HOSTEL (Roth, 2005)
I like Eli Roth. As part of the whole Internet horror-geek group, this tends to alienate a lot of people. There is a whole, big sub-set of people who tend to hate Roth for any number of reasons. I suspect that a relatively high number stems from the fact that 'net geeks tend to be incredibly bitter, spiteful people, and to some degree, they envy Roth's success and fee,l that given his same circumstances, they could create better films than he does. There are also plenty of valid complaints, dealing with his tendency to completely lift (read: rip off) from some of his idols (Raimi, Miike, Hooper, et al). Most of the people who hate Roth for this reason also hate Quentin Tarantino, so the fact that they're friends (and that Tarantino co-executive produced HOSTEL, Roth's second film) doesn't do much to detract from their outright hatred of Roth.
But I like Eli Roth. I think his films are funny and cool and if he's a rip off hack, so what? Rob Zombie rips off the same people, to the same degree as Roth, and he encounters only a fraction of the criticism that Roth does. (I am speaking, again, of criticism from the Internet horror geek population, not from, you know, actual movie critics, who tend to sort of brush off both Roth and Zombie.) In the end, Roth is not as untalented as many think. What he's doing is derivative and unoriginal, but so many people who keep on crying out for "originality" in the horror genre forget that the genre, from 80s slashers to the current crop of re-makes to endless lines of sequels to shameless direct-to-video ripoffs, is ultmiately one of imitation. Roth is recontextualizing archetypes of horror cinema's past and making something new.
But this is all meaningless. Most people had decided they hated HOSTEL before they even saw it (if they bothered to see it at all), based solely on their dislike for Roth's first film, and, to an even greater degree, their dislike of Roth himself, as a person. And here I've spent two paragraphs talking about the guy and not talking about HOSTEL. What a hyopcrite I am, huh?
If CABIN FEVER was Roth doing Raimi and Peter Jackson, then HOSTEL is a mash-up of 70s grindhouse pictures and the artsploitation of Takashi Miike, in particular AUDITION. Like that (vastly superior) other film, HOSTEL is comprised largely of two parts: an opening half of seeming normalcy, and then a closing second half of mayhem and debauchery. As far as stories go, HOSTEL is really quite fun. Some retarded fratboys party their way across through Ansterdam and end up in Slovakia on a tip from an acquaitance who informs them that the girls there are desperate and horny. They crash at a hostel and meet some girls, who end up drugging them and selling them off to a company that allows traveling businessmen the chance to torture a real human being, for a price. One, an utterly unlikeable lout named Paxton, survives and extracts some revenge on the Dutch businessman who killed his (possibly gay?) friend, Josh. The possibly gay Josh sub-plot is interesting but ultimately meaningless, never paid off in any identifiable way. Not that it has to be, but it seemed like Roth hinting at a subtext and, in the end, doing nothing with it.
The entire film is like that. Homophobia and a sense of American entitlement run rampant and Roth makes a pretense of examining the issues, but seems content to leave them just hinted at. Maybe we should be content as an audience. Most critics, after all, focused on the violence and depravity on screen and ignored the social aspects, despite that fact that in interviews, Roth attempted to put HOSTEL into a political context, implying that people need a violent release in order to shelter themselves from the reality of having a fucking religious nut in the White House, but George Kaltsounakis deftly illulstrated the ways that Roth really just reinforces the current cultural climate with his picture. He raises some valid points, especially in his implication that by killing off Josh and allowing Paxton to live, he is making a comment on sexuality and a certain kind of attitude. While Josh wants to be a writer, Paxton wants to go to law school. Roth claims that he wanted the audience to identify with Josh, the sensitive guy, and then be shooken up and alone when he ends up being killed and we're left just with the brute, Paxton. But by allowing Paxton to survive the ordeal, Roth is commenting on the differences between these two guys and passing judgement on the two characters. I've never seen nor heard him comment on that point.
Something else that is interesting are the parallels that exist between the college kids and the rich businessmen who wind up paying to end their lives. Both come to Europe seeking depravity and thrills that they can't find (legally) in America. Rick Hoffman portrays an American businessman who claims that he has had his kill of women and drugs, and now the only thing that excites him is murder, the killing of another person. Roth seems to imply that Paxton, who came to Ansterdam for stories of fucking and pot, will one day end up coming back looking for debauchery and only finding pleasure in torture. It's an audacious comment, perhaps the film's most compelling. This too, of course, has largely been ignored by the critics.
Horror fans and Ebert alike focused on the gore and violence, and that's understandable. Perhaps it's even fitting, when you consider the half-baked arguments and observations that Roth makes. The torture sequences are immediate and end up being the only thing that anyone is going to be talking about. To anyone who's seen ICHI THE KILLER or LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, the violence will be pretty rote, aside from a particularly nasty scene involving a pair of scissors and a Japanese girl's eyeball. A sampling of the Rotten Tomatoes page for HOSTEL reveals critic's preoccupation: "Silly, blood nonsense..." "...unnecessary, unjustified exploitation of gore..." "...a reined in gorefest for afficionados of torture..." The most unintentionally hilarious is Tim Cogshell from Box Office magazine, who states "Is there a point? No. Will you like it? Perhaps, but if you do...you should see someone about that." By "see someone" I would assume he refers to seeking psychiatric help, which is just a silly suggestion, even if he meant it in jest. But his statement that there is no point, that HOSTEL is meaningless and devoid of value, is lazy and speaks to a general negligence of the horror genre by the critical elite. Fuck 'em, and fuck the Roth haters, too. Bring on HOSTEL: PART II.
