The Descent (2005)(Minor Spoilers Review)

This review contains MINOR spoilers, no major character deaths or reveals.

The Story- After a whitewater rafting trip, the relationship between five friends takes an unexpected turn, when Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) loses her husband, Paul (Oliver Milburn) and her young daughter, Jessica (Molly Kayll) in a gruesome car accident. Unbeknownst to Sarah, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), one of her close friends in the group, was having an affair with Paul.

One year later, Sarah is struggling to cope with Paul and Jessica's deaths, relying on medication for help, but Juno suggests an expedition to a cave system to reinvigorate Sarah. Together, Juno, Sarah, Beth (Alex Reid ), Sam (MyAnna Buring), and, Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) reunite for spelunking, with some help from Juno's new friend/protege, Holly (Nora Jane Noone).

Inside the cave system, a passage collapses behind Sarah, blocking the only known exit. But the group runs into a bigger problem, when flesh-eating creatures (or crawlers) emerge. The blind creatures use sound to hunt, and Holly's broken leg complicates the life-or-death dilemma.

Review- Patience. You'll need a lot of it for The Descent, because the movie kicks into high gear at the fifty-six minute mark, and the total runtime clocks in at 1hr. and 39 min. On paper, I know that sounds like a lengthy and tedious "twiddling your thumbs" wait, but the slow burn build is worth it, because The Descent delivers one hell of a payoff.

Director/writer Neil Marshall slowly builds the tension one step at a time. The exit collapsing behind Sarah, the confusion and anger, when Juno tells the truth about the expedition (more on that later), Sarah being the only one, who notices the crawlers tracking the group (Sarah's sightings are dismissed as hallucinations at first), Holly breaking her leg, and brief shots of the crawlers quietly waiting in the background.

It's only a matter of time before the crawlers attack. The constant teasing from Marshall really works, because you know the main characters are walking into massacre. It's one setback after another, as the story unfolds, and you can feel the impending sense of doom before the crawlers launch the first attack.

It's one close call nail-biter after another during the fight against the crawlers, and here's one of my favorite scenes:  


                                  



Friendship, betrayal, loyalty, and revenge. Four very important themes in The Descent, and each theme is intensified during the ups and downs in Sarah and Juno’s relationship.

Throughout the movie, Sarah suspected something between Juno and Paul, but she wasn't 100% sure. And to add an eerie touch to the situation, you get the feeling Paul was on the verge of a confession (Paul's uncomfortable body language in the car, and the look of guilt on his face are two dead giveaways) before the fatal car crash.

Natalie Mendoza delivers a solid and believable performance, and Marshall deserves some bonus points for the way he chooses to portray Juno. Juno stays in a grey area, because you want to believe she feels remorse for the affair, but at the same time, Juno never openly apologizes to Sarah for the affair, and she never offers an explanation. Instead, Juno believes the spelunking trip will cheer Sarah up, and she plans to name the undiscovered cave system after Sarah.

But here's the big problem with Juno's goodwill mission; for starters, Juno deliberately lied about the cave system. Originally, the group agreed on a spelunking trip to a known cave system (or a "tourist trap"), but Juno decided (without asking or consulting the group) to lead the group to the unknown cave system for a real adventure. There's a scene, where Sarah and the others gang up on Juno to call her out on all the BS behind her motivations, and in certain scenes, you get the feeling Juno is a pretentious phony with a big ego.

The Descent is a chaotic, tense, and claustrophobic horror film, featuring a solid cast, and believable performances. The Descent is loaded with graphic violence, blood, and gore, and Marshall creates a series of striking visuals behind the camera. The crawler's lair (or "The Killing Floor") is one that sticks out. It's a horrifying and gloomy setting, with the bones of animals and humans scattered across the ground, and you'll see one of the more memorable gross-out moments in the movie, with Sarah slowly rising to the top in a pit of blood. Also, I can’t forget about the eerie scene during the early stages of the movie, with a frightened Sarah running through a series of dark hallways at the hospital, and Sarah, screaming, covered in blood, and holding a torch, while standing inside the cave system. And the genuinely shocking swerve at the end really works, because Sarah as the sole survivor was supposed to be the big feel good moment in the movie, but they pull the rug out from underneath at the last second.

