Hostel

As decades have passed and horror trends have waxed and waned, one thing has been consistent: the desire to push further. Scary movies have grown increasingly liberal with the violence and carnage depicted on screen, culminating in the early aughts with films like Saw, Wolf Creek, and Hostel. New York magazine film critic David Edelstein published the article, now playing at your local multiplex, Torture Porn, in January 2006, coining the subgenre's label. In the piece, Edelstein wrestles with the idea of why America seems to have become so infatuated with hyper-violent and immoral stories. Do we cringe and squirm for the massacred victims, or, like in the Devil's Rejects, do we cheer for their torturers? The answer to this question, I think, lies in context.

In the 70s, the rise of the Splatter film, an early predecessor of Torture Porn, coincided with the conclusion of Vietnam. Americans revolted against the needless brutality of this war, and, with that sentiment, characters like Texas Chainslaw Massacre Sally, or the young cast in the Hills Hawaii's escape victorious from their torturers. Fast forward 30 years to the Iraq War. This time with technology more advanced than just cable TV, images of soldiers, the classic American hero, executing their violent orders were easily relayed back to the masses. Now, sympathy and morality have become more complicated when viewing horror. Edelstein hypothesizes that it's this very dilemma that makes torture porn so delicious. Hello, Sydney. It's your killer host! My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic.

I'm Caroline, Scaredy Scream Queen. I'm Ian, Scary Movie Skeptic. And welcome to. What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time. Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. Summer 2019. Ann and myself take a little train up into the Transylvania Mountains from Bucharest to a little town called Brashoff. Transylvania. Yes. Transylvania. And this little town. She said Transylvania. Yeah, Transylvania. Yeah. She said Romania. In Romania. Are they really? No, no, no. Well, kind of. Technically, the borders are shared between countries of what was Transylvania.

But the part that we were going to truth is. Transylvania is no more. Yeah, Transylvania is no more. And the part of Transylvania that we were going to was in Romania. Anyways, so this little town is supposedly the hometown of Dracula. Yeah. We check into a hostel for the night. And we get placed in this room. Uh two bunk beds. So me, Ian, someone's the second hostel we've ever stayed in. Someone that we don't I never actually saw them. Um, and this woman. Wait, are y'all sharing a bed or sharing a bunk? Sharing a bunk, but there's two bunk beds in the room. So five, so there's someone above y'all. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

One of you can each have a bunk. Five beds in a room, not bigger than our room, and sets of bunk beds. So me and Ian is on top, I'm on bottom. Okay, so across the room there is a woman who's a little overweight, doesn't speak any English, and like has one tooth. Maybe 50. Yeah. She's she's older. We go to bed that night at a decent time. We didn't stay out too late. Well, no, we walk into the room and she's sitting up in her bed, and it's like middle of the day. Yeah. She just smiles at us. And we're like, oh, we put our stuff away, and then we leave. And we say hi, but then we realize she doesn't speak English.

So we come back after dinner and drinks and everything, and she's already asleep in bed, and we go to bed. And then in the middle of the night, you hear her moving around a lot, and I was It was loud because it was a hostile. Yeah, it was loud, and all the beds are squeaky. And I opened my eyes up after all this movement, and she's just sitting on the edge of her bed staring at Ian, which I found out later. Yeah, so so I am it's probably towards she I think she got up multiple times to go to the restroom, but it was towards the m morning, still nighttime, and like I couldn't sleep at all on that bed.

And then when she got up and sat up and was like looking and just like I thought she was just getting up and like pondering her eyes. Nope. No, staring. I I like turned facing her, but act like I was sleeping. You know how you can act like you're sleeping? And then you just squint your eyes a little bit. And literally, like a horror movie. I'm just like I barely make it wide enough to see, and it's her just staring right at me. And it was the creepiest thing I've ever experienced. Did you check each other's necks for bite marks? I know. And basically, I like closed my eyes and just like waited for that to be over.

And then she went home and she's with her family, and she's like, I was staying at this hostel and I couldn't sleep, so I sat up and this guy just flipped over and was squinting at me. But long story short, also got bed bugs from that. So I'm not convinced. Totally. I'm not convinced that information was not shared with your roommate. I'm not convinced. Ian had some bite marks on his ankles. So anyway, so that's our hostile story. Not to mention like free breakfast with hostels. Don't do it because it's just creepy. Everyone's in a room and they everyone's weird. Yeah. Hostels are awkward and not as fun as these hostels, apparently. Well, you know, some of them.

