewatch this again soon. Adrienne has been after me for a while now to watch this with her. She’s never seen it.
I believe the day will come when Eli Roth will be accorded a lot more credit for what he accomplished here. Genre fans love to look back on a favorite and frame it in the context of the state of the world at the time of its release. Whether or not he was consciously aware of it at the time or not, Roth’s Hostel very neatly crystallizes a unique moment in history post 9/11 when Americans often viewed foreigners with a kind of arrogant contempt colored by an ignorant belief that all foreigners were backwards, weirdly unknowable, and undoubtedly up to no good. Although we’re clearly intended to empathize with Paxton and his buddies, They’re really just a bunch of disrespectful frat boy dicks carrying around an unwarranted sense of entitlement and superiority.
At the same time, Hostel also does a fine job of painting an exaggerated (or maybe not) picture of how much the world outside of our borders resents that attitude from Americans – as the fact that American victims are in higher demand and cost more for the members of the Elite Hunting Club demonstrates. Hostel very slyly plays on the suspicious fear we have as Americans that “the others” don’t like us and would love nothing more than to get us behind closed doors with some blunt instruments.
I suspect the fact that Hostel illustrates both sides of this dichotomy accounts for its success worldwide. Americans read it as a validation of our collective fear that everyone else was out to get us at the time, and everyone else read it as gorey wish fulfillment borne of a collective “chafing” against the ignorant and insular superiority that America displayed toward the rest of the world at the time.
Of course, there was lots of boobies and blood, too, and that’s just a good time for everyone.
Woohoo Brandon! Thanks for the wicked awesome comment! You may enjoy looking at my thesis… http://www.mkhorror.com/tortureporn
So I wasn’t the first person to realize boobies and blood are two great tastes that taste great together. lol Wonderful thesis. I love me some serious discussion of horror. I hope you’ll forgive me for monopolizing your Comments section, but the specifics in your thesis about the origins of the term “torture porn” sparked a recollection (I’m old and senile – rarely have those) of a moment in which I climbed up on my soapbox in a spirited back and forth about the term during a discussion on the MADF group page. This rant was provoked in particular by a discussion of Human Centipede 2, and goes as follows:
“First off, ‘torture porn’ is a term coined by the media so they could be lazy and frighten the straights. I dislike the term, and it’s so widely used now it’s virtually meaningless. Anything in the genre that the mainstream critical community doesn’t like now gets slapped with this appellation. I’ll be the first to admit that I personally don’t care for much of what the media (originally) slapped this tag on, but the term ultimately just marginalizes the entire horror genre.
I can’t stand the Saw franchise. I think the ‘morality’ it endorses is way more disturbing than anything in the slasher movies I grew up on. Now, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. Clearly, its themes speak to a lot of people now. The Saw franchise is the most financially successful horror franchise in the history of cinema. That bothers me less because of the faux morality and graphic violence, and more because it tells me that there’s an entire generation of straight film-goers now who think (by virtue of its success) that the Saw franchise is the very epitome of what a horror movie is.
If one accepts the the term ‘torture porn’ as being legit, then yeah, HC and HCII are probably worthy of the label. But calling it porn pretty much implies that its sole reason for existing is so viewers can ‘get off’ on the violent payoff. HCII, as graphic as it is, isn’t structured like porn. HCII is violent payoff from beginning to end, one long, violent orgasm if you’re accepting the torture porn analogy. Now, perhaps one could make the argument that it’s porn in the sense that it’s overly concerned with graphic, fetishistic detail, but that’s not how the term “torture porn” is usually deployed.”
Thanks for the opportunity to share the same rant a second time.
Damn, I’m having fun with this Gore-A-Thon already!
That’s an interesting thought on “torture porn” and I have to agree that many of the older generations have that mindset on the term “torture porn.” Even though the media coined the term, I still feel it applies. Many people are held up on the “porn” part of the name. It simply points at the connect between the two body genres (horror and pornography).
I have to admit, when I started my adventure into the torture porn subgenre of horror way back in June I was a little skeptical about what I would find. I will also admit, here and now, I’ve never been the biggest fan of explicitly violent films (I’m really more of a thriller fan). I studied torture porn for my thesis because I found it to be a fascinating chapter in the history of horror. Why are we so obsessed with the gore and violence found in today’s horror films?
Back in my early, early days of studying film, I looked at “Hostel” and saw hat most people see it in. Violence for the sake of violence. And nudity for the sake of nudity. It disgusted me. I didn’t enjoy it. Years later though, and after reading what Eli Roth himself had written about the film, it is clear to see the affects of 9/11 on the story and the American fear of people from other countries.
I really hope those that hate the term “torture porn” can take a step back and truly look at the sub genre for what it is. The best article I suggest for understanding torture porn as a sub genre of horror is Dean Lockwood’s “All Stripped Down: The Spectacle of “Torture Porn.” It really breaks down the sub genre and what exactly it entails. It is more than violence for the sake of violence, or the arousal of horror.