Characters and a story with real depth separates The Descent from other gory bloodbath horror films. It's a story about friendship, deception, betrayal, revenge, survival, and how far people are willing to go, when they're pushed beyond their limits.

Rating: 10/10

Twitter- https://twitter.com/LQuigleyFan1

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/mitch.macready

The Descent (2005)(Spoiler Review)

This review contains spoilers.

The Story- After a whitewater rafting trip, the relationship between five friends takes an unexpected turn, when Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) loses her husband, Paul (Oliver Milburn) and her young daughter, Jessica (Molly Kayll) in a gruesome car accident. Unbeknownst to Sarah, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), one of her close friends in the group, was having an affair with Paul.
One year later, Sarah is struggling to cope with Paul and Jessica's deaths, relying on medication for help, but Juno suggests an expedition to a cave system to reinvigorate Sarah. Together, Juno, Sarah, Beth (Alex Reid ), Sam (MyAnna Buring), and, Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) reunite for spelunking, with some help from Juno's new friend/protege, Holly (Nora Jane Noone).

Inside the cave system, a passage collapses behind Sarah, blocking the only known exit. But the group runs into a bigger problem, when flesh-eating creatures (or crawlers) emerge. The blind creatures use sound to hunt, and Holly's broken leg complicates the life-or-death dilemma.

Review- Patience. You'll need a lot of it for The Descent, because the movie kicks into high gear at the fifty-six minute mark, and the total runtime clocks in at 1hr. and 39 min. On paper, I know that sounds like a lengthy and tedious "twiddling your thumbs" wait, but the slow burn build is worth it, because The Descent delivers one hell of a payoff.

Director/writer Neil Marshall slowly builds the tension one step at a time. The exit collapsing behind Sarah, the confusion and anger, when Juno tells the truth about the expedition (more on that later), Sarah being the only one, who notices the crawlers tracking the group (Sarah's sightings are dismissed as hallucinations at first), Holly breaking her leg, and brief shots of the crawlers quietly waiting in the background.

It's only a matter of time before the crawlers attack. The constant teasing from Marshall really works, because you know the main characters are walking into massacre. It's one setback after another, as the story unfolds, and you can feel the impending sense of doom before the crawlers launch the first attack.

It's one close call nail-biter after another during the fight against the crawlers, and here's one of my favorite scenes:

                               

Friendship, betrayal, loyalty, and revenge. Four very important themes in The Descent, and each theme is intensified during the ups and downs in Sarah and Juno’s relationship.

Throughout the movie, Sarah suspected something between Juno and Paul, but she wasn't 100% sure. And to add an eerie touch to the situation, you get the feeling Paul was on the verge of a confession (Paul's uncomfortable body language in the car, and the look of guilt on his face are two dead giveaways) before the fatal car crash.

Natalie Mendoza delivers a solid and believable performance, and Marshall deserves some bonus points for the way he chooses to portray Juno. Juno stays in a grey area, because you want to believe she feels remorse for the affair, but at the same time, Juno never openly apologizes to Sarah for the affair, and she never offers an explanation. Instead, Juno believes the spelunking trip will cheer Sarah up, and she plans to name the undiscovered cave system after Sarah.

But here's the big problem with Juno's goodwill mission; for starters, Juno deliberately lied about the cave system. Originally, the group agreed on a spelunking trip to a known cave system (or a "tourist trap"), but Juno decided (without asking or consulting the group) to lead the group to the unknown cave system for a real adventure. There's a scene, where Sarah and the others gang up on Juno to call her out on all the BS behind her motivations, and in certain scenes, you get the feeling Juno is a pretentious phony with a big ego.