You definitely didn't do anything with uh our hostel mates. Uh I mean that story you just told begs to differ. So, uh, bros, you ready to talk about some boobies? We went to Titty City, man. Some high city who say. Oh gosh. Okay, well I think, see, uh y'all have done, you know, some traveling, as we've heard. I've done not much. And uh I have to say well, uh international travel, I should, you know, say, even though hostile part three takes place in Las Vegas. Oh, there's a lot of things. Is there more of these? There are in fact. Oh god, there are three too. Is it the same like thing? Uh I have not seen them.

And as I have exposed last week in our Scream 4 episode, I actually have never watched Hostel all the way through. Last time I started it, I watched through when they got to the um like what would you like to Swobakia? No, the um that building with the big like steam towers. Oh, the wearing. And she was like, ooh, art show. And I was like, okay, like I'm done. I've had enough boobs and torture, and I'm over it. Uh, which honestly watched that whole thing and didn't even watch the best part. So anyway, picture this the year's 2005. You've got some sparkly tinked tops, jaan jackets with furry scuffs, low hip jeans. Oh, yeah. Men at clubs wearing t-shirts.

And fanny packs. Fanny packs. I transported back truly through this fashion. And also transported back to an era of sex positivity. Uh, I was going to say torture craze. Uh, so you may recall we have done one episode on Saw in our early days. Saw came out in 2004 and is credited with starting the torture craze in North America. And Hostel came out just one year afterwards. And Hostel and Saw are kind of credited as the pioneers of torture porn, which then led to like things like the New French Extremity, which we did an episode on martyrs, but this hyper violence that we see in horror movies in this early 2000s, also with like gritty, gross, grimy aesthetics.

Can I ask something? Yeah. Is this movie like pretty well known in the horror community? Yeah, this is a pretty famous movie. Okay. Um, so this movie was written and directed by Eli Roth. He has since joined The Legends as not only an acclaim acclaimed writer-director, he's part of the splat pack, but a massive supporter of horror. He's produced many indie movies and takes on a lot of projects within the horror community. He had just come to fame as the writer-directing of Cabin Fever from 2002, which was also like a hyper-violent movie about an infection that uh gets these kids that go out to like a lake house. Corona. Not Corona. Quentin Tarantino himself saw that movie and was like, Brose, if you gotta make a new movie, I'll fund it.

And that's why you'll notice in the opening credits of Hostile, the very first thing it says is Quentin Tarantino presents. And uh so he encouraged him to make this. Uh Eli Roth also wrote and directed Hostile Part 2, but was not involved in part three, which is a direct-to-video release. Is there gonna be a new one called Airbnb? Uh they mm, I feel like it can't it. Yeah, you might be onto something there. Maybe it's just air B and B. That's the exact same thing, but just not all one word. I'm trying to think of what B could stand for, but like Boobs and butts. Boobs and blood, breasts, and bosoms. Okay. Boobs and Bibles. Sorry.

We're done. Jay Hernandez plays uh Paxton, who is like trilingual. I don't know how many languages he's like, yeah. He speaks uh what'd they say? Was that Dutch? He said I don't know. I don't speak it. German, no, he said Dutch, I think. All those people were speaking Dutch in Slovakia? He either said Dutch or Dane. It was a D word. Alright, uh well he was in Suicide Squad in 2016. Scandal Yuppla. Scandalous, I know. And uh also in Magnum P. Yeah. The remake? Yeah. Yeah. They made a remake? Hey, listen, don't don't question me. Those are the facts. My mom used to watch that show. Um Derek Richardson. Not endorsed. Derek Richardson plays Josh. He was in Anger Management.

Why do you think these are so funny? No, it's just uh the names like Jay Hernandez, Scandal, Derek Richardson, anger management. Um, whatever. We also have an Icelandic name, I'm assuming. You want me to pronounce it? Ether Good Johnson. I laughed at that because I thought, Good Johnson. Hell yeah. Um Ether plays Ollie in this movie and was actually a producer on Hostile Part 2. Oh Good Boy. He uh funneled all his money back into his workplace. The IMDB summary is quote, three backpackers head to a Slavic city that promises to meet their hedonistic expectations with no idea of the hell that awaits them. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score is sixty-one percent, the audience score a fifty-three percent.

