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Note: These scribblings were initially constructed as a way for me to remember my lines on the audio-review that I did of the movies, I included it encase anyone would prefer reading as opposed to listening. The link that I am including is not to a website of my own as I am sure that advertising won't be particularly appreciated. Instead, the link included will take you to a third-party website called Chirbit, which allowed me to upload the audio. I also wouldn't have embed it, but that's not permitted, do as you wish.
Audio: http://chirb.it/Ff1qIJ
I don't think that anybody will ever argue that the horror-genre has probably the most disastrously concocted formula throughout the movie-genre. They're movies that almost always revolve around the idea of somebody killing somebody else, and to put it bluntly, that's why people enjoy them. They can provide excuses like saying that they like watching them with their girlfriend because she gets scared, and bliggity blah, blah, blue, you can give me any corn-ball excuse that you want, I think for the most part, we watch them because we like being afraid and because it provides a rush created from something that was once so taboo. Although, in retrospect, they're hardly taboo happenings anymore, that spectacle of it has actually vanished without a trace, and now, horror movies generally have to survive off of their own merits and grace.
There are some exceptions, for example, most recently, Paranormal Activity has grown to prominence, and has already jumped the shark because it had a scare-tactic that had yet to become mundane. They, of course, made sure to change that, but the point is, the stereotypical oozing of blood really doesn't cut it anymore. Which is why there are literally thousands and thousands of horror movies that have only been seen by a couple thousand or so people. Don't get me wrong again, I'm not saying that every horror movie that you come across has to be innovative or differentiating because the genre sucks as bad as it did in the eighties and nineties. Honestly, it might even be worse, considering the lack of original ideas and the further dependency on remakes, but I digress.
With all of this being said, I am actually a little disappointed that Hostel never actually managed to take-off. I am not going to lie and try to say that the movies were tremendously formulated works of art because they weren't, and honestly, the movie series itself isn't even something that I would call genuinely good. Personally, I thought it was just the story itself that genuinely had potential to be something admirable. For those that don't know the story basically the premise that the Hostel series revolves around is this concept that there is an organization conceived for the sheer purpose of killing people.
The idea being that everybody has this rage, anger, and hatred with them that makes them want to inflict pain and suffering on somebody for the thrill of it all. In the first movie, one of the characters summarized it best, saying that the reason they do the things that they do is because the feeling of everything else will eventually go away. The feelings that you garner from drugs will eventually hit a plateau, and sexual encounters are mundane in a sense, whereas what Hostel provides is something unique that you'll never forget. I think that the reason I liked this story is because I think the concept was genuinely kind-of scary.
The third movie takes place in Las Vegas, however, the second and first take place in Slovakia. I am not going to pretend that I have any reason to believe that something like this could actually potentially happen there, but I think my lack of knowledge about the area is what gave the idea legitimacy. There are so many stories told about soldiers being tortured while in Middle Eastern countries or some of the things that went on in Concentration Camps during the 1940's. I think I need to make something understood after saying that, Slovakia is actual a state in Central Europe, and was considerably outraged with how Slovakia was presented in this movie.
They said that they thought it portrayed Slovakia as being an undeveloped, poor and uncultured land suffering from high criminality, war and prostitution, and I can't really disagree with them. This movie, in that regard, is incredibly offensive, although I suppose that, no matter where they would have chose to be the place for Hostel, they would have stepped on quite a few toes. Eli Roth who did the writing, producing, and directing of this movie defended himself with saying that he wasn't trying to offend, but show America its ignorance about other countries and what is happening around them, and I got that.
I understood what he was trying to say, and I also understood when he mentioned that even though Leather-Face runs around toting a chain-saw in movies, people still go to Texas. All I am going to say to people watching this video is not to assume movies as actual portrayals of places, and that, while I understand why Slovakia as a whole is offended, every story needs a setting, and unfortunately, you pulled the short-end of the straw. As for other criticisms that this movie series had, it was often called "torture porn," a name conjured up to describe something formulated for people with an infatuation for violence.