To end the movie, Sarah and Juno are the remaining survivors, and Sarah reaches a breaking point with Juno. When the crawlers launched their first attack, Juno accidentally wounded Beth with a pickaxe to the throat (she mistook Beth for a crawler), but Juno never told the truth about the accident. After Beth's death, Sarah finally learns the truth about the affair, when a dying Beth gave Juno's "love each day" pendant (Beth ripped off the pendant, as she fell to her knees) to Sarah, and she maims Juno with a pickaxe to the leg. Sarah escapes, and a wounded Juno is left alone to fight a pack of crawlers. Long story short, “love each day” was one of Paul’s sayings, so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together, when Beth gave Sarah the pendant.

Throughout the movie, you can feel the awkward tension between Sarah and Juno, and things go south, when Juno tells the truth about the cave system. You get the feeling Sarah wanted to forgive Juno, but she completely snapped after Beth’s death. If we’re throwing  more gasoline on the fire, Sarah finally accepted the truth about the affair after Beth gave her the pendant. Also, if you pay close attention, you’ll notice timid survivor Sarah disappears in the blink of an eye after Sarah puts Beth out of her misery with a mercy killing, and a more aggressive and violent version of Sarah emerges.

Think about what Sarah did for a second. She could've easily killed Juno with no real problems, but she made the choice to cripple Juno, because she wanted her to suffer a slow and agonizing death at the hands of vicious flesh-eating creatures. That's revenge, and you can say Sarah had genuine feelings of hatred for Juno. The irony for Sarah crippling Juno? Throughout the movie, Juno flat out REFUSED to leave the cave (motivated by guilt and a second chance) without Sarah, when the remaining survivors were more than willing to escape, leaving Sarah alone in the cave with an "every man (or in the case, woman) for himself" mindset.

You can feel a grand sense of triumph and relief, when Sarah finally escapes the cave......but she didn't escape. Sarah pulls over on the side of the road to vomit, and she sees a pale Juno (covered in blood) sitting next to her. Here, it's revealed Sarah never escaped the cave. The escape was one big dream, and Sarah is still trapped in the cave. She hallucinates a celebration for her daughter's birthday (a reoccurring hallucination throughout the movie), but in reality, Sarah is kneeling on the ground, and she's staring at a torch.

To add an extra tidbit for the ending, for the US theatrical release, the movie ends with Sarah sitting next to a pale and bloodied Juno in the car, and the part with Sarah hallucinating and staring at the torch in the cave is cut out of the film. Of course, the ending is shown in its entirety on the unrated DVD/Blu-Ray releases. I’m not trying to nitpick, but I believe the movie ending with Sarah and Juno sitting in the car is the better option. It works as a mysterious cliffhanger, because you’re not 100% sure what happened. Is Sarah still alive? Did she survive? Is she inside a hospital again?

The Descent is a chaotic, tense, and claustrophobic horror film, featuring a solid cast, and believable performances. The Descent is loaded with graphic violence, blood, and gore, and Marshall creates a series of striking visuals behind the camera. The crawler's lair (or "The Killing Floor") is one that sticks out. It's a horrifying and gloomy setting, with the bones of animals and humans scattered across the ground, and you'll see one of the more memorable gross-out moments in the movie, with Sarah slowly rising to the top in a pit of blood. Also, I can’t forget about the eerie scene during the early stages of the movie, with a frightened Sarah running through a series of dark hallways at the hospital, and Sarah, screaming, covered in blood, and holding a torch, while standing inside the cave system. And the genuinely shocking swerve at the end really works, because Sarah as the sole survivor was supposed to be the big feel good moment in the movie, but they pull the rug out from underneath at the last second.

Characters and a story with real depth separates The Descent from other gory bloodbath horror films. It's a story about friendship, deception, betrayal, revenge, survival, and how far people are willing to go, when they're pushed beyond their limits.

Rating: 10/10

Twitter- https://twitter.com/LQuigleyFan1

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/mitch.macready

Cry_Wolf (2005)(Minor Spoilers Review)

**This review contains MINOR spoilers, no character deaths, major reveals, or plot twists**

Troubled teen Owen Matthews (Julian Morris) receives one last shot at redemption, when his powerful father, Charles (Gary Cole) pulls some strings for Owen’s acceptance into Westlake Preparatory Academy, an excusive and upscale private school for teenagers.

