HOSTEL, Eli Roth’s (director of the comedy horror flick CABIN FEVER) second horror feature is a nasty but carefully disturbing piece of work. The first part of HOSTEL traces three youths, two Americans - Josh (Derek Richardson), Paxton(Jay Hernandez) - and an Icelander (Eythor Gudjonsson) as they journey to chase their ultimate dream. Gorgeous girls and all the sex they can enjoy! The only problem is that they have to travel to some obscure hostel in Slovakia to do so.  There, they encounter an international human trafficking organisation.  Needless to say, they become the prime victims.

Roth’s film starts off with plenty of tits and ***censored***. Free sex, the joy of youth and the freedom of open travel are initial themes. No sign of horror is in the background till a third into the film when Josh suddenly mentions of his witnessing of a drowned little girl when he was young.  No matter that this has little to do with the rest of the story – there are a few loose ends in the narrative – but the tension and horror mounts. Roth cleverly builds up not only anticipation but piles up the blood and gore which never stops but builds to a climax. Roth’s lighting and quick edits makes certain sequences difficult to follow but credit has to be given for brilliant set pieces such as the killing in the toilet stall or the Paxton/psycho confrontation scenes. It would help if any of the three protagonists had any redeeming qualities so that the viewer would care if any lived or get butchered, but this does not seem to bother Roth at all.

In an interview with the London Magazine TIME OUT earlier last March, Roth described this latest film as a wild, ultra-violent horror film, closer in vein to Tobe Hooper’s TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or Takeshi Miike’s AUDITION. HOSTEL succeeds 100% in achieving Roth’s goal.