Hostel 2006

I rated this as an "8" - GREAT - only because of the torture scenes. A lot of the movie was just boring and uninteresting (the lead-in) and IMO overkill on the back story. And the back story was needed, yes... the affectionate little pat on the leg on the train ride, meh...doesn't seem like a big deal until later in the movie; I just felt like they wasted too much time on too much backstory. Once you get into the actual killing/torture scenes, though...as a fan of "gorror" movies, I have to give this at least an 8. To my recollection, I think this may have been the first torture-porn movie I watched and it definitely did its job in scaring/freaking the bejabbers out of me. Watching it again, however, I was pretty bored until they actually got into the brutal scenes. I guess the one scene I may never get out of my mind was the Achilles' heel scene...although I think I have since seen that done in other "gorror" movies. As a American who's never been to Europe, I couldn't tell you jack about the authenticity of the geography, language, culture, etc; but it made for a good movie to someone who doesn't know any better, while simultaneously making me far less eager to vacation in Europe. I suppose the thing that disturbed me the most about this movie is the knowledge that this kind of stuff probably DOES go on, somewhere. People with excesses of money get bored with the same old stuff, and eventually begin to explore just what sort of "excitement" their wealth will buy them, when bigger houses, faster cars, and trophy wives can't satisfy that primal rage within. I can absolutely see this sort of stuff happening in some remote region, and no one the wiser as people just disappear from life, never to be heard from again. If you're really into the torture porn stuff, this should hold your attention if you can last through the first half of the movie. It's slow getting started but has a decent conclusion. I'll probably watch it again at some point...

Undeniably influential but not a film that lives up to the reputation it had been built up to in my head after only hearing about it for most of my life. Honestly less torture than I expected, and of course the gore isn’t as wild as you might think. I don’t have any problem with that- by today’s standards the original Texas Chainsaw is relatively bloodless. But I expected more of that film’s suffocating darkness and atmosphere. It’s not so much I needed the guts and gore, but more that I was expecting more of the film to be like the scene with Josh and the failed Doctor. This twisted intimate and cruel interplay between torturer and victim. Much of that is actually left off screen, and it’s more a tense escape through the hellish facility and a country where Paxton has no allies, no familiarity with any of the environment, completely alone and separated from all he knows.

There’s value to that, but even that’s not played as much as I would like. I appreciate the commentary on the othering Americans do, the crass entitlement and objectification. I appreciate Paxton’s arc and the ambiguity of the ending. It doesn’t quite congeal into something great, though, and it doesn’t either revel in how awful the trio is enough or how awful what they’re going through and how they grow or reveal themselves enough. I appreciate what it influenced, and it’s a fun enough time. But it didn't live up to the unfair expectations my memory had created around it.