A "Hostel" Insurgence

(originally published at the now-defunct www.poweredbymovies.com)

In the most recent movie weekend, described by nearly every studio as tepid in comparison to most summer releases, the big news wasn’t that Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 13 made less than either of its predecessors--in all honesty, its $36.1 million intake wasn’t too far below the first of the trilogy ($38.1 million) or the second ($39.1 million) and is far from a disaster in this overstuffed season--or the strong legs of raunchy Judd Apatow comedy Knocked Up.Instead, it was the $8.2 million earned by Eli Roth’s gorefest Hostel Part II, less than $10 million from what part one made in the winter of 2006. The blogosphere has already pounced on writer/director Eli Roth and the entire recent surge of horror films dubbed by New York Magazine’s David Edelstein as “torture porn"--this would include such releases from the past few years as Wolf Creek, the Aja remake of The Hills Have Eyes and the blockbuster Saw trilogy--and have exclaimed that this widely denounced sub-genre has finally worn out its welcome. Like the slasher films of the 1970s and 1980s or the jokey Kevin Williamson Scream-type movies from the 1990s, it’s time for them to bite the dust.

I do not follow this line of thinking. Far from it. It is true that the horror genre, much like any niche-driven type of film ranging from action movies to musicals to westerns, follows a cyclical cycle of popularity, and it seems to a great deal of people that this could be the beginning of the end. However, one film does not equal a trend. To put things into perspective, no, Hostel Part II performed way under expectations. The film did, though, cost only $10 million. By this coming Thursday I can assure you it will have made back its production cost, and the rest of its run will cover the advertising budget (which to this writer seemed to be lacking in generally anyway). Take into account overseas distribution sales, the sure-fire DVD rental surge and cable television, and production company Lion’s Gate has a bonafide hit on their hands. There are no two ways about it. Horror films can be made on the cheap and still look absolutely passable to anyone’s eyes, and is a worthy investment for any producer.

The movie itself was watchable, lacking in tension but a vast improvement over the onslaught of horror-free PG-13 “horror” films that are released about 20 times per year. Since its plot shared a very close similarity to the first film, the freshness of the this-could-happen-in-real-life story couldn’t shock a second time. A fair amount of gore made it to the finished product, but a surprising amount happened off-screen. I would chalk up the “failure” of the film to the aforementioned crowded weekend (hell, Pirates 3 is still in second place three weeks later), poor advertising that relied too heavily on the Internet and not enough in theatres, and a word-of-mouth that just didn’t happen.

So before you let your irrational hatred of Mr. Roth figuratively execute a still-lucrative genre (the last Saw film, for your information, grossed over $80 million, and the third sequel comes out this Halloween), keep in mind that despite the flayed skin and dismemberment of these films, these forays into realistic human suffering are a valid art form that should not be compared in any sense to pornography. Mr. Roth may be an egotistical bastard (no argument here) but he is just trying to do what he does best--scare the crap out of you.

What I Grew Up Around: Hostel Edition

I just wanted to point out to everybody that tomorrow I will be seeing a double-bill of "Ocean's 13" and "Hostel II." Now, I did not come up with this double-bill. This dubious achievement was put forth by my dear mother, UCLA film school graduate of 1970.

Just so we're clear, this was the teaser poster for "Hostel II."



I personally avoided the first "Hostel" film in theatres. As with documentaries, I feel I appreciate the focus of horror films far more if I watch them in the comfort of my own home, away from the increasingly obnoxious audiences of modern day. (I did, however, see all three "Saw" movies in theatres, and admittedly only had a bad theatrical experience with the first at the Culver Stadium in Culver City, CA, otherwise having a wonderful time at the Century Hilltop in Richmond, CA, and the AMC Bay Street in Emeryville, CA, although I chalk those last two "good experiences" up to seeing them away from the opening weekend.)

I finally got around to seeing "Hostel" on DVD as a late addition to Netflix. Yeah, I enjoyed it, then watched it again the same day when Geoff came back from his valet job. I don't subscribe to the utter hatred of so-called "torture porn," but that's a discussion for another day.

Now, when it comes to my mother really enjoying the first "Hostel" movie, you have to put into perspective certain things. My sister was currently abroad for a semester, studying theatre at Queen Mary in London. The program allowed for a great deal of travel, as I believe they were given one week a month to frolic in Europe and beyond, and my mother met up with my sister several times during this five-month span. One time, they decided to go to Prague, where my sister's good friend was temporarily matriculating (a stage manager and theatrical producer she had worked with on several occasions at USC).

I am very hazy on the Prague details. I was working at Borders in Westwood at the time (holy shit, do not ever ever ever work at Borders, even if you're at the "celebrity store") and could not afford to travel overseas more than once. That one time was dedicated to going to Ireland with Stevi (my third time, her first), which was notably a great trip. It didn't leave me other options for the rest of my employment at Borders, though, so I didn't see my sister for a very long time. (Another thing to put into perspective: for my upcoming nuptials, I made my sister my Best Man).

What I do know about their time in Prague falls under two items: they saw a small black box theatrical production of "Faust" that was described to me as "entirely in blacklight," "like a rave" and "completely fucking crazy." The second was that they saw "Hostel" at a local theatre.

What's fun about seeing "Hostel" in Prague is that the majority of the film takes place in Bratislava, where the two main characters (Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson, who just happened to both be in network dramas this year) go to sow their wild drunken college oats and end up getting kidnapped and tortured for rich sickos. The distance between these two Eastern European cities is merely a 3h51m drive across a country border, or 331 km. (Since I'm American, a website tells me that is 205.673 miles.) Apparently, seeing this movie of torture, dismemberment, eyeball-gouging and horrific Achilles tendon-slashing that takes place only three hours away led my mother to declare later on the phone that she "absolutely loved it."

My mother is a very fearless woman when it comes to controversial filmmaking, unless it upsets her feminist sensibilities. (For example, she finds "Chasing Amy," which I consider to be an absolute masterpiece, to be morally offensive to her. However, she loves the fetishistic focus on naked woman put forth by Brian DePalma, so who knows?) She is very lenient on violence, and this is no exception.

(I did recently discover a different side of her, buried in the past, when I proclaimed I had just watched and loved Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs," which she subsequently told me she walked out of because it was too violent. This was not the mom I knew.)

I'm just saying, this is what I grew up around. She is a 58-year-old woman who is going out of her way to bring her family to the latest goretastic sequel by Eli Roth, who has been the brunt of some of the biggest shitstorms to come out of the film blogosphere because of the films he makes and his accompanying egomania.

And when she saw that poster, the teaser one above, here was her exact description: "Awesome."