Upon his arrival, Owen is invited into a new circle of friends by Dodger (Lindy Booth) and his new roommate Tom (Jared Padalecki). During a night in the campus’ chapel, Owen meets Mercedes (Sandra McCoy), her boyfriend, Lewis (Paul James), Randall (Jesse Janzen), Regina (Kristy Wu), and Graham (Ethan Cohn).  Owen is invited to play a lying game, where Dodger puts The Wolf against the sheeps. The object of the game? Lie your way into a cash prize, and the last one standing is declared the winner.

Bored and looking for a chance to spice things up, Dodger, with the help of everyone in the group, decides to bring The Wolf to life as a serial killer. But some harmless fun takes a turn for the worst, when a teacher on campus named Mr. Walker (Jon Bon Jovi) suspects something fishy about the game. Using the backstory of a real life local murder to build The Wolf‘s mystique as a killer, the game sends the entire campus into a frenzy, leading to one crucial question: Is The Wolf real?

You'll see the usual set of characters in a teen style slasher film here. Dodger is the seemingly innocent sweetheart, Tom is the cocky pretty boy/jerk, Randall is the “bad boy,” Mercedes is the attractive and clueless airhead, and Lewis is the dopey boyfriend. Owen? He’s the new kid, who tries too hard to fit in, and in the end, his never ending quest for acceptance costs him, big time.

I’ll give the nod to Lindy Booth for the best performance, and although it doesn’t last long, Booth is able to showcase a believable devious side to Dodger character. Morris is okay in the leading role, but his character has a few head shaking moments as this gullible doofus, and without Booth to prop him up, I can’t picture Morris maintaining serviceable status as the leading man. Padalecki and Wu are good for a few cheap laughs, and Janzen doesn’t receive a significant amount of screen time. Jon Bon Jovi is solid as Mr. Walker. Throughout the movie, Bon Jovi is convincing as a walking quandary, because you’re never sure of Mr. Walker’s true intentions and the motivations for his allegiances.

Cry Wolf constantly toys with the audience during the chaos to find The Wolf. Is The Wolf real or not? It’s the one question I had trouble answering during my first viewing of Cry Wolf. For me, Cry Wolf didn’t disappoint during the double swerve at the end.

Is Cry Wolf perfect? No. No it’s not. As I said before, you’ll see a set of generic slasher characters here, and Cry Wolf’s replay technique annoys me to no end.  Throughout the movie, Cry Wolf constantly replays footage for the murders involving certain participants in the game. You’ll see the footage for the first time after the group comes to a final decision on how everyone involved is supposed to die. As the murders happen, Cry Wolf replays the same footage in the brainstorming scene over and over again. Yeah, I get the point of splicing the “This is how it happens” footage with real time events, because this technique is supposed to pull a shocking reaction out of the audience. After all, you’re seeing the nightmare come to life before your very eyes. Problem is, the footage is not shocking anymore after the first time, and after a while, the replays feel unnecessary, lazy, random, and annoying.

Still, Cry Wolf keeps you guessing until the very end with a back and forth game of whodunit, and the constant teasing is more than capable of keeping you on edge, as Cry Wolf bounces between harmless hoax territory and the possibility of a real killer stalking everyone.

Rating: 7/10

Michael Jordan had another run with the Wizards after winning six championships. Brett Favre was one step away from earning a second ring with the Vikings.