And the critic's consensus is quote Featuring lots of guts and gore hostile is a wildly entertaining corpse-filled journey. Assuming one is entertained by corpses, guts and gore, and that is. Boobs. Because of boobs. Boobs, seen 'em one, you seen them all. Boobs, I've seen them all over town. I gotta say, the boobs in this movie though are definitely different than some other. These were like no, no, no, no, no. These were like glossed up. On this segment of Caroline talks about boobs. I'm just saying. Caroline's like, I haven't seen these boobs anywhere. No, the boobs boobs wouldn't know. They were like glossed up like a man's abs would be coming out of the ocean. Like they never like seriously contoured or a man's abs.

A man's abs coming out of the ocean. You know how they like grease grease guys up on the beach? They greased up those nipples. I know about abs. I have a mirror. Thank you very much. Yeah, I know. Sadly. I'm just kidding. Parker's really strong. Oh wow, thanks. Cool. So, hostile. Uh, as international travelers, any resonance to your own experiences? Yeah, we already talked about it. We already talked about it. Yeah, there was nothing like this movie. I mean, there was uh we were like ten minutes away from pure hedonistic satanic murder. So you've never like gone to a city and just boobs everywhere and sex dungeon and nude spawn. Nude beaches. Alright, well, okay, I was gonna say aside from the boobs, you know, a lot of travelers don't actually take their travel the extra mile to go to like an Eastern European country like Slovakia.

And Anne and I were chuckling the scene where they get off the train and they're like looking around and there's like nothing there, and there's like one car from like communist times on the road. It's like that's what it's really accurate. It's pretty yeah. I was giggling at that point, but um Yes, if you're ever interested in going to Eastern Europe, give it a chance. It's much better than this, I promise. You're still talking about boobs? No, he adds. Yeah, we can't get the straight guy off the boob. No, he asked. Thank you to reviewer Sad Thespian for pointing out that one of our host language in this episode was neither inclusive nor productive to our analysis of Hostel.

I've chosen to remove the section in questions so that this episode can be enjoyed by all listeners. We welcome a diversity of life and experience on this podcast, and any listener can contact us at scary moviepod at gmail.com with any questions or feedback. Well, honing in on just the past hour and a half that we had, enjoyment, like what's your what's your read on Hostel? I thought it was like I thought it was like a fresh take to some of the like scary movies that we've seen. Yeah, I just like the premise was like fun and like we could relate to it, but like it's ultimately not my cup of tea. Yeah. I I liked the the setting.

I liked the the hostile concept. The boobs. No. He liked the boobs. I I thought it was interesting how long they took to get to the actual Igore horror. I have to say, unlike most movies, I feel like if it may have not been, but it felt like two-thirds of the movie was just a movie about travelers at a hostel trying to get late. I kind of enjoyed that actually. Yeah, I did too. Also because I knew the horror was gonna come. Yeah. A lot of coming in this movie. I think my favorite scene was the guy that Paxton runs into in like the dressing room area. Yeah, that was a good scene. That was a good he is a good actor.

I don't know who he is, but that was a good scene. I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, that brosive. Yeah. Well, you know, I personally did not necessarily enjoy my experience with this movie. And I feel like it's funny because up until now, you know, here we are, episode 51, so it's almost like just a new start, you know. Episode one, we're back. But until now, I've been kind of just programming movies that I just want to watch. And so I feel like unless it's a new release in theaters, I've always been like, smash, it's incredible. And so now that I'm starting to, you know, branch out a little bit and program things that are either like topical to look at our little journalist over here.

Well, shh shh. LinkedIn endorsement. He's he's starting to get outside of his bodice. How cute. Yeah, so I thought you guys are about to leave on a trip to um, where are you going? Iceland. We're going to Iceland. Oh. Check in with Ollie while you're there. See if he's doing better than he was. Good thing I'm not going on that trip. Umt drawings. Yeah, that was that was delightful. That was the best part of the movie. There's always that guy on a train somewhere, you know. Yeah, how many trains have you been on where people are showing you their butts? No, there's always like that guy who's backpacking that's like, I guess what happens when Ian's not there, you know, stays where Ian's not there, you know.

