The Big Picture
Torture horror films like Hostel ushered in a new wave of horror movies featuring bloodlust, gore, and extensive scenes of torture, shocking audiences. Hostel is based on a real-life website offering people the chance to pay $10,000 to travel to Thailand and shoot someone in the head, with profits going to their families. Eli Roth, the director of Hostel, was inspired by a real-life conversation about disturbing things on the internet, and Quentin Tarantino encouraged him to make the film, leading to its success and multiple sequels.
Torture horror describes such a grisly subgenre of movies. When you ask a horror fan what their favorite torture horror film is, there’s a good chance that Hostel will come up once or twice. Eli Roth released Hostel in 2005 and led the charge for a new wave of horror movies that featured extensive scenes of torture, antagonists filled with bloodlust, and sometimes, more gore than dialogue. Hostel especially took audiences by surprise when it boasted the line “inspired by true events” at the end of its trailer. Hostel and the world of torture horror seems like a gruesome, far-fetched possibility only made up by the most creatively tortured mind, but could there be a real-world situation where these things happen?
What Is ‘Hostel’ About?
Image via Lionsgate
Hostel is about two best friends, Josh (Derek Richardson) and Paxton (Jay Hernandez), who decide to spend their summer after graduating backpacking across Europe. They meet a stranger named Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) in Amsterdam who is after the same thrill of sexual encounters and drug escapades as them. The three find themselves inside a Slovakian hostel with no idea what happens next when they wake up, trapped in a basement with a rent-a-surgeon who wants to torture and kill them. You might be asking yourself what part of that could be true. The horrifying real-life source material involves an alleged foreign website that offers anyone the chance to kill for the right price.
‘Hostel’ Is Based on a Real-Life Website
Image via Lionsgate
Eli Roth sat down with Dread Central to speak about Hostel and other sick and twisted topics. In the interview, they directly asked Roth how Hostel came about. Roth told Dread that he was talking to Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News about the many gross and abhorrent things they had seen on the internet. The two were talking about how there was a man in Texas who was arrested for setting up a gun so that people could control it virtually online and hunt wild game in real time. Roth had responded to that comment about how they may as well just put a human being in a room to be shot. That singular comment prompted Knowles to tell Roth about what he had found. Knowles sent Roth a link to a website where you could pay $10,000, travel to Thailand, and walk into a room and shoot someone in the head. The site had made claims that the person being shot signed up for it and part of the profits would go to their families. The individuals who signed up for the site knew they would die anyway due to poor situations, so this was their way of allowing the rest of their families the ability to live. These people would truly be giving the ultimate sacrifice for their families. Roth later stated in the interview that the site was real, but to get any further and get more information, he would have to input his credit card information. Unlike many of the dumb horror movie characters we see who make the wrong choice, Roth knew that putting his card information on a killing site was probably not a good idea.
The concept of the rich hunting the poor or unsuspecting isn’t new. We have plenty of movies like The Running Man and newer films like The Hunt where the upper class uses their resources to partake in very questionable decisions to hunt humans for sport. However, Hostel takes this concept of killing for sport or thrill to a new level because it doesn’t entirely focus on the villains being insanely rich. They are just a random group of people who want to live out their darkest fantasies and desires. Adding in the element of it taking place in a different country with seemingly less restrictive laws makes it that much more horrific. These backpackers who are traveling and eventually killed may never be found or even looked for because of the nature of their kidnapping and murders. Their names could wash away down the drain just like the blood from their dismembered bodies does in these underground dungeons.
‘Hostel’s Amsterdam Location Is a Different Kind of Disneyland
Image via Lionsgate
Eli Roth mentioned in the interview that he heard this and knew that someone out there would take this opportunity. Roth told Dread that there have to be people out there who are looking for a next-level thrill because doing drugs, gambling, and going to strip clubs didn’t provide enough excitement as is. He continued that he knew of men who would travel to Europe, specifically Amsterdam, and get hookers and do drugs. Because of this connection to his real life, Roth knew that Amsterdam would be a great location to use for his film premise. He said he wanted Amsterdam to have an X-rated Disneyland feel, and he accomplished that look.
Hostel’s dark and gritty atmosphere mixed with neon lights and women in slinky clothes is the perfect combination for people looking for the ultimate experience. Unfortunately for Josh and Paxton, and maybe even some of those impoverished people in Thailand, the experience was truly to die for. Roth really leaned into the whole “if it’s available, someone will partake” idea in Hostel. What makes the film truly terrifying is that this experience seems readily and easily available. Josh and Paxton didn’t have to suffer too much or work too hard to find these X-rated activities. In fact, they stumbled upon them because of how willing they were to have an experience with the gorgeous women and illicit drugs. On a deeper level, Roth’s film could be taking a look at how Western culture tends to overdo excess. Western societies always want more; more money, more sex, more power, more control. Josh and Paxton seem to act as if they’re owed a wild experience because they had the means to travel to Amsterdam where drugs are legal and sex work is more commonplace. This desire for excess and for more gets them into quite a sticky and bloody situation.
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Quentin Tarantino Urged Eli Roth To Make ‘Hostel’
Image via Lionsgate
Eli Roth also mentioned that he wanted to make a documentary about the website at one point. That’s what prompted him to look deeper into the site until he got to the dead end that was “enter card information.” We can only imagine what a successfully finished documentary about that topic would look like, but Roth would certainly be the man to capture it in all its gory glory. After Roth decided to not pursue the sketchy website’s exploits, he eventually spoke to Quentin Tarantino about the idea of Hostel. In the same Dread Central interview, Roth said that at the time he was being offered a lot of direct-to-studio movies, but Tarantino wasn’t interested in those. He asked Roth what some of his original ideas were, and upon telling him about Hostel, Tarantino was in love. The sick and immoral storyline tugged at his heartstrings and he told Roth to not hesitate. He even told him it could be Roth’s very own Takashi Miike film, which if you know who Takashi Miike is, you know Roth would’ve made him proud.
With Tarantino’s blessing, Eli Roth made Hostel for less than $5 million. The weekend that Hostel opened, it reaped $20 million dollars and has a current worldwide box office total of over $82 million dollars. I think if the people running that Thai website knew how much Roth made off of their idea, they might want royalties. Hostel has spawned two sequels and contributed to the torture horror category with a bang, squelch, and scream. Roth has cemented himself as a horror and gore king and with the recent announcement that he is finally making Thanksgiving, splatter fans are not-so-patiently waiting for what he cooked up.
Thanksgiving has a current release date of November 17, 2023, but if you need something in the meantime, you can stream Hostel on Amazon Prime or fuboTV.
This post was modified on 2023-10-06 05:35:24