As the world's definitive multi-talented superstar athlete, Trisha Bunrastar is taking an unexpected and shocking leap into a new career path. Assuming the identity of Freechelle Fantabulous, Trisha vows to fight crime and battle evildoers as a superheroine. Will she conquer her new mission? Find out more here! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EFLI6VK

Or take a trip into my special world of madness that includes comedy, horror, and the supernatural in this collection of short stories- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EFMYZ0U

And remember Amazon offers free Kindle App downloads for various platforms. Follow this link to find out more- http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

Follow me on Twitter here- https://twitter.com/LQuigleyFan1

And don't forget to like both of my Facebook pages, because the Mitch MacReady 2 Facebook page includes quotes from both ebooks that can't fit into Tweets- https://www.facebook.com/mitch.macready

Cry_Wolf (2005)(Spoiler Review)

**This review contains spoilers**

Troubled teen Owen Matthews (Julian Morris) receives one last shot at redemption, when his powerful father, Charles (Gary Cole) pulls some strings for Owen’s acceptance into Westlake Preparatory Academy, an exclusive and upscale private school for teenagers.

Upon his arrival, Owen is invited into a circle of friends by Dodger (Lindy Booth) and his new roommate Tom (Jared Padalecki). During a night in the campus’ chapel, Owen meets Mercedes (Sandra McCoy), her boyfriend, Lewis (Paul James), Randall (Jesse Janzen), Regina (Kristy Wu), and Graham (Ethan Cohn). Owen is thrust into the group’s weekly lying game of sheeps VS The Wolf. The object of the game is to sniff out the liar, and each participant is required to put some money into the pot. The Wolf is the liar, and The Wolf receives a hidden marking for his identity. The sheeps have to pick out the liar, and a false accusation automatically eliminates said participant from the game. The first sheep to point out the liar (The Wolf) wins all the money. If The Wolf survives, The Wolf wins all the money.

After a while, Dodger decides to spice things up by bringing The Wolf to life, using a real life local tragedy as the inspiration for his backstory. Together, Dodger and Owen create The Wolf’s attire, his weapon (a knife), and The Wolf’s mission: After murdering a local girl named Becky, The Wolf stalks Westlake for his next victim. Tom, Mercedes, Lewis, Randall, Graham, and Regina agree to play along, and each member of the group creates a storyline for the deaths of their characters in The Wolf’s killing spree.

Owen sends out a batch of fake emails to the entire school about The Wolf’s plan, and the group has some fun trying to uncover the identity of the killer at first, but the game takes a turn for the worst after a series of bizarre incidents, including Randall‘s mysterious disappearance. Unable to dismiss his past and troubled track record, Owen is a prime suspect for a series of real close-calls involving the game, including bringing The Wolf’s knife into a classroom, and Owen being solely responsible for a police officer’s last second decision to aim a gun at Mercedes disguised as The Wolf.

Along the way, Owen butts heads with one of his teachers, Mr. Walker (Jon Bon Jovi), who targets Owen as a fall guy for The Wolf conspiracy. Owen is facing expulsion for his involvement in the game, but Mr. Walker’s connections to a deceased Becky leads Owen to one troubling question: Is Mr. Walker The Wolf?

Cry Wolf features your usual set of characters in a teen style slasher film. Dodger is the seemingly innocent sweetheart, Tom is the cocky pretty boy/jerk, Randall is the “bad boy,” Mercedes is the attractive and clueless airhead, and Lewis is the dopey boyfriend. Owen? He’s the new kid, who tries too hard to fit in, and in the end, his never ending quest for acceptance costs him, big time.

I’ll give the nod to Lindy Booth for the best performance, and although it doesn’t last long, Booth is able to showcase a believable devious side to Dodger character. Morris is okay in the leading role, but his character has a few head shaking moments as this gullible doofus, and without Booth to prop him up, I can’t picture Morris maintaining serviceable status as the leading man. Padalecki and Wu are good for a few cheap laughs, and Janzen doesn’t receive a significant amount of screen time. Jon Bon Jovi is solid as Mr. Walker. Throughout the movie, Bon Jovi is convincing as a walking quandary, because you’re never sure of Mr. Walker’s true intentions and the motivations for his allegiances.

Cry Wolf constantly toys with the audience during the chaos to find The Wolf. Is The Wolf real or not? It’s the one question I had trouble answering during my first viewing of Cry Wolf. For me, Cry Wolf didn’t disappoint during the double swerve at the end.

