The Hostel

I'm biased on this one. I love horror movies, and I love director Eli Roth. Roth grew up on 70's and 80's horror films, and his underrated film debut Cabin Fever reflected those influences. Fever was funny, distusting and engaging. There were moments that made me squirm in my seat (the leg-shaving scene, for those who have seen it), and jokes that had me on the floor laughing. Tense, funny, and gorefilled. But not really scary. That was Cabin Fever's weakness. Sure, there were suspenseful scenes, but not scary ones.

In The Hostel, Roth is going to scare us.

The Hostel claims to be based on real events, which is an unnerving statement if you know the film's plot. In a Slovakian city, there is a place where, for the right price, a person can pay to torture and murder a person in whatever fashion they wish, no matter how sick. 3 American students go looking for this place, but end up on the menu rather than on the client list.

Recycled plot? Sure. But scary? Indeed.

The trailer is dark, wet, and bloody. There are flashes of the torture equipment, people bound to chairs, water-rotted walls, and the torturer wielding a bone saw. At the end of the trailer, there is an up-close, fullscreen shot of a dirty foot, and a pair of bolt cutters being positioned around the index toes. The screen goes black just as the bolt cutters begin to squeeze.

I am excited. Like Rob Zombie, Roth is making modern blood-and-gore films that don't shy away from the nastiest side of the genre. I'm sick of the watered-down PG-13 crap that passes for horror these days (The Grudge, anyone?). I need severed limbs and gallows humor. Quentin Tarantino is the executive producer of The Hostel, giving me all the more reason to look forward to this movie.

If you've read this far without losing interest, you'll probably want to see it, too.