There are scary movies and there are horror movies. Hostel is the later. What do I mean by horror? A movie that makes you flinch, that's uncomfortable to watch and stays with you long after you see it. The movie starts like the garden-variety scary movie in the vein of "Scream" and 80s slasher flicks, but by the last half it becomes pure unadulterated horror. The director did a pretty good job taking us from the cheesiness to the terrible cruelty you experience later to its unrealistic, but satisfying Hollywood ending. Many people will say the Hollywood clichés will ruin what could have been a classic, but I think when the subject is so disturbing you need a little movie magic to lighten up things. When the movie ended, the most horrible thing I think I experienced was not watching helpless, trapped people being tortured like if they were in the deepest stage of hell, it was thinking these things are happening somewhere in the world right now. Not in Slovakia, where this movie does what Borat did for Kazakhstan, but in places like China, Iran and Cuba (where Americans are likely doing it too). There are some parallels between sex and violence in the movie, but it's easy to forget if you only want to watch it as face value. There are too many clever things done for those who want to read between the lines. One last praise, I think it was pretty clever not to subtitle any foreign language. It adds to the experience, which in the end is to make you uncomfortable in all levels possible.