Okay, so we’re in the final moments of the movie, and after the parking lot incident with Mercedes disguised as The Wolf, Owen is sick and tired of playing games. With no doubts to hold him back, Owen believes the real Wolf will strike on Halloween night during a full moon. In an attempt to expose The Wolf, Owen invites everyone involved to the chapel on Halloween night to finish the game. Here, Owen points the finger at Dodger for being the culprit behind it all, but a heartbroken and disappointed Dodger dismisses Owen’s claim. Owen struggles to think of his next move…until the remaining members of the group discover Randall’s dead body in a confession booth. Meanwhile, Mercedes is attacked by The Wolf in the girl’s dormitory on campus.

Searching for help, Owen rushes to Mr. Walker’s office after following Dodger’s instructions. Owen goes to Mr. Walker’s desk drawer to find his car keys, because Tom left with Regina in his car, and the campus is basically deserted. Instead of car keys, Owen finds a gun. This is the same gun that was used to kill Becky, and Owen suspects Mr. Walker as the killer, because after Dodger’s confession, Owen knows Mr. Walker shared an inappropriate student/teacher relationship with Becky before her death. Believing in Mr. Walker’s “crime of passion” motives, Owen refuses to relinquish the gun during a struggle with Mr. Walker, and Owen accidentally shoots Mr. Walker in the chest, killing him.

During the finale, it’s revealed the VAST majority of the group pulled a secret prank behind Owen’s back. Covered in fake blood, Randall was playing dead in the confession booth long enough for Owen to see him. Disguised as The Wolf, Graham scared an oblivious Mercedes in the shower. And Dodger faked her death outside of Mr. Walker’s office after The Wolf (disguised as Tom) “murdered” her. Mercedes and Lewis were the only ones, who didn’t know about the hoax.

The twist? Dodger deceived Owen into murdering Mr. Walker, because Dodger also shared an inappropriate relationship with Mr. Walker. Out of jealously, Dodger is the one, who murdered Becky in the woods, and Dodger planted the gun in Mr. Walker’s desk, and she purposely revealed the location, because she knew Owen would use the gun against Mr. Walker in self defense.

Suspension of disbelief is crucial for buying into this twist. Some will say it’s too far fetched to believe in all the steps for Dodger’s master plan. And using hindsight, there’s one scene with some obvious foreshadowing. Others might go with a different choice, but for me, it’s the scene with Dodger wearing the Red Riding Hood costume. Big hint. Still, I LOVE this twist. During the flashback reel at the end, you can see how Dodger easily manipulated and tortured Owen. Dodger saw an easy target for a sucker in Owen, Dodger used Owen’s infatuations against him, and she toyed with Owen until the very end.

Cry Wolf opens with the scene featuring Becky’s death in the woods. Of course, they don’t show Dodger as the killer. But at the end, you can see how Dodger stalked Becky in the woods at night, and when the time was right, Dodger murdered Becky in cold blood with the gun. Again, I know others might have trouble buying into it, but Dodger was the ideal choice for a shocking reveal. Booth took control of the Dodger, as this innocent young girl, who’s conflicted about her inappropriate relationship with a teacher. Seriously, Dodger is the sweet hometown girl with a mother, who teaches sixth graders, and her father works as a janitor at Westlake. WHO would suspect her as a murderer? Dodger’s nonchalant and cold response to Owen openly accusing her of orchestrating the murder of Mr. Walker? “Who would believe you?”

Is Cry Wolf perfect? No. No it’s not. As I said before, you’ll see a set of generic slasher characters here, and Cry Wolf’s replay technique annoys me to no end.  Throughout the movie, Cry Wolf constantly replays footage for the murders involving certain participants in the game. You’ll see the footage for the first time after the group comes to a final decision on how everyone involved is supposed to die. As the murders happen, Cry Wolf replays the same footage in the brainstorming scene over and over again. Yeah, I get the point of splicing the “This is how it happens” footage with real time events, because this technique is supposed to pull a shocking reaction out of the audience. After all, you’re seeing the nightmare come to life before your very eyes. Problem is, the footage is not shocking anymore after the first time, and after a while, the replays feel unnecessary, lazy, random, and annoying.