So this is relevant because you're about to go to Iceland. And also, it's March now. And you know what happens in March? You may be thinking, ugh, St. Patrick's Day, we know. What does this have to do with spring with St. Patrick's Day? No, people are going on spring break. So I thought people might be staying in hostels very soon. What were you saying? What do you think do? Get one with good reviews. Or go to the underground one with all the hot ladies. You know, if you're not taking a gamble, what's the point? Yeah, they were just living life on the edge, saying yes, getting that travel experience. I mean, if there are a hundred underground hot lady hostels, how many of those hundred do you think are murder ones, too?

Like five? I always like hostels in my mind sound like a great thing, but every single time we stay in one, I'm just like, ugh, I hate this. But you know, I think the great thing about a hostel lady, though. I'm not yeah, you're a bougie bitch. The thing about a hostel-expect a towel to be provided to the city. I could do a hostel all the time. Some of us are traveling. Yeah, you are. Anne's particularly. We're witnessing a breakup live on air. I think what's great about a hostel is you know, if you're traveling on a budget, you still want to see the world. So you have that communal experience. You probably have sex with your friend in the same room where the ladies you're having sex with can make eye contact.

What's not bonding about that? I think hostels sound great. So you're having sex with ladies. Report report back. This movie's changed me. Report back after you've gone to a movie. Parker likes the boobies. Well, I actually so I mean, I have seen I would say the first half of this movie. I do not even remember it being as uh explicit as it was watching it with you guys. I guess because the last time I tried to watch it, I was by myself. But I was just like, people watch this with other people for fun? I'm humiliated. Yeah. And people watched this, this did well in theaters. Can you imagine watching this in a theater? I actually didn't mind it, except for that one scene where they meet the guy that tells him to go to the hostel.

And he's got that sore on his lip. Yeah, but the one lady having sex with the guy in the background that's just kind of like saying there, like a little bit moving. She's just, you know, stretching out, if you know what I mean. That was the one that I was like, this is making me uncomfortable. I I don't know. It is so weird to me that have you ever had a bunk bed? I don't need any personal anecdotes. Um I just think it's I don't want to yuck any yums. I don't want to judge anyone. I just can't imagine like getting together with a group of guys and watching hostile and being like, oh yeah. I'm just seems very like a particular movie crowd to me.

I think like in these days, this movie is like not okay for like you know, obvious reasons. Like what? The guys are terrible. They're just like thank you. I thought y'all liked the Adjustments and Pussy. And today I feel like let's not talk about women like that. You know, that was a direct clip from the movie right there. It was bad. But, you know, I feel like these guys are like the grown-up versions of the guys that like Mary Kate and Ashley dated in all their travel movies, you know. I I'm not familiar with that reference, but you know what I'm talking about, Ian. No. Are you a Mary Kate and Ashley stem? Yes, you are.

You told me you used to watch them with your sister. The truth comes out. I think a few interesting things. There are multiple points in this movie where the men are trying to find some ladies to penetrate. And for some reason, the selling point is like some sort of like seeing the other men with the ladies. Like at the beginning, when they meet Alex in his apartment, which is strange, and he's just like, You gotta see these ladies. Look at a bunch of pictures of me having sex with them, and he's like, like selfie cam. And then later they're like, Let's have sex in the same room, and like look at each other, and it's like and I don't know.

And then and like they go to that like sex dungeon, no choice, they were in the same they go to this sex dungeon, and you see like the silhouettes of like Pax and Ollie having sex with that woman, and they like fist bump, and then like Josh, you had in, take her now. And I was just like, There's a lot of like communal sharing going on here, which you know I love, you know, share the wealth, but at the same time, it's just like something about that is not sexy to me personally. Okay, I actually thought about this. Was it me, or was I the only one getting like maybe some homosexual vibes from what's his name?

Not Josh. Not the Icelandic one and not the main guy. Josh. Josh. The one that got his Well, the one that was hit on by a man. Right. Well, that might be why you got the vibes. Well, no, and like the whole like he didn't want to go in with a prostitute, which like could be many things. They said he was recovering from a recent breakup. Yeah, but then he also put his hand on the guy that hit on him later. I guess if we're gonna jump into it, let's jump into it now. So one of the criticisms about this movie is that it is in fact homophobic, and there are a lot of offensive words being thrown around here and there, and every time I was like, oh, the sizzle to my heart is, you know, uncomfortable.

