Hostel - The Director's Cut [Blu-ray] (2005)

Actors: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson, Barbara Nedeljakova, Rick Hoffman
Directors: Eli Roth
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Region: Region 1 U.S. and Canada only.
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number of discs: 1
Rating: Unrated
Studio: Sony Pictures
DVD Release Date: October 23, 2007
Run Time: 94 minutes
ASIN: B000VD9MG4

Well-made for the genre--the excessive-skin-displayed-before-gruesome-bloody-torture-begins genre--Hostel follows two randy Americans (Jay Hernandez, Friday Night Lights, and Derek Richardson, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd) and an even randier Icelander (Eythor Gudjonsson) as they trek to Slovakia, where they're told beautiful girls will have sex with anyone with an American accent. Unfortunately, the girls will also sell young Americans to a company that offers victims to anyone who will pay to torture and murder. To his credit, writer/director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever) takes his time setting things up, laying a realistic foundation that makes the inevitable spilling of much blood all the more gruesome. The sardonic joke, of course, is that Americans are worth the most in this brothel of blood because everyone else in the world wants to take revenge upon them. This dark humor and political subtext help set Hostel above its more brainless sadistic compatriots, like House of Wax or The Devil's Rejects. In general, though, there's something lacking; horror used to suggest some threat to the spirit--today's horror can conceive of nothing more troubling than torturing the flesh. For aficionados, Hostel features a nice cameo by Takashi Miike, director of bloody Japanese flicks like Audition and Ichi the Killer. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 10/23/2007 Run time: 94 minutes Rating: Unrated