Hostel Blu-ray delivers great video and superb audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
Paxton and Josh, two college friends, are lured by a fellow traveler to what's described as a nirvana for American backpackers – a particular hostel in an out-of-the-way Slovakian town stocked with Eastern European women as desperate as they are gorgeous. The two friends arrive and soon easily pair off with exotic beauties Natalya and Svetlana. In fact, too easily... Initially distracted by the good time they're having, the two Americans quickly find themselves trapped in an increasingly sinister situation that they will discover is as wide and as deep as the darkest, sickest recess of human nature itself – if they survive.
For more about Hostel and the Hostel Blu-ray release, see the Hostel Blu-ray Review published by Martin Liebman on November 1, 2007 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.5 out of 5.
Hostel, director Eli Roth's gore-fest, is a love-it-or-hate-it type of film. The film has
garnered heaps of praise from some all the while being thrown onto the trash heap by others. I
happen to fall into the latter category, but far be it from me to besmirch those who happen to like
this film. I can certainly appreciate that Hostel is meant to be an escapist film. It's just not
my type of escapist film.
Paxton is about to make the biggest mistake of his life
Hostel is the story of two American college students, Paxton and Josh (Jay Hernandez
and Derek Richardson), on vacation in Europe. Their plan: drink, get high, and meet women.
They are told by Alex (Lubomir Bukovy) about a hostel near Bratislava, Slovakia where all of
their wildest dreams are sure to come true. They travel to the hostel and meet several easy girls,
but they begin to worry that something may be amiss when their new Icelandic friend Oli (Eythor
Gudjonsson) suddenly disappears. They are told he has checked out of the hostel and receive
several cryptic text messages and photos from him. More complications and worries arise when
another guest of the Hostel, Yuki (Keiko Seiko) turns up missing. Finally, it is up to Paxton to
discover the fates of his friends, and he is led towards his own demise at the hands of madmen
who have contracted the "Elite Hunting Company" to find people for them to torture.
Hostel, it seems, is a horrific short film expanded to 90 minutes. Roth provides quite a
bit of extraneous set-up to reach the payoff of witnessing the brutal torture of the students. The
first two acts of the film feature razor thin characters in what could be described as European
Vacation meets Porky's with a foreboding atmosphere. The final act is sadistic,
featuring gruesome brutality sure to churn the stomachs of even the most hardcore gore fans.
It's hard to like any of the characters in the film, perhaps a method employed by Roth to
downplay our emotions of seeing innocent people slaughtered with no underlying motivation by
their killers. Unfortunately, the audience leaves the film knowing little about the clients of Elite
Hunting Company, or the company itself. What are the client's motivations for wanting to
torture innocent people? How did they discover such a business in the first place, and how does
such a business seemingly thrive, not only through what has to be word-of-mouth advertising
only, but also skirting the law? Perhaps Roth will answer these questions in Hostel Part
II.
Hostel features a very drab, gray look about it through most of the runtime, but that
doesn't hurt this 1080p, 2.35:1 transfer one bit. Because of its style, however, it doesn't quite
amount to being a
potentially reference grade presentation when compared to some bigger budget Blu-ray discs from
Sony such as Casino Royale. Colors are accurate, flesh tones are natural in appearance,
and details are vivid throughout. This is a very good offering from Sony with only a few discernible
flaws to be found. There is a bit of grain in some of the darker scenes and blacks tend to be slightly
crushed at times. The transfer fares well in the early portions of the movie where the film is bright
and cheerful, and as we inch closer to the final act, colors fade and turn to an almost near black
palette when we arrive in the torture rooms. The disc handles the transition well, never losing
detail or clarity even in the most poorly lit scenes.
Sony presents Hostel with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack. To say I was impressed is an
understatement. This soundtrack features great ambience at times and deep bass in the chilling
music and torture scenes. The sounds of dripping water and blood will have you believing you have
a leak in your living room. The sounds of footsteps, voices, slamming doors, and chainsaws echoing
in the torture chambers are downright chilling. The first two acts of the movie are nothing special
sonically, but dialogue and music come through crystal clear. Dialogue sometimes sounds as if it
was recorded on a soundstage with some ambience that seemed a little out of place, but I only
noticed this in a few places. There are some rather good directional effects scattered throughout,
but
the soundtrack really takes off in the final act. It certainly adds to the dread and brutality of the
film, and it simply works. The sound design was the only part of the movie I truly enjoyed. The
opening title sequence sounds great, too. Sony has hit a home run with this track.