But there is that specific interaction between the old man and Josh where he says, like, I would have reacted the same way when I was your age. Right. I chose to have a family and have a daughter. You should choose, you know, what speaks to you, or something like that. And I was reading an article that I'll link in the show notes that was actually very like, you know, loudly saying, like, this movie is stating that, you know, sexuality is a choice. And it's interesting because the first time I watched this, that's not necessarily what I got from that conversation. When I read that, I was like, huh, I could see it. But I think I was more affected by just the way that the guys were acting and how they were using it all as a joke.

And I thought that was disheartening and sad to me personally. That conversation, because that man, while he does touch his thigh, there's so much larger things happening in this movie that I was not personally offended by that. Maybe he was reading what you were just reading and was like, oh, this guy must be the gay one. If I touch his thigh, maybe he'll come to my hostel and I can murder him, or something. Like, there are so many things going on with that man that I was never reading that conversation or those interactions with him. It's like, oh, look at these gays just being, you know, repressed. The only reason that like I kind of latched on to that was when the old man was saying that like I chose a family, you should choose whatever.

That's the one moment. Yeah. And I didn't see that as like the movie being homophobic. I like I chose it was like I chose the world being homophobic. Or yeah, like I chose to cover up my sexuality and have a family. Not that I chose to not be gay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a strange thing. I feel kind of uncomfortable with the whole situation, and I have no answer, you know. I think that this whole movie is kind of exuding so much like masculine patriarchy energy that the whole thing feels a little oppressive to me. So I'm not a reliable source. That's what I mean by them being like, let's just well, and that's the other big complaint is that this movie is very uh, you know, misogynistic, which I have a few thoughts about that actually.

If we're just gonna skip the whole movie, let's just talk about it now. I think that there are two very different reads on this movie, and one is like the politics of viewing this movie, and one is the politics of actually what's going on in the movie. I think that there is something to be said about watching this movie and finding enjoyment in these guys being like, uh, let's fuck some ladies, and then you know, watching that happen, and then being horrible, and then like, hell yeah, they're chopped up. I think there is something kind of inherently gross about like finding pleasure in that, but then at the same time, I think if you because that's what all that I read about this movie was like this movie's so misogynistic and homophobic and xenophobic, which maybe that last one.

We'll you know, save that. But I think that those are all reading the politics of what it's like to view the movie and be someone who enjoys watching this movie. I think what's happening inside the movie is that these characters are being set up as gross people, and actually the way that they are treated, you could either view it as like they get what's coming to them, or even like one of the ladies who takes him to the art show, she's like fucking horror. Fucking bit. I get a lot of money for you. And I actually went back and read that that line was played over the end of the credits, and so I think that that's something that the movie kind of wants to highlight and play up.

And also, I think if you're gonna read anything, there's like a class thing going on about these people paying so much money to go kill someone. I think that, um, yeah, I think that the gross misogynistic characters that we're introduced to and that we're not that are the heroes, but also I don't feel like we're supposed to like them. They kind of, you know, karma comes to them. Yeah. I also think, I mean, I personally enjoyed the nice setup that the movie gave us of like the visual of the prostitute, like that hallway with the doors, and then you get that same setup in the little torture chambers. So it was like, you know, they they are so used to going to like that prostitute establishment, and like they don't think twice about it, but then when it's the same kind of scenario just flipped for them, and they are the victim or the woman in this case, it's like horrible, and so it's kind of like eye-opening for them.

Well, and another thing about this is I'm not saying this is always the situation, but in this sex dungeon that they go to at the beginning of the movie, it does seem like the women have some sort of authority in there. And I was kind of seeing that reflected in the woman that when she takes Pax to the quote art show, she says, I'm making a lot of money off of you. You're my bitch. And so I kind of felt that at the beginning of the movie when they go to the dungeon where the woman is, you know, washing her hands, she's like, Come sit down, your friends were so nice. Why don't you, you know, join me too?

Like, ultimately, these women, it seems like they have some sort of power over the men as well, because they know that at the end of the night they're getting that paycheck. And so I do think the women in this movie are not completely powerless. And you may think that when they go to the spa and there is like that ridiculous moment where it's like, wow, we're in like Boob Wonderland, like those women are all getting the same paycheck too. Like, they've signed up to go and seduce these men into you know being killed. So I think if you're going to look at the movie and criticize the politics of the movie, it's much more complicated than what necessarily people are latching on to as, you know, staunchly as they are online and being like, this is a woman-hating movie.