Still, Cry Wolf keeps you guessing until the very end with a back and forth game of whodunit, and the constant teasing is more than capable of keeping you on edge, as Cry Wolf bounces between harmless hoax territory and the possibility of a real killer stalking everyone.

Rating: 7/10

Michael Jordan had another run with the Wizards after winning six championships. Brett Favre was one step away from earning a second ring with the Vikings.

As the world's definitive multi-talented superstar athlete, Trisha Bunrastar is taking an unexpected and shocking leap into a new career path. Assuming the identity of Freechelle Fantabulous, Trisha vows to fight crime and battle evildoers as a superheroine. Will she conquer her new mission? Find out more here! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EFLI6VK

Or take a trip into my special world of madness that includes comedy, horror, and the supernatural in this collection of short stories- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EFMYZ0U

And remember Amazon offers free Kindle App downloads for various platforms. Follow this link to find out more- http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

Follow me on Twitter here- https://twitter.com/LQuigleyFan1

And don't forget to like both of my Facebook pages, because the Mitch MacReady 2 Facebook page includes quotes from both ebooks that can't fit into Tweets- https://www.facebook.com/mitch.macready

Hostel (2005)

**This review contains spoilers**

Backpacking through Europe, three friends are persuaded by Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy), a local, to go to a town in Slovakia for the best selection of promiscuous young women at a small hostel. The new friend, Oli (Eypor Guojonsson) from Iceland teams up with Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson), the two life-long friends from America, for a wild vacation including drugs, partying, and random hook-ups.

Josh, still trying to get over the recent split with his girlfriend, is pushed by Paxton to have a good time and loosen up, as both guys pair up with two local women named Svetlana (Jane Kaderabkova) and Natalya (Barbara Nedeljakova). After a while, Oli disappears, worrying an already suspicious Josh. On the flip-side, Paxton is more concerned with getting the most out of Svetlana and Natalya before returning to America and real life, so Josh agrees to forget about Oli.

But Paxton pressures Sveltana to take him to an “art museum” to find Josh and Oli, after Josh uncharacteristically disappears without saying a word, or leaving a note at the hostel. Svetlana lures Paxton into the art museum, where he learns the truth: the art museum is actually a factory, where rich people from all over the world pay money to a secret organization, so they can torture and kill innocent kidnapped victims. Svetlana and Natalya work for the secret organization, as two women, who seduce and drug their unsuspecting male victims for a hefty finder’s fee. Svetlana and Natalya are responsible for Oli’s death, and Josh’s death at the hands of a Dutch Businessman (Jan Vlasak), who engaged the trio in an awkward encounter on the train to Slovakia. Enraged at the sight of Josh’s mangled corpse, and the sadistic Dutch Businessman, who continues to carve out Josh’s chest in front of him, Paxton tries to attack Svetlana, but two goons grab him for the next client awaiting to torture and kill…..

I guess you can give the nod to Jay Hernandez for the best performance in Hostel. Not a clear cut choice, but everyone else either disappears for a significant amount of time, certain characters are limited to here and there appearances, and Josh and Oli don’t make it to the end. Although, if I had to give an award for runner up, it would go to Jan Vlasak. He’s so creepy and malicious, as The Dutch Businessman. Just watching him eat the deli meat with his hands (because The Dutch Businessman prefers to “use his hands”) on the train is enough to make your skin crawl, and touching Josh on his inner thigh to gauge his fear is another good example. Can’t say too much about Kaderabkova and Nedeljakova. They’re believable as the ditzy European women, who are looking for a good time, and that’s about it.

The gang of young hooligans, who terrorize anyone coming into their territory are good for a few laughs during their brief appearances. They savagely beat, steal from, or torment anyone (mainly American tourists), who refuse to pay the tolls, which include money, candy, or bubble gum for passage.