If you are a fan of Hostel, you're in for a treat. This is a jam-packed special edition
highlighted by four feature commentaries. The first track features Eli Roth and executive
producers Quentin Tarantino, Boaz Yakin, and Scott Spiegel. There is a lot going on here with
Tarantino talking over the other participants quite a bit, but it's clear he is passionate about this
film and is very proud of it, and his love for these types of films.
The second track
features Roth along with a hodgepodge of guests including editor George Folsey Jr., Harry
Knowles of aintitcoolnews.com, Barbara Nedeljakova (Natalya), and Eythor Gudjonsson (Oli). All
bring something unique to the table, but the chats with Folsey Jr., and Knowles are the best.
The third again has director Roth, this time teamed up with producer Chris Briggs and
documentarian Gabriel Roth. By this time the tracks start to run together. We get some
background on each individual, but the track gives some good detail here and there, especially
about the final act. They discuss how parts of the brutality are not only hard to watch, but hard
to create and look at and smell on-set. We learn how some of the gore is created and how the
actors were never really in peril when it appears they are on-screen (for example, a chainsaw
that appears close to Jay Hernandez's face is in fact not close to him). I enjoyed this track the
most, even
though I was starting to tire of listening to them.
The fourth and final track is a solo
effort by Roth. He loves to talk and dead air is never a problem. The highlight is Roth discussing
audience reaction to the film. People got sick watching the gore, and Roth (seemingly) jokes
about hoping that someone will die while watching one of his films, as happened with The
Passion of the Christ. He (seemingly) jokes that a death would be tragic because that
individual could not buy the DVD. Talk about poor taste.
Moving past the
commentaries, Hostel contains several noteworthy additional supplements. Hostel
Dissected (480p) is a three part, 55 minute look at the making of the film from pre-
production to the wrapping up of the final cut of the film. It's crude and blatantly honest in its
look into the making of the film. Next up is a feature entitled Kill the Car!--Multi-Angle
(480p) that features different angles showing the destruction of an automobile near the end of
the film. It's a throwaway extra for the most part. Four featurettes--Music and Sound
(480p, 12:16) with composer Nathan Barr, Set Design (480p, 5:04) with production
designer Franco-Giacomo Carbone, KNB EFX (480p, 11:10) with Howard Berger and
Gregory Nicotero, and An Icelandic Meal With Eythor Gudjonsson (480p, 3:17)--are
included on the disc. The KNB
EFX featurette is the best of the bunch, as it provides a fairly in-depth look at the making of the
gore in a compact and to-the-point manner.
Also provided are 10 deleted scenes that
run about 19 minutes in length combined. Each are featured in 1080p with Dolby Digital 5.1
sound. Each comes with a brief text-based introduction. Next is an interview with Takashi Miike
(480p, 9:52). It's in Japanese with English subtitles. He discusses his acting and
directing career, his goals, the process of making films, and his work on Hostel.
Hostel Dismembered (480p, 30:08) features discussions about the origins of the idea for
the movie, the approach to making a movie that will stand the test of time and not one that will
gross enough at the box office and be forgotten several weeks later, and why films such as
Hostel are popular today.
An alternate ending to the film is available. It's
much more subdued and foregoes the violence of the original ending in favor of what has to be
an even worse fate for the antagonist of the film. As with the other deleted scenes, it is
presented in 1080p high definition with Dolby TrueHD sound. Please note that you may watch
the movie in its entirety with this alternate ending in tact replacing the original ending by
choosing to do so on the main menu.
Rounding off this disc is
a radio interview with Roth, photo galleries, and trailers for Hostel Part II,
Vacancy, and Blood and Chocolate, all in 1080p.
Hostel is not for everyone. Eli Roth himself says so. It's brutal, dark, atmospheric, and
unrelenting in its depiction of gore. Sony has put a lot of effort into this disc, and fans of the movie
are going to be ecstatic with what is included here. Both picture and sound quality are top notch
and there is a day's worth of extras for your perusal. I cannot recommend this disc on the merits of
the movie alone, but for those of you that like it, buy it. You won't be disappointed in the least.