Because I actually think Eli Roth is a pretty smart guy, and he seems, you know, in interviews and things that I've read from him, it seems that he really knows his stuff about horror and how to write an interesting story, and you know, he's just not going to baby us in this movie and tell us what to think. Like this movie, I feel like there, even if it's not my bag, there are plenty of ways to interpret it. I also think Paxton has quite a transformation in the moment that I mentioned before with the guy in the dressing room where he the guy is talking about like But it's supposed it's supposed to be real, it's supposed to be a real rush, right?

It's like it's like it's they told me it's like it's like a real rush, right? Yeah. I've been all over the world. You know, I've been everywhere. And the bottom line is pussy's pussy. You know, every strip club, every whorehouse, every it's all the same shit. You know, I just fucked the girl two days ago, and I don't even remember the color of her tits. But this, this is something you never forget. Right. It doesn't mean anything over time. And I think he learns a I mean, obviously he's been through a lot already, but like in that moment, we definitely see a shift in him. Well, I hope that gross men can have a shift without necessarily having to be tortured first, you know.

That's just my hope for the world. So to quickly just say what happens in the movie, I mean, these guys go to a hostel in Slovakia and they are kind of you tricked into uh being the subjects of a club or a pay and kill establishment where rich people can pay to torture or kill somebody who has been brought to this establishment. And that's kind of the whole movie is you know, it's hopeless for the characters because the police aren't going to help them. The whole kind of community is in on this thing where they, you know, seduce people into coming to this uh hostel and be killed for, you know, tourism profit for the community, I would assume.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of a lot of things to read into about you think that exists somewhere in the world. Well, interestingly enough, the concept for this movie came to Eli Roth when uh a producer told him that there was a website that advertised a Thai death vacation where apparently you could pay$10,000 for a trip to Thailand and you could go shoot someone. And that was the trip. And in an an in an interview with Dread Central, he said, quote, the site claimed that the person you were killing had signed up for it and that part of the money would go to their family because they were so broke and were going to die anyways.

It was to give you the thrill of taking another human life. So he did base this on he said he didn't know if the website was real, but he did base it on something that he thought was real or that was, you know, trying to be give off the image that it was real. If you knew you were gonna die, would you allow someone to shoot you? Why? If your family could have lots of money. Well, I guess they'll already have lots of money. This specif specifies shoot. So, I mean, maybe, but if it was torture, no way, Jose. There are so many gross things in this movie. Why don't we talk through a couple of them?

So the very first torture thing that happens would be um Josh taking to the old man. And he uh I think kind of the PS de resistance to bring out my international flair to this episode, is he off-screen slashes his ankles, and you kind of get the idea, but you don't know exactly what's happening, and then he's like, you can leave, and then he stands up and you see his ankles separate and he falls to the ground. That really is disgusting and vile. Uh, and a lot of gooey substances in this movie when his ankles separate, there's some sort of like saliva-y thread between his skin. We're done. Also, a lot of vomit in this movie.

A lot of vomit, actually. Which I guess could be true, but like every time somebody is tortured, they're throwing up, which that is just the cherry on top for me of grossness. No thoughts on the electric drill into his thigh. I don't want to talk about it. So then I guess the other main one would be when Josh goes or when Pax goes to the art show, which I kind of love that they frame it as an art show, and she's like, Here's the art show. And then she's like, And um he sees everyone being tortured. They were so quick I couldn't tell what was happening to anyone. I wanted to pause it on everyone to see what was happening to them.

But um, he gets stabbed in the chest a few times with a little like three-pronged slapper. Uh, he's going to get chainsawed, but luckily doesn't, but well, he gets his fingers chainsawed off. And that's when we see kind of the inner workings of the organization. After they're done, they cart people down to the basement where they burn their bodies, get rid of the evidence. Then he goes upstairs, he sees kind of the room where people get ready and they put on their clothes. He has a conversation with that guy, just like you mentioned earlier, who's like, fuck yeah, I just want to go torture someone. You seen one pair of boobs, I can't even remember what color they are.