I have to disagree with that statement because I believe that for something to be justifiably proclaimed as "torture porn," the violence can't be there for the sake of being there. Human Centipede is an example of this, in-which there isn't a very thick plot, but instead, a whole mess of violence. This series, however, at least in the first movie was trying to install fear into the viewer through the violence, and the story couldn't have progressed without the violence. Honestly, in-comparison to A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and so on, this series doesn't have a whole lot more violence in it.
The second and third movie tried to come off more as darkly comedic and sadistic whereas the initial movie was more based off being a survival-horror, the third movie also implemented more action-scenes into it, but that's for later in the video. The first movie in the Hostel series starred Jay Hernandez, Rick Hoffman, and Derek Richardson. The story being that three college students named Paxton and Josh, along with their friend Oli, are heading across Europe. After a night of partying, however, they meet a Dutch man named Alexei who informs them about an undocumented hostel near Bratislava filled with beautiful women.
They, of course, think it sounds like a good idea to go to this undocumented location, and I am sure that you can probably piece together what happens throughout the story. I remember whenever I watched this movie with my parents, we watched it whenever it was new, it came out in 2005, so it was about eight-years ago, and honestly, I remembered it a lot fonder than what I did whenever I watched it again so that I could do the review. I remember the special-effects being more well-done which is one-thing, however, the scenes were actually much more powerful.
I assume that it's a mixture of me being younger and it being the first time that I seen it. The acting wasn't anything tremendous, however, I will say that I thought Jay Hernandez, who played the title-character in this movie did very well, coming across very likable, and like somebody worth rooting for throughout the entirety of the movie. The movie garnered positive to mixed reviews from numerous other critics and Rotten Tomatoes gave it a fifty-nine percent approval rating. I am going to be a little ambitious and add a whopping one percent to that in my grade of the movie, giving it a six out of ten.
As said, the movie wasn't anything too special, for a horror movie, I think you could probably say that it was above average, but it was more the concept that was scary than the actual thing. Also, there was a lot of silliness in there, which I suppose in a way might have been added for comedic relief but it wasn't really all that funny. You see, there's these kids that appear in the first and second movie, they're a gang that will help whoever gives them candy or money. Which sounds really stupid, and it is, but fortunately, the kids aren't too gigantic a part of the movie.
Now, we're ready to move onto the next movie which is Hostel: Part II, written and directed once again by Eli Roth, and starring Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips, Richard Burgi, and Vera Jordanova. One thing that I like about these movies are that they're filled with cast names that I can't successfully pronounce. This movie is easily my favorite movie of the series and is the only movie out of the list that I'd consider to be a genuinely good movie, and not just a good horror. I mean, it's still not great, but I think that it had enough twists and turns as well as psychological fueling for it to be worth the watch.
I think that this is probably the movie that made me wish that the series would have got its crap together. Basically, they decide that instead of focusing on the victims, they are going to focus not only on the victims but on the people that are committing the acts. There is good and there is bad to this. The bad is I think that it ruined some of the mystique that was established in the previous movie. The good in this is that it gives off the idea that anybody could be involved in what Hostel does, and the story between Stuart and Todd. The story that they're building is that Stuart is having cold-feet about actually taking the life of another human-being whereas Todd is ampted and, you know, really ready for it.
Basically, they go in a way that I at least didn't expect and I thought that Roger Bart's performance as Stuart basically made this movie as enjoyable as it was for me. This movie was a box-office bomb, which is why Hostel: Part III was direct-to-video unlike the others, and it also got a forty-four percent approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes. This is where we tend to disagree because I am going to give the movie a seven out of ten. Now we are ready for the third, and currently final, installment in the Hostile series, Hostel: Part 3.
This movie wasn't directed by Eli Roth like the others, and instead was directed and produced by Scott Spiegel. The movie relocated Hostel, taking it out of Slovakia, and welcoming it to Las Vegas, adding a new definition to the phrase, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." I think that this movie probably marks the moment that the movie began to jump the shark with me, the movie really threw itself at me as being the first movie where they started realizing that the popularity of the series was at a drastic decline, and in-response, instead of working to make better movies, they decided that they wanted to fill the movie with excessive nudity and profanity.
