Hostel: Director's Cut

Reviewed by Drav3n

Format: Blu-ray

Release: October 23, 2007

Rated: Unrated

Runtime: 94 Minutes

The Movie:

Ok, before I even start writing about this I strongly recommend you watch the teaser trailer for this movie.

Ok, now I ask you to watch the full trailer for this movie.

When I first started seeing these trailers in 2005, I was excited! The movies, Saw 1 and 2 had come and gone, with part 2 leaving me disappointed. Then I found out that Eli Roth (Cabin Fever) was coming out with a "torture porn" style movie, and I was sold. As you saw from the trailers, this movie looked like it was gonna be all kinds of messed up.
Well, in the beginning of 2006, Eli Roth released this movie into the theaters. When I first saw it, I was very upset with this film. Why? Well, if you saw the film then you remember that the first half of this movie is basically a "Skinimax" porno. Is there anything wrong with that? Usually, no. But when I go into a horror movie, especially one that was advertised as being the sickest movie, I don't want to wait until 45 minutes into the film, for it to turn into a horror movie.
The movie follows two college graduates, Paxton and Josh, and their friend Oli, as they are backpacking through Europe. Their plan? Get drunk and hook-up with as many women as they can. The three of them visit a hostel in Slovakia that they heard will help make their wildest dreams come true. Once at the hostel they learn they are going to be sharing their room with these two beautiful woman, Svetlana and Natalya. After a night out with the girls, the next morning the two guys find that Oli is missing along with a female Japanese backpacker. They receive a picture message from him saying "I go home," but then the camera focuses on the picture to show a decapitated Oli. The two friends decide they want to leave the hostel and find their missing friend and get out of there. But, are their new friends, Natalya and Svetlana going to let them leave?
Once the movie shifts into horror mode, then it gets better. The bad thing is though, it takes 45 minutes to get it going. I understand you want to build up to it and create a high amount of suspense, but I felt that the weakest link to the movie was the drawn-out build to the movie. Plus when you see the trailers, it's only advertising the gore, not the scenes of them partying.
My first time viewing this movie since it arrived on dvd back in 2006, and I didn't hate it as much as I did then. I do like Eli Roth as a director and you can see the guy does have talent and has a very strong passion when it comes to horror films. The gore scenes, as beautiful as they look and as disturbing as they are, are easily going to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
I don't really see Hostel being remembered in the years to come for anything other than its real graphic violence. There isn't really much of a story to this film, accept as Eli Roth puts it, is to show the American's ignorance toward the rest of the world. But, if there's one thing this film has taught me is that when traveling and you see a group of creepy kids and they demand candy, you give them candy!

Presentation:

Hostel is presented in full 1080p with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. I was pleasantly surprised at how good this looked in blu-ray. For a low-budget and very gritty looking film, the colors are strong, skin tones look good, blacks are solid, and the detail throughout looks very sharp. There is some noticeable dirt on the image and also some grain in the darker scenes, but it's nothing that takes away from the good looking quality of this film. A very nice upgrade over the dvd counterpart!

Audio:

This film is given a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track, and a French and Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. Just like the picture quality, the audio quality is great as well. The dialogue comes through very clear, but the audio track shines the most during the sound effects. The sounds of the drills, chainsaws, and even the guns sound so powerful and give it that real creepy vibe to the film.

Bonus Material:

• Audio Commentary - Featuring Eli Roth and executive producers Quentin Tarantino, Boaz Yakin, and Scott Spiegel
• Audio Commentary - Featuring Eli Roth and editor George Folsey Jr., Harry Knowles of aintitcoolnews.com, and actors Barbara Nedeljakova and Eythor Gudjonsson.
• Audio Commentary - Featuring Eli Roth and producer Chris Briggs and brother/documentarian Gabriel Roth
• Audio Commentary - Featuring just Eli Roth.
• Hostel Dissected (480p, Runtime 55:) - A 3 part featurettte that focuses on the pre-production to the final cut of the film.
• Kill The Car Multi-Angle Interactive Feature (480p, Runtime ) - This feature allows you to view the destruction of the car towards of the end of the film in various angles.
• Director's Cut Ending (1080p, Runtime 7:30) - A very different, and gore-lacking ending. Fans of the film should definitely check this out.
• Music and Sound Featurette (480p, Runtime 12:16)
• Set Design Featurette (480p, Runtime 5:04)
• An Icelandic Meal With Eythor Gudjonsson (480p, Runtime 3:17)
• KNB Effects Featurette (480p, Runtime 11:10) - One of the more interesting features as you get to see how the gore is created.
• Interview with director Takashi Miike (480p, Runtime 9:52) - Miike discusses his work on Hostel, and the process on making films.
• 10 Deleted Scenes (1080p, Runtime 19:00)
• Hostel Dismembered (480p, Runtime 30:08) - Discussions on how the idea for the movie came about, why movies like Hostel are popular today, and more.
• "The Treatment" Radio Interview with Eli Roth (Runtime 26:52)
• Photo Galleries (1080p) - Behind The Scenes (15:00), On Set (6:10), Barbara Nedeljakova (2:10), Hostel Artwork (1:40)
• Previews (1080p) - Hostel 2, Vacancy, and Blood and Chocolate

Bottom Line:

Hostel is a love-it or hate-it film. While most hate it, after watching this again for the first time in years, it has grown on me. I'll never be able to say it's one of my favorite movies, but it was a fairly entertaining movie, and fans of the hardcore horror movies will enjoy the graphic scenes that are found in this film. The disc looks good, sounds great and has a HUGE amount of bonus features. I'd recommend it!