But I like Eli Roth. I think his films are funny and cool and if he's a rip off hack, so what? Rob Zombie rips off the same people, to the same degree as Roth, and he encounters only a fraction of the criticism that Roth does. (I am speaking, again, of criticism from the Internet horror geek population, not from, you know, actual movie critics, who tend to sort of brush off both Roth and Zombie.) In the end, Roth is not as untalented as many think. What he's doing is derivative and unoriginal, but so many people who keep on crying out for "originality" in the horror genre forget that the genre, from 80s slashers to the current crop of re-makes to endless lines of sequels to shameless direct-to-video ripoffs, is ultmiately one of imitation. Roth is recontextualizing archetypes of horror cinema's past and making something new.
But this is all meaningless. Most people had decided they hated HOSTEL before they even saw it (if they bothered to see it at all), based solely on their dislike for Roth's first film, and, to an even greater degree, their dislike of Roth himself, as a person. And here I've spent two paragraphs talking about the guy and not talking about HOSTEL. What a hyopcrite I am, huh?
If CABIN FEVER was Roth doing Raimi and Peter Jackson, then HOSTEL is a mash-up of 70s grindhouse pictures and the artsploitation of Takashi Miike, in particular AUDITION. Like that (vastly superior) other film, HOSTEL is comprised largely of two parts: an opening half of seeming normalcy, and then a closing second half of mayhem and debauchery. As far as stories go, HOSTEL is really quite fun. Some retarded fratboys party their way across through Ansterdam and end up in Slovakia on a tip from an acquaitance who informs them that the girls there are desperate and horny. They crash at a hostel and meet some girls, who end up drugging them and selling them off to a company that allows traveling businessmen the chance to torture a real human being, for a price. One, an utterly unlikeable lout named Paxton, survives and extracts some revenge on the Dutch businessman who killed his (possibly gay?) friend, Josh. The possibly gay Josh sub-plot is interesting but ultimately meaningless, never paid off in any identifiable way. Not that it has to be, but it seemed like Roth hinting at a subtext and, in the end, doing nothing with it.
The entire film is like that. Homophobia and a sense of American entitlement run rampant and Roth makes a pretense of examining the issues, but seems content to leave them just hinted at. Maybe we should be content as an audience. Most critics, after all, focused on the violence and depravity on screen and ignored the social aspects, despite that fact that in interviews, Roth attempted to put HOSTEL into a political context, implying that people need a violent release in order to shelter themselves from the reality of having a fucking religious nut in the White House, but George Kaltsounakis deftly illulstrated the ways that Roth really just reinforces the current cultural climate with his picture. He raises some valid points, especially in his implication that by killing off Josh and allowing Paxton to live, he is making a comment on sexuality and a certain kind of attitude. While Josh wants to be a writer, Paxton wants to go to law school. Roth claims that he wanted the audience to identify with Josh, the sensitive guy, and then be shooken up and alone when he ends up being killed and we're left just with the brute, Paxton. But by allowing Paxton to survive the ordeal, Roth is commenting on the differences between these two guys and passing judgement on the two characters. I've never seen nor heard him comment on that point.
Something else that is interesting are the parallels that exist between the college kids and the rich businessmen who wind up paying to end their lives. Both come to Europe seeking depravity and thrills that they can't find (legally) in America. Rick Hoffman portrays an American businessman who claims that he has had his kill of women and drugs, and now the only thing that excites him is murder, the killing of another person. Roth seems to imply that Paxton, who came to Ansterdam for stories of fucking and pot, will one day end up coming back looking for debauchery and only finding pleasure in torture. It's an audacious comment, perhaps the film's most compelling. This too, of course, has largely been ignored by the critics.
Horror fans and Ebert alike focused on the gore and violence, and that's understandable. Perhaps it's even fitting, when you consider the half-baked arguments and observations that Roth makes. The torture sequences are immediate and end up being the only thing that anyone is going to be talking about. To anyone who's seen ICHI THE KILLER or LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, the violence will be pretty rote, aside from a particularly nasty scene involving a pair of scissors and a Japanese girl's eyeball. A sampling of the Rotten Tomatoes page for HOSTEL reveals critic's preoccupation: "Silly, blood nonsense..." "...unnecessary, unjustified exploitation of gore..." "...a reined in gorefest for afficionados of torture..." The most unintentionally hilarious is Tim Cogshell from Box Office magazine, who states "Is there a point? No. Will you like it? Perhaps, but if you do...you should see someone about that." By "see someone" I would assume he refers to seeking psychiatric help, which is just a silly suggestion, even if he meant it in jest. But his statement that there is no point, that HOSTEL is meaningless and devoid of value, is lazy and speaks to a general negligence of the horror genre by the critical elite. Fuck 'em, and fuck the Roth haters, too. Bring on HOSTEL: PART II.
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posted by travis at 4:26 PM
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