This movie is just plain awful. The violence, sex, and language is gratuitous. The characters are flat, the story banal, the acting stiff, the music contrived, and to top this all off, it's one of the most shallow movie I've ever seen.
Creative writing professor Jack Harrel, in his essay "What Violence in Literature Must Teach Us," defines violence as gratuitous when it is "free, unearned, or unjustified."According to Harrell, for violence to be warranted in a piece (whether or not it's in the horror genre), we must care for the characters, the violence must occur for a reason, and the violence must come at some cost.
Hostel meets none of these guidelines. First of all, the main characters are unworthy of any of our sympathy. Backpacking through Europe, the three, all male main characters' main interest throughout the film is getting laid and smoking pot. That's their entire motivation. Isn't the feeling of horror generated from the viewer worrying about a character getting hurt or killed? How is this suspenseful feeling supposed to happen when the characters are constantly saying crude things like "you're so gay" and "pu**y" and taking pictures on their phone of their sexual exploits in a bar bathroom stall, and screaming when a male character puts his hand on their leg? The only thing this does for me is offend.
Why does the violence occur? Apparently for a fee one can have the thrill of killing someone in whatever means they wish. Unfortunately this has absolutely nothing to do with the "story" (I use this term *very* loosely here). All of a sudden the main characters start disappearing from the "story" and start entering some kind of green lit "killing room" where they get tortured to death by some demonic person who has a short cameo earlier in the film. This is not a reason. When we find out later how this killing is sort of like an attraction for rich adrenalin junkies, the only thing one can possibly feel is apathy. Apathy for the story. All *this* just for *that*!!!
What cost does the violence come at in Hostel? None. The people who get killed are worthless to us and the people who are doing the killing are worthless to us. We care not when some of the people who are doing the killing get killed because we are not sure if they are the ones in charge. There is absolutely no moral bone to chew on here.
Lastly I'd like to talk about one thing in particular that really upset me about this film. Towards the end of Hostel a woman kills herself after looking at the reflection of her newly disfigured face. This is probably the most gratuitous and shallow point of the movie. It's also supposed to be its most dramatic point. First of all this character is only known to us as an Asain women who's friend also goes missing and doesn't want to party. That's it. When the main character rescues her from the hands of the killer due to her screaming, which reminds him of when he let a little boy drown a few years ago, we are surprised to find her in the "green killing room". Her eyeball is dangling out of her socket at this point. Our "hero" decides to finish the job and cut the "tenticles" that keep it attached. As to the importance of this I can not figure. But when she takes a look at her reflection and then throws herself in front of a train in very dramatic fashion I become upset. Think of how many people in the world are "disfigured." Apparently life is not worth living unless your beautiful. That is the only message this movie could possibly have.
How horrible.
Creative writing professor Jack Harrel, in his essay "What Violence in Literature Must Teach Us," defines violence as gratuitous when it is "free, unearned, or unjustified."According to Harrell, for violence to be warranted in a piece (whether or not it's in the horror genre), we must care for the characters, the violence must occur for a reason, and the violence must come at some cost.
Hostel meets none of these guidelines. First of all, the main characters are unworthy of any of our sympathy. Backpacking through Europe, the three, all male main characters' main interest throughout the film is getting laid and smoking pot. That's their entire motivation. Isn't the feeling of horror generated from the viewer worrying about a character getting hurt or killed? How is this suspenseful feeling supposed to happen when the characters are constantly saying crude things like "you're so gay" and "pu**y" and taking pictures on their phone of their sexual exploits in a bar bathroom stall, and screaming when a male character puts his hand on their leg? The only thing this does for me is offend.
Why does the violence occur? Apparently for a fee one can have the thrill of killing someone in whatever means they wish. Unfortunately this has absolutely nothing to do with the "story" (I use this term *very* loosely here). All of a sudden the main characters start disappearing from the "story" and start entering some kind of green lit "killing room" where they get tortured to death by some demonic person who has a short cameo earlier in the film. This is not a reason. When we find out later how this killing is sort of like an attraction for rich adrenalin junkies, the only thing one can possibly feel is apathy. Apathy for the story. All *this* just for *that*!!!
What cost does the violence come at in Hostel? None. The people who get killed are worthless to us and the people who are doing the killing are worthless to us. We care not when some of the people who are doing the killing get killed because we are not sure if they are the ones in charge. There is absolutely no moral bone to chew on here.
Lastly I'd like to talk about one thing in particular that really upset me about this film. Towards the end of Hostel a woman kills herself after looking at the reflection of her newly disfigured face. This is probably the most gratuitous and shallow point of the movie. It's also supposed to be its most dramatic point. First of all this character is only known to us as an Asain women who's friend also goes missing and doesn't want to party. That's it. When the main character rescues her from the hands of the killer due to her screaming, which reminds him of when he let a little boy drown a few years ago, we are surprised to find her in the "green killing room". Her eyeball is dangling out of her socket at this point. Our "hero" decides to finish the job and cut the "tenticles" that keep it attached. As to the importance of this I can not figure. But when she takes a look at her reflection and then throws herself in front of a train in very dramatic fashion I become upset. Think of how many people in the world are "disfigured." Apparently life is not worth living unless your beautiful. That is the only message this movie could possibly have.
How horrible.