So why is Hostel so scary? Lots of blood and gore, but no real jump scares, or genuinely spooky atmospherics. Well, I guess you could count the dank torture rooms at the factory. Anyway, Hostel is scary, because of the death trap the main characters unknowingly walk into. Think about it. Young American males, and another older and immature man, who behaves like a frat boy, are in Europe with the hopes of having sex with a bunch of young, unsuspecting, and attractive European women. Blinded by their horniness (again, mainly Oli and Paxton), the men are set up, and two members of  the trio lose their lives.

It sounds like the alpha male fantasy: go to Amsterdam (using Amsterdam as an example, and the story actually starts out there), get wasted, do a bunch of drugs, and have a series of random one-night stands with willing local women, or prostitutes. That’s why Hostel is scary, because when you stop and think about it, there’s some realism behind the motivations of the main characters, and you CAN make connections between the mindsets of guys like Paxton and other American males, who think the same way. Throw in the underground organization with customers, who pay to kill and torture people, the gruesome deaths of Oli and Josh, and you might think twice about going to Europe for a wild ride.

You can also throw in the real life dynamic of a friend (Paxton) pushing another friend, who’s shy, uptight, and nerdy (Josh wears a fanny pack in the beginning) to go out, and break out of his shell. Unbeknownst to Paxton and Oli, Josh actually turns down a prostitute at a brothel, by walking away from her after she removed her bra. Long story short, Josh freaked out at the thought of having sex with her. Josh sort of had his feel good moment of bursting out of the shell with Svetlana later on, but it’s a short-lived moment, because Josh is drugged by Svetlana and tortured to death by The Dutch Businessman.  

Hostel starts out as this harmless story about three guys, who are looking for women, alcohol, and drugs on vacation. Then, everything slowly evolves into Paxton’s deadly fight for survival, while trying to rescue another victim (the woman at the hostel, who lost her friend with Oli, and Paxton returns to rescue her, and cut off her severely damaged eyeball, after a “customer” tortured her).

Hostel will give horror fans everything they ask for, because Eli Roth (the writer and director) doesn’t hold anything back, when it comes to an overflow of blood, gore, nasty torture/death scenes, and just the right amount of nudity (mainly in the beginning). Hostel is capped off with an entertaining suspenseful finale, while Paxton gets  his revenge on The Dutch Businessman at the train station by cutting off his fingers on one hand, and slitting his throat. And Paxton uses a car to get revenge on Svetlana, Natalya, and Alexei  by running them over, killing the three people, who played a part in the deaths of his friends (well, technically, Svetlana was still alive after Paxton hit her with the car the first time, and two associates from the factory actually killed Svetlana by running her over for a second time).

Strange, because the ending I mentioned above wasn’t the original ending (regarding The Dutch Businessman). The original and fixed ending is on the Director’s Cut DVD or Blu-Ray. In the original ending, Paxton kidnaps The Dutch Businessman's daughter at the train station. Paxton doesn’t kill The Dutch Businessman. Instead, he stands in the middle of the train station holding his daughter’s teddy bear, screaming her name, as Paxton rides away with her on another train. It’s fixed, because on Roth’s original ending in his script before he actually filmed it, Paxton murders The Dutch Businessman’s Daughter at the train station, and he flees the scene afterwards. So Roth changed the ending of Paxton murdering the girl to kidnapping her, because murder was too much. After a lukewarm reception for the finished product from the studio and other producers, Roth decided Paxton kidnapping the little girl was not enough, so he changed the original ending. There was a feeling the audience wanted blood and a gruesome death for The Dutch Businessman, because he murdered Paxton’s best friend. On top of that, every evildoer in Hostel suffers a brutal death, so The Dutch Businessman receiving a free pass would’ve disrupted the continuity 

So in the end, Roth came up with the ending of Paxton murdering The Dutch Businessman and escaping (listen to the DVD or Blu-Ray commentary, if you want to actually hear Roth and Tarantino, who is also a producer for Hostel, talk about this), because it was more subtle. Plus, the original ending created too much sympathy for The Dutch Businessman. A wise choice by Roth, because when you look at and compare both endings, Roth’s original ending makes no sense at all.


Rating: 8/10