I am not saying that the first movie didn't have a lot of nudity because it did, however, at least when it happened at that point, the happening actually kind-of advanced the story. When there was nudity, it was usually done by some of the girls to seduce their prey, whereas in this movie, it was done because a lot of this happened at a strip-club. I'm not really a fan of nudity in movies unless it's done meaningfully, I don't think that directors or writers should be afraid of nudity, but I don't think that they should put it in there for the sake of it being in there, which is what is done constantly in the horror-genre.
I understand why it's done, they want money, but I don't really agree with it, I guess that I am just in it for the torture porn, eh? Whatever the case, the movie had profanity for the sake of profanity and nudity for the sake of nudity, which didn't make it come off as more realistic, it made it come off as cheap. The acting in this movie isn't actually very bad, it's actually very enjoyable with some of the actors really shining, but they make lights in what is a very dark-room. I thought that both main-antagonists in the story did tremendously, I am talking about the bad guy that is at the start of the movie, and the character that turned later on in the movie.
Oh, I thought that the twist they did in the movie was actually well done, not the one at the end, that was stupid, I mean the one with the friend. They're very good at making unexpected twists, but I don't think it was very powerful because they overdid it with the second movie and with the clip that happened at the beginning. The movie didn't even get a scoring from Rotten Tomatoes, but I am giving the movie a five out of ten. The reason that Eli Roth didn't come back for Hostel 3 is because he said that he didn't want to be around when it jumped the shark, I can respect that, but one has to wonder if Hostel 3's DVD sells registered enough for a fourth movie.
The horror genre is the place for endless sequels, ask Halloween, Saw, Friday the 13th, Grudge, or Leprechaun, they'll tell you the same thing. Chances are it'll be horrible, just like all the Leprechauns and all the Friday the 13th's, I only hope that Hostel follows Halloween by making their fourth, fifth, and sixth actually watchable. Thanks for joining me on this edition of The Golden View, and I'll see you next time.
Ratings!
Hostel: 6.0/10.0
Hostel: Part Two: 7.0/10.0
Hostel: Part III: 5.0/10.0
Audio: http://chirb.it/Ff1qIJ
I don't think that anybody will ever argue that the horror-genre has probably the most disastrously concocted formula throughout the movie-genre. They're movies that almost always revolve around the idea of somebody killing somebody else, and to put it bluntly, that's why people enjoy them. They can provide excuses like saying that they like watching them with their girlfriend because she gets scared, and bliggity blah, blah, blue, you can give me any corn-ball excuse that you want, I think for the most part, we watch them because we like being afraid and because it provides a rush created from something that was once so taboo. Although, in retrospect, they're hardly taboo happenings anymore, that spectacle of it has actually vanished without a trace, and now, horror movies generally have to survive off of their own merits and grace.
There are some exceptions, for example, most recently, Paranormal Activity has grown to prominence, and has already jumped the shark because it had a scare-tactic that had yet to become mundane. They, of course, made sure to change that, but the point is, the stereotypical oozing of blood really doesn't cut it anymore. Which is why there are literally thousands and thousands of horror movies that have only been seen by a couple thousand or so people. Don't get me wrong again, I'm not saying that every horror movie that you come across has to be innovative or differentiating because the genre sucks as bad as it did in the eighties and nineties. Honestly, it might even be worse, considering the lack of original ideas and the further dependency on remakes, but I digress.
With all of this being said, I am actually a little disappointed that Hostel never actually managed to take-off. I am not going to lie and try to say that the movies were tremendously formulated works of art because they weren't, and honestly, the movie series itself isn't even something that I would call genuinely good. Personally, I thought it was just the story itself that genuinely had potential to be something admirable. For those that don't know the story basically the premise that the Hostel series revolves around is this concept that there is an organization conceived for the sheer purpose of killing people.
