A lot of successful horror films don't sit down and explain why everything happens. Night of the Living Dead and its sequels never went and explained exactly why the dead was coming back to life (although some charcters offer guesses). Texas Chainsaw Massacre never explained why that family became killer cannibals. The original Halloween never explains why Michael Myers is superhuman (even though some of the sequels attempted to craft rationales, this was not part of the original film). Honestly, I think horror movies that DO try to overexplain the bad guys' motivations end up being less interesting for doing so.

The explanation is that there are simply some sick sick people in the world who don't care what they do to other human beings. There is no rationalizing it or explaining it away. You got a little back story from the main antagonist and that's all you need.

it will now, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" coming Halloween '06.

Grade: 2.5/4. I thought two of the three main characters acted like over-sexed idiots from "American Pie" so I was surprised

really liked it. there were plenty of scene's where the packed house clapped oh and two girls in front of me walked out in the middle of the first major torture scene.

also does anyone know if the movie had to be cut for rating? i wonder if more was actually on screen, but they had to cut away. Also there is a scene at the begining of the movie where a woman in a spa is walking slightly out of focus full frontal, it seemed like the bottom was blurred.

For its genre, gore and retribution, it was a frightful enough ride through Europe for a couple of American tourists and the "stray" Nordic party guy they pick up along the way.

It definitely rates a matinee showing if you like these gory movies.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

Rypro..unless it was 'steam' making the blurry focus. It might be MPAA tampering since I have noticed in many films 'blurred' nudity and so forth in R rated films.

The Rules of Attraction for example durring a party sequence where there is some brief full frontal female nudity. I finally noticed the vagina was CGIed or 'smoothed' over with a blank flesh color.

The R rated version of the film SPUN also had 'smoothed' over CGI vaginas so you can't see them fully in detail.


So it wouldn't surprise me if some was blurred and covered up in various ways for the R rated version and would be uncovered and visiable in the unrated version.

But in terms of actual cuts to the film. Roth claims it was only a few shots/frames here and there but nothing extensive that would add up to anything. Though is he telling the truth or just trying to make it seem like its no huge deal even if more was cut out than he is letting on?


Oh and I would have to say to Dead. The Passion is far more gory than this film is!!

That film has 1 hour devoted to nothing but the graphic onscreen torture and mutilation of one person. You actually see numerous times..the the chain whips with spikes in them tearing off huge chunks of his flesh. You see the nails being hammered all the way through him with blood gushing out in geyser. You see another cruicified prisioner gets his eyes pecked out onscreen..and then subsequently in graphic detail his knees bashed in and broken with hammers. And that is only alittle example of the many onscreen graphic torture and murder on display in that film. And nearly nothing is left to the imagination with implication at all in this film!

It is 100 times more graphic and gory than Hostel ever is!


And I have to say, I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. Since images from the film kept lingering in my mind. So I know the film did its job and got under my skin.

I'll be seeing it again tonight with a friend

I couldn't agree more and this is what horror is all about. The fear of the unknown with no clean explanation.


Even slow moving horror films like The Exorcist, Rosemarys Baby and so on don't have clean cut explanations. We never get to know the 'motivation' for the devil to possess Reagan besides being evil and picking randomly it appears. We don't know exactly 'why' the satanists in Rosemary are satanists. They just are and we thought they were 'normal' people when first introduced to them.

If we knew all this,they would cease being interesting and frightening. They would become boring and laughable.

Just watch the bad Scream knockoffs that overdo the 'motivation' of the killers. ZzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzzz

You guys never hear of a razor? Some of the girls just shaved, there was enough full-frontal in this flick that I can't see why they'd cover up one of them. Same with the girl in ROA...she was just all trimmed up.

I know what razors are and know what a shaved bush looks like. But when I was watching Rules on dvd recently and looked down below. It did look alitle to 'smooth'. Ie you saw no 'lips'..just flesh and it didn't look natural...and may be CGI flesh coloring.

Also check out the R rated Spun when it airs on Showtime and you'll see what flesh colored CGI over the vagina looks like.

Now if an unrated version of Rules is released and the vagina still looks the same. Then I will agree it is just shaved and that is all. But until then,i'm sure it was CGIed over

I just got back from a matinee showing. All I can say at the moment (since I'm about to leave my house) is that Hostel kicked my ass.

Eli Roth is currently two-for-two at the moment.

