
A horror movie that delivered a scary theater experience.
Hostel was the first horror film I saw in a theater. I was fifteen years old, and I was just starting to get into the genre. It was an experience.
It doesn’t exactly hold up, now. I’ve seen a lot of movies since then, and Hostel’s torture gimmick doesn’t really work anymore. Strip that gimmick away, and you’re left with some boring characters in a really scary scenario. It’s not that good, but it’s not bad, either.
That said, when I first saw it, it felt like the most brutal movie ever. I was pretty shook up by the whole ordeal. It was fun.
I don’t care for it much, now—I’d rather watch Eli Roth’s first film, Cabin Fever—but I’ll always think of Hostel as one of the four films that made me love horror. =]