Yikes. He uh had told a story earlier in the movie about how when he was a kid, or when he was younger, he saw a young girl drowning in a pool. And he was going he could have saved her, but instead he ran to the lifeguard and was like, Go save this girl, and she didn't rem she didn't believe him, and then the girl died, and he heard the mother screaming every night for years. And so he hears a young Asian woman that he met earlier in the movie screaming. He goes back to save her. This is the one that didn't particularly work for me because the guy that he met earlier is blowtorching her face and he shoots him, and then she's got I mean, maybe I don't know what a real eyeball would look like if it was hanging out of your face.

But there's an eyeball hanging out of her face, and it just doesn't look like I would think that looked not great to me. And then he cuts it off, and all this pus spouts out of her eye hole. I don't know. To me, I was like, I don't buy it. It was gross though, and it worked on me apparently. Well, they make an escape and she realizes that she's hideous, and she throws herself in front of a train, and there is yet another gross death where she's kind of crunched up in the uh in the train tracks. She really jumped. Yeah, she really threw herself. She was skinny. She probably just blew with the wind. I don't think she killed herself though.

I think or uh I I don't think she killed herself to kill herself. I think she killed herself to be a distraction. Yeah, to save him. No, I think she killed herself because she was like, I'm hideous, and what kind of life am I going to live? Well, and also it did benefit him, so that was maybe. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say that, like, oh, I'm gonna kill myself and create a distraction. If this movie's saying anything, I really don't think it's saying that people are selfless. I'm not buying necessarily that she did that to help him. I think she had that long moment where she was looking at her reflection, and I think she was kind of just like, my life's gonna suck.

I think I'm gonna just get rid of myself now, which is I'm not endorsing. I think that sucks, but uh yeah, I think that's the train I'm going to uh personally ticket myself on. Then there's a um, you know, he kills the old man, whatever, and then it's kind of a uh bittersweet ending where yes he gets away, even though I don't like him. I wouldn't have been sad to see him go. But um it's kind of like uh will he ever be able to trust again? So movie ends roll credits. Now, you world travelers may be wondering where this was filmed. It takes place in Slovakia. Uh principal photography took place in the Czech Republic and many scenes were shot in Cesky Krumlov.

And the torture Is that a country? Don't ask me that. The torture chamber scenes were filmed in the abandoned wing of an old Prague hospital. So you may think Slovakia and the Czech Republic probably weren't too happy with this movie. And no, they weren't. They were outraged at being depicted as rednecked, redneck, undeveloped, violent people. Uh, and Slovakia even offered Eli Roth an all-expenses paid trip to their country to prove they weren't like that. That's so nice. Eli Roth responded, and I was I enjoyed this. He said that he was more depicting the ignorance of Americans. Thank you. And he said that even after the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, people still went to Texas. So that was his response to them.

Um I did think like watching it, I was like, oh, this is why people don't go to these countries, unfortunately. But that's why I say give it a chance. It's much better than that. Yeah, and actually I think him saying that he was trying to depict the ignorance, it kind of goes into this criticizing American elitism thing where maybe it is us that is the issue in how this film is interpreted, you know, and not necessarily what we're seeing. But we're seeing it wouldn't exist if there weren't rich people to pay to do it. But unfortunately, this you know, anyone who already thinks this way, then watching it, it just like reinforces the stereotype. Yeah, exactly.

And I think that's the issue. Yeah. I also wrote a note here that said, Is midsummer feminist hostile? Oh, that's funny. That's my That was my thought watching this. That's really funny. Um I think I'll think. Oh yeah, you don't bother. Uh I thought I had one more thought, but I really just don't. Alright. Um, so what would you say from hostile is the most memorable murder? I think getting ran over the the Oh the girls. Yeah, the girls ran over. We both, when that happened, we were both like, oh well, double whammy, they get hit and then surprise. I know, no, the second run over is the most memorable. That was good. Well, and I actually thought it was interesting y'all cheered because to me, those women are the heroes of the story.

They're just out there trying to make an honest dollar. It's true. So I was not, I was a little more sad to see them die. Yeah, but that was a good that was surprised. It was exciting. Yeah, getting that second one. Uh I'm going to go with uh. I'm actually trying to think. Like, not that. I mean, people die, but the centerpiece ones are probably that. Josh getting his n throat slit, the old man in the bathroom, which you see my last name, Heron, really up in lights on that bathroom door means gentleman in German. Um good thing we're not in Germany. Well, if we were, I would know where the bathroom was. Uh I did not when we were there.