Went to see it tonight. I was kinda disappointed. The first hour was SO dull I'd say that was the REAL torture....Things did pick up a bit in the second half. One pretty decent gore scene there... and a little action and tension FINALLY.

Eh. Hostel didn't have anything new to offer. Not really much fun overall. It has just enough gore and violence to make it stand out among the lame ass pg-13 horror these days.

I'll give it a C-.

That, without a doubt, is the "pancakes!" moment of the film.

Too bad Roth has no self control.

With all due respect, Walker, I think you've been standing too close to open cans of paint on this one.

A wriggling piece of bloody flesh at the end of a power drill is hardly "implied" violence. It's a very openly violent film, and to suggest that Roth left moments to the imagination is, IMO, nutty.

What should be the real point of contention is why Roth hired such lousy actors to realize his script.

According to Roth, at a recent Q&A that I attended, he was not going to have the hero do what he did, but Tarantino talked him into it. "You got to!" was, I believe, what he said Quentin told him.

He went on to said that he went with A LOT of input that friends and producing partners gave him. He even went as far as to say that he welcomed input from the studio and that he was glad that he scrapped the orginal ending that test audience hated.

I agree that that would have sucked.

I dunno. It would've given the film the right dark tone to end on. And it would've explained why the guy was going on and on about his kid on the train.

Yeah, its a digital razor.

Would have sucked for him and made him feel exactly what he has done to others who were loved by someone else. Stick it to him and hold it.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I don't disagree that some films have been digitally altered to obscure nudity (such as Mulholland Drive and the R-rated version of Spun), I was just saying that the 5 or so instances of lower frontal nudity in Hostel did not appear to be obscured in any way. Rather, some of the girls were just bald down there and shown from a distance. Others were not.

I think it would have been a very honest ending to this particular film. You have to think that the guy is not going to be dealing with a full deck after what he went through. I can see why Roth did cut it though. He probably wanted people to still feel for the guy at the end of the film and i'm guessing they wouldn't if he did
I really liked the movie, even all the trailers were really good, which i know doesn't have anything to do with "Hostel" but its part of the whole viewing experience.

I went to the 10:30 showing here and the theater was packed. I think this is the first time that I had to show my ID to get into the theater. Once when I first bought the ticket and then again when we entered the theater. I was surprised to see this since I didnt think theaters really did this, and by the way the 5 of us were all 17, 18, or 19.

generally, i liked it, i was able to laugh, feel grossed out,a nd have a fun time at the movies...been a while that ive not had to think and have fun at the movies...i mean potter and narnia are exceptions, but this was the first film in a while where I left feeling like i had a FUN time...and not just feel like i saw a cool movie and thats it...generally i loved this film!

I thought it was pretty good. I liked the premise/examination of that of excess. Sidenote: I was probably the only person in the entire thearter that was old enough to drink, and I'm 28, most of the entire audience was of High Schrool age...thus, the nod to Pulp Fiction pullling down a hard laugh, lol.

wow the original ending idea is way way better i think. much more dark and vengeful. it's the whole self defense turns to offense concept. the good guy had become corrupted. i wish they did that.

Considering Hostel's primary function is to serve as a splatter film, with that, self control goes right out the window. Roth (or any director) is there to (torture or) kill off as many characters you can in unique, disgusting ways as possible. The higher the body count, the more of a reaction you'll get from an audience who are viewing the film. And I'm all for a splatter film that is not afraid to show all of the mayhem that is occuring.

However, in all other aspects of the film (other than nudity -- which there was a lot of, but I'm not complaining about that in no way), Roth does have self-control as the whole film is based right off the Hitchcock model. All of Hitchcock's "rules" of making a perfect thriller are all there in Hostel. Everything from the non-dramatic exposition straight to the demise a few choice characters suffer during the film's final act.

Hostel is one of the better American horror films in years. Not only was Roth able to create a nifty splatter film with a "simple" plot using methods that Hitchcock himself would be proud of, but he was able to throw in some social commentary as well. And all in a quick, easy to swallow 90 minute package.

Now if we can get the shitty PG-13 horror films and crappy horror remakes (I can't wait for the one day that Dark Castle goes out of business) out of movie theaters, we might have a better selection of current day horror.

And while I enjoyed the final cut's ending, I wish Roth's original ending was used instead. Everything seems to come "full circle" in that version than in what happens at the end of the final cut. While the current ending is satisfying in many ways, the original ending seems to have more of a grasp of what Roth was trying to tell with his commentary.