Hostel

Hostel

Hostel delivers what fans of the sub-genre want

It's often possible to get an inkling of what Quentin Tarantino's next film is going to be about based on the films he produces, distributes, or is in some other way associated with: neo-noir and blaxsploitation before Jackie Brown, kung-fu before Kill Bill, and grindhouse cinema prior to Grindhouse. In the latter case he produced the wildly successful film Hostel.

In the mid 2000s, the grindhouse horror sub-genre was making a second comeback in the U.S. (the first was the slasher films of the 1980s), in the form of what is now often derisively)called, "torture porn" due to its almost lascivious fascination with showing violence with suspense subordinate to explicit gore.

On that count, Hostel delivers the goods. It's not for the squeamish, but fans of the sub-genre will be pleased. But Hostel is more than that. I will sit through almost any amount of gut-wrenching gore - provided it has a point. Hostel could have easily done what so many B-movies do and just left the killer as a generic killer whose motivation remains unknown. Such movies become little more than pointless exercises in makeup effects. No doubt, those who aren't fans of the genre, or those who mentally tune-out before the final act, would and have criticized Hostel for being just that. But even though mystery and suspense are not the prime drivers of this kind of horror film, there is enough of it here to make it all worthwhile.