Okay. Can I tell my Heron story? Yeah, go for the story. So um Ian and I went to Austria from Hungary two summers ago, and we got off the train and went straight to a restaurant. And were you hungry? We were very hungry in Austria. Um You said you were in Hungary. No, no, no, we were coming from Hungary. Came from Hungary, but we were. So we were starving. Yeah, exactly. So it was our first time in a German country when the language had changed when we crossed the border. And I went to the bathroom when we were eating at this restaurant, and I hadn't familiarized myself with the language yet, and I stood there between the two bathroom doors, and one said Heron, and one said Frauer.

And I was like, I don't know what this means, and there were no pictures, so I had to come back and Google it, and then go back to the bathroom. Wow. It was funnier in real life because it really had to pee. So it's a real thing. Well, I think I'm gonna go with Josh as my most memorable murder, even though his murder murder isn't that exciting because it's just a throat slit, and then we see him being operated on later, and then we see his corpse again later. He's really all over this movie, but it's those goddamn ankles that I just can't get past. That was the worst. The strings of ghoul between the skin really gets me.

Wait, can we quickly talk about how funny it is that Ollie texts his friends a photo of his dead face and says, I'm going home. I mean, I don't think he texted them. I know, but like what a funny whoever killed him, what a funny joke. Yeah, they like propped their bodies up in front of the building. I'm gonna text their friends. Yeah, technology really, 2005, those flip phones, they were really um the reason. Whoever killed Ollie really got their money's worth because they toted his body around the barrel. Yeah, exactly. Um so you are held at gunpoint and told you have to torture someone. What's your method? That's a fucked up question. Well, you can't you can't not answer it because you've got the gun to your head.

You'll die. I would probably just get it over with. Via what method? No, that would defeat the whole question of torture. Torture is not getting it over with. You wouldn't go for like some toenails or like uh, you know, blowtorch to the face. That seems to be a classic. Any thoughts? If you were being tortured, how would you like to be tortured? I wouldn't. But you have to. You're locked in a room. No, because some strange person is gonna listen to this and then hunt us down and do it to us. So no. Well, if I were going to be tortured, for anyone listening taking notes, maybe like um I don't like that. Just something quick and easy.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I was going to say drowning, but that sounds horrible. No fire. Alright. No toenails, don't do anything with toenails. Yeah, on a scary scale, one to five, how would you rank hostile? Uh scary. I mean, I I think it's pretty scary because it like there's no, you know, anything that could not happen in this world in this movie. So all of this is possible. So when you're in Iceland on your trip, maybe this uh movie might grace your imagination. Not in Iceland, but in Bulgaria, definitely. So what what is it? I'm gonna give it a three. Yeah, I'll give it about a three and a half. I'm gonna give it a two because I don't travel, so I'm not I mean, I think if I were about to go travel and go to a hostel, it might be higher.

But I mean, I was just sitting here snacking away on my orange chicken watching this movie. The hostel isn't scary. Well, I think if I were at going to a hostel, I might be a little more vigilant after watching this movie. Like a random ass ecstasy or whatever from Are you kidding? First thing I would do if I ended up in Amsterdam. Slovakia. Or Slovakia. I mean, it seems like they were doing drugs everywhere. Well, there's your problem. Oh, well, I know how to take care of myself. Topical news. I got a CNN update that said that Amsterdam might outlaw uh tourists from going into their cannabis cafes. That seems like it will ruin all of their tourism.

Yeah, people go there just to smoke. Yeah, and that's why it's like miserable for anyone who lives there to go because it's just a bunch of fucking tourists overrunning their cafes. That's part of their culture. But think of all the jobs that are going to be, you know, making less money. I don't know. Parker for president. It seems like Amsterdam. Parker's gonna bring jobs to Amsterdam. If they were thinking about their economy, that seems like maybe they wouldn't do that. This evening on Parker's Economy Podcast. I think that's a valid point, Ian. If they're thinking about it, it obviously is not a problem. One, probably because they're making a ton of shit money off of weed in the first place.

Uh shit money is illegal. So they don't need the extra tourism money. It