Hostel – Director’s Cut (Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B+ Extras: C- Film: C-
Along
with the Saw films, no release is more responsible for the embarrassing
“torture Porn” cycle than Eli Roth’s obnoxious, silly, tired hit Hostel (2006) as going to the forest or
park is not enough to get mutilated.
Now, you can get butchered just for taking a much needed vacation in a
foreign county, especially if you are going to college. Guess high school kids are too lazy or cheap
to travel abroad?
These bright
young guys and gals go hiking in Slovakia in Eastern Europe. Guess the currency exchange was
irresistible. The strap on their
backpacks and off they go into hell.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, there may be new freedoms, but also
new troubles. Unfortunately, I guess
none of them took political science seriously enough.
When they
take a break and check into a hostel, they find there will be little time to
send post cards. What follows is all
kinds of torture sequences, daring the audience to watch, then after spending
more than enough of its very long 94 minutes on that, expects to bring relief
(and negation to the events?) by giving it a twist of revenge. All in all, I found this awful and only
diehard fans could watch this repeatedly.
In the years to come, I doubt this will be as much of a classic as some
are hoping for, even with Tarantino’s producing name on it.
The 1.78
X 1 1080p digital High Definition image is surprisingly good for all the
degrading and distorting done to the scene after scene. Shot in Super 35mm film, it looks better than
many of the all (or nearly all) digital imitators, but Director of Photography
Milan Chadima is oddly colored and in a limited way that becomes boring quickly
and somehow does not become more suspenseful as a result. The Dolby TrueHD is better than the basic
Dolby Digital 5.1 Portuguese and French tracks easily, though the mix does not
have the character it should, but is rich enough to be one of the better TrueHD
mixes this early on, but Batman Begins
and V For Vendetta have nothing to
worry about.
Extras
include four (!?!?!?!) audio commentary tracks, a three part featurette, Kill The Car multi-angle interactive
piece, five technical featurettes, interview with Takashi Miike, international
TV special (!?!) and radio interview about the script with Roth. Yup.
Definitely for fans only.
- Nicholas Sheffo