The idea being that everybody has this rage, anger, and hatred with them that makes them want to inflict pain and suffering on somebody for the thrill of it all. In the first movie, one of the characters summarized it best, saying that the reason they do the things that they do is because the feeling of everything else will eventually go away. The feelings that you garner from drugs will eventually hit a plateau, and sexual encounters are mundane in a sense, whereas what Hostel provides is something unique that you'll never forget. I think that the reason I liked this story is because I think the concept was genuinely kind-of scary.
The third movie takes place in Las Vegas, however, the second and first take place in Slovakia. I am not going to pretend that I have any reason to believe that something like this could actually potentially happen there, but I think my lack of knowledge about the area is what gave the idea legitimacy. There are so many stories told about soldiers being tortured while in Middle Eastern countries or some of the things that went on in Concentration Camps during the 1940's. I think I need to make something understood after saying that, Slovakia is actual a state in Central Europe, and was considerably outraged with how Slovakia was presented in this movie.
They said that they thought it portrayed Slovakia as being an undeveloped, poor and uncultured land suffering from high criminality, war and prostitution, and I can't really disagree with them. This movie, in that regard, is incredibly offensive, although I suppose that, no matter where they would have chose to be the place for Hostel, they would have stepped on quite a few toes. Eli Roth who did the writing, producing, and directing of this movie defended himself with saying that he wasn't trying to offend, but show America its ignorance about other countries and what is happening around them, and I got that.
I understood what he was trying to say, and I also understood when he mentioned that even though Leather-Face runs around toting a chain-saw in movies, people still go to Texas. All I am going to say to people watching this video is not to assume movies as actual portrayals of places, and that, while I understand why Slovakia as a whole is offended, every story needs a setting, and unfortunately, you pulled the short-end of the straw. As for other criticisms that this movie series had, it was often called "torture porn," a name conjured up to describe something formulated for people with an infatuation for violence.
I have to disagree with that statement because I believe that for something to be justifiably proclaimed as "torture porn," the violence can't be there for the sake of being there. Human Centipede is an example of this, in-which there isn't a very thick plot, but instead, a whole mess of violence. This series, however, at least in the first movie was trying to install fear into the viewer through the violence, and the story couldn't have progressed without the violence. Honestly, in-comparison to A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and so on, this series doesn't have a whole lot more violence in it.
The second and third movie tried to come off more as darkly comedic and sadistic whereas the initial movie was more based off being a survival-horror, the third movie also implemented more action-scenes into it, but that's for later in the video. The first movie in the Hostel series starred Jay Hernandez, Rick Hoffman, and Derek Richardson. The story being that three college students named Paxton and Josh, along with their friend Oli, are heading across Europe. After a night of partying, however, they meet a Dutch man named Alexei who informs them about an undocumented hostel near Bratislava filled with beautiful women.
They, of course, think it sounds like a good idea to go to this undocumented location, and I am sure that you can probably piece together what happens throughout the story. I remember whenever I watched this movie with my parents, we watched it whenever it was new, it came out in 2005, so it was about eight-years ago, and honestly, I remembered it a lot fonder than what I did whenever I watched it again so that I could do the review. I remember the special-effects being more well-done which is one-thing, however, the scenes were actually much more powerful.
I assume that it's a mixture of me being younger and it being the first time that I seen it. The acting wasn't anything tremendous, however, I will say that I thought Jay Hernandez, who played the title-character in this movie did very well, coming across very likable, and like somebody worth rooting for throughout the entirety of the movie. The movie garnered positive to mixed reviews from numerous other critics and Rotten Tomatoes gave it a fifty-nine percent approval rating. I am going to be a little ambitious and add a whopping one percent to that in my grade of the movie, giving it a six out of ten.
As said, the movie wasn't anything too special, for a horror movie, I think you could probably say that it was above average, but it was more the concept that was scary than the actual thing. Also, there was a lot of silliness in there, which I suppose in a way might have been added for comedic relief but it wasn't really all that funny. You see, there's these kids that appear in the first and second movie, they're a gang that will help whoever gives them candy or money. Which sounds really stupid, and it is, but fortunately, the kids aren't too gigantic a part of the movie.