Horror is always changing. My advice: embrace the change with an open mind.
“Older generations”? lol
I’m not so much railing against the movies themselves (love Hostel, love HC1 & 2, love House of 1000 Corpses) as I am the way the term is so often used with a pejorative connotation by the media now as a dismissive catch-all for anything horror. John and Jane Q. Public read all about torture porn in their Time or Newsweek, and they’re led to believe that’s all the horror genre is now – a cesspool of sex and violence (at least insofar as how the media most often uses the term). The indiscriminate use of the term itself belittles this genre we love, and its usage is usually very facile and lazy. And the “straights” who’re seeing it all over their media don’t know any better.
I’m actually in total agreement with you that the study of the movies usually lumped together under this moniker is fascinating as a barometer of what we’re scared of now. You were careful to refer to this as a “sub” genre, though, and that’s my beef with the term. Because the term is used so often, so indiscriminately, and so all emcompassingly, the straights think that torture porn is the whole genre, not just one facet of it. They don’t know any better. That’s damaging to the genre as a whole.
I have “reconditioned” more than one person that thought he or she didn’t like horror in general because they don’t care for torture porn in particular, and they’re young enough (and casual enough horror viewers) to believe that this one sub genre is all horror is or can be.
Still, though – I really don’t like the Saw franchise. lol Make me a believer with your series of Saw posts and show me their value.
We members of the older generations are a cranky lot, aren’t we? I love the smell of a good horror discussion in the morning. Smells like . . . well, I’m not sure what it smells like, but it’s good stuff.
Brandon, is it not our duty to help educate others about horror as a whole? When I tell people I run a horror website they usually say, “you?! No! That’s not it your bubbly cheerful nature”. After all, by day I am a family and children’s photographer. How could i possibly let such a “nasty thing” taint my life.
Cute. Ignorant really. There are so many sub genres of horror. There are many that I love! And many more I hate! I frown at the overall consensus of “torture porn = horror”
When people tell me they don’t like horror. I always like to challenge them. I’m sure there’s something within the ever growing world of horror that anyone can like
I did not want to watch Hostel, or to like it, but a friend brought it over and I didn’t want to be rude. Of course, much to my chagrin, I do like it. It is smarter than the average exploitation gore movie in some ways; for example, I was impressed with the way the hot women who led the first victim to his death looked totally rough, sort of makeup-free and grey, when the rest of the group found them in the bar the next day. Nice visual shorthand for the concept of seeing them the way they really are: not dream girls but nightmares. I will admit that the same friend also brought over Cannibal Holocaust another time, but I refused to watch that. Politeness only goes so far, because although I run a horror site (well, two of them) I much prefer psychological horror!
Glad to see you’re open minded Erin
and thanks for the comment! I too love a good physiological horror. What’s your favorite??
I absolutely agree that it’s our duty to educate the uninitiated, and I’m pleased whenever I’m given the opportunity. On two separate occasions I’ve programmed months long “film festivals” for my straight – i.e. non horror inclined – friends (Drive-In Movie Summer Series and Son Of Summer Series). When I was unable to program the third annual Summer Series my friend Phil extended an invitation to program what ultimately became the first Movies At Dog Farm event for his friends in the photography world – not really a ready-made audience of horror fans.
Despite that obstacle, that was successful enough that I was invited to follow-up six months later with the Movies At Dog Farm Pre’Ween Picture Show, an event for which I ended up having to work through a very serious and unfortunately timed illness. I was high on Hydrocodone through the whole event, but I’m glad I persevered. I made even more converts. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to educate folks.
It makes me feel that there’s some value to the absurd amount of time that I’ve devoted to this passion (I’m old, remember) if I can somehow channel the knowledge acquired watching the good, bad, and ugly of horror toward converting the non-fans. It pleases me to no end that I’ve had more than one success story . . . and that those successes will perhaps convert others. I suppose the MADF site is just more of the same. It’s a compulsion. If I could somehow make a living doing this kind of stuff full time, I would. There’s absolutely something for everyone in the horror genre.
Speaking of which – Erin, even if it’s not your cup of tea I strongly urge you to watch Cannibal Holocaust at least once. I think the biggest qualm most folks have with CH is the animal violence, and there are cuts out there with those bits excised. I’ve only seen it twice myself, and can’t say it particularly appeals to me, but it’s just too pivotal a genre movie to not subject yourself to at least once – for the good of the cause. lol You can treat yourself to a good psychological horror afterwards.
Would you say Jacob’s Ladder is psychological? I’ve only seen that twice, as well. It’s unique in that it’s the only genre movie that’s made me physically ill – twice. I’ve never been able to put a finger on exactly why – it defies my critical faculties. Clearly, though, there’s something about it that f**ks with my fragile psyche pretty badly, and it irritates me that I can’t figure out exactly what it is. Any ideas?
Pingback: Ultimate Gore-a-thon: A Splatterific Extravaganza | Blood Sucking Geek