By Michael Gleason

Hostel is the latest offering from Eli Roth, the director of Cabin Fever, and is an unfortunate step back for this once-promising director. This film lacks the horror, the suspense, and the humor that characterized his previous effort.

The story is par for the horror-movie course; one could miss about half the movie and still pick up on the general plot points. Hostel follows a trio of thrill-seekers as they backpack through Europe, making nuisances of themselves. The beginning of the movie seems devoted to making the audience hate the characters, two American tourists (Jay Hernandez and Derek Robinson) and an Icelander along for the ride (Eythor Gudjonsson). They are loud, obnoxious, juvenile and rude hedonists, with seemingly no other purpose in life than to smoke weed and score European chicks. They are caricatures of the arrogant American tourist, and carry this exaggeration almost to the point of offensiveness. One has to wonder about a movie that makes its protagonists so impossible to relate with; isn't the purpose of horror movies to have us sympathize with the victims?

The movie lags horribly for about a half hour, while these uncomplicated characters and their simple goals are revealed. This slow point is unforgivable in a movie without a plot to carry it along. We are treated to an ample share of nudity as the men make their way to Slovakia, a country they are told is teeming with nubile, willing young women. Of course, something sinister is awaiting this trio, and all is not as it seems.

Unfortunately, this long, slow introduction leads to a rather tame climax. Despite the marketing for this movie, this film yields little in terms of gore that has not been seen before. A good deal of the violence is uninspired. There is really no buildup to the gore and, in the end, the blood and guts seem pointless. All told, there is about one solid moment in the entire movie. This is not good, as the movie is entirely reliant on the visceral thrill: there is absolutely nothing else in this movie that is in any way memorable. Its pace is plodding, its direction unremarkable and it lacks any kind of plot twist. There is nothing about this film to recommend it over superior horror fare available in video stores.

The dialogue is particularly reprehensible. The entire first act seems to be composed of the protagonists telling Europeans off and stealing lines from teen comedies. The characters speak in such an unrealistic manner that it's laughable; too much work was given to making these characters sound like the drunken frat boy stereotypes. At every opportunity, this film feels willing to deny the main characters any sort of believable humanity.

Ultimately, the film fails on any level to engage the viewer. The characters are flat and unlikable, the plot is slow and boring, and it is entirely reliant on rather nonexistent thrills. There's really nothing to recommend here: nothing is added to the genre and nothing sets it apart from things that have been done better before. That is sad, as the concept is certainly human: it plays on basic fears of the unknown and the foreign. Done well, this film could have been tense and frightening. What Jaws did for the ocean, Hostel could have done for overseas traveling. Instead, we are left with a movie that shamelessly exploits gore.

GRADE: D