HOSTEL

HOSTEL
By Ken Leicht

I was not really a huge fan of Eli Roth’s first feature CABIN FEVER. It had a few really good moments but overall it tipped its hat too much to a genre I have never liked: the late 70’s/early 80’s bunch of stupid teens get massacred genre. HOSTEL, Roth’s latest is a huge leap in story quality and filmmaking ability. It’s almost as if he skipped ahead three films to where someone would say he was at the top of his game.

HOSTEL details the unfortunate things that happen to some US college students looking to get stoned and laid in Europe only to get more than they bargained for when they are lured into a torture chamber where the wealthy pay handsomely to torture Americans. Allegedly based on true events, this film is more Miike than Sean Cunningham this time around. Miike even has a cameo appearance to drive the point home.

I really liked HOSTEL. The story was good. The characters weren’t idiots and there was no everybody dies and here comes the sequel cheap ending which is pretty much omnipresent these days. Makes me look forward to his next work which is supposedly an adaptation of Stephen King’s cell phone zombie nightmare CELL. Eli Roth, Stephen King and zombies. Can’t wait.