Now, we're ready to move onto the next movie which is Hostel: Part II, written and directed once again by Eli Roth, and starring Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips, Richard Burgi, and Vera Jordanova. One thing that I like about these movies are that they're filled with cast names that I can't successfully pronounce. This movie is easily my favorite movie of the series and is the only movie out of the list that I'd consider to be a genuinely good movie, and not just a good horror. I mean, it's still not great, but I think that it had enough twists and turns as well as psychological fueling for it to be worth the watch.
I think that this is probably the movie that made me wish that the series would have got its crap together. Basically, they decide that instead of focusing on the victims, they are going to focus not only on the victims but on the people that are committing the acts. There is good and there is bad to this. The bad is I think that it ruined some of the mystique that was established in the previous movie. The good in this is that it gives off the idea that anybody could be involved in what Hostel does, and the story between Stuart and Todd. The story that they're building is that Stuart is having cold-feet about actually taking the life of another human-being whereas Todd is ampted and, you know, really ready for it.
Basically, they go in a way that I at least didn't expect and I thought that Roger Bart's performance as Stuart basically made this movie as enjoyable as it was for me. This movie was a box-office bomb, which is why Hostel: Part III was direct-to-video unlike the others, and it also got a forty-four percent approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes. This is where we tend to disagree because I am going to give the movie a seven out of ten. Now we are ready for the third, and currently final, installment in the Hostile series, Hostel: Part 3.
This movie wasn't directed by Eli Roth like the others, and instead was directed and produced by Scott Spiegel. The movie relocated Hostel, taking it out of Slovakia, and welcoming it to Las Vegas, adding a new definition to the phrase, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." I think that this movie probably marks the moment that the movie began to jump the shark with me, the movie really threw itself at me as being the first movie where they started realizing that the popularity of the series was at a drastic decline, and in-response, instead of working to make better movies, they decided that they wanted to fill the movie with excessive nudity and profanity.
I am not saying that the first movie didn't have a lot of nudity because it did, however, at least when it happened at that point, the happening actually kind-of advanced the story. When there was nudity, it was usually done by some of the girls to seduce their prey, whereas in this movie, it was done because a lot of this happened at a strip-club. I'm not really a fan of nudity in movies unless it's done meaningfully, I don't think that directors or writers should be afraid of nudity, but I don't think that they should put it in there for the sake of it being in there, which is what is done constantly in the horror-genre.
I understand why it's done, they want money, but I don't really agree with it, I guess that I am just in it for the torture porn, eh? Whatever the case, the movie had profanity for the sake of profanity and nudity for the sake of nudity, which didn't make it come off as more realistic, it made it come off as cheap. The acting in this movie isn't actually very bad, it's actually very enjoyable with some of the actors really shining, but they make lights in what is a very dark-room. I thought that both main-antagonists in the story did tremendously, I am talking about the bad guy that is at the start of the movie, and the character that turned later on in the movie.
Oh, I thought that the twist they did in the movie was actually well done, not the one at the end, that was stupid, I mean the one with the friend. They're very good at making unexpected twists, but I don't think it was very powerful because they overdid it with the second movie and with the clip that happened at the beginning. The movie didn't even get a scoring from Rotten Tomatoes, but I am giving the movie a five out of ten. The reason that Eli Roth didn't come back for Hostel 3 is because he said that he didn't want to be around when it jumped the shark, I can respect that, but one has to wonder if Hostel 3's DVD sells registered enough for a fourth movie.
The horror genre is the place for endless sequels, ask Halloween, Saw, Friday the 13th, Grudge, or Leprechaun, they'll tell you the same thing. Chances are it'll be horrible, just like all the Leprechauns and all the Friday the 13th's, I only hope that Hostel follows Halloween by making their fourth, fifth, and sixth actually watchable. Thanks for joining me on this edition of The Golden View, and I'll see you next time.
Ratings!
Hostel: 6.0/10.0
Hostel: Part Two: 7.0/10.0
Hostel: Part III: 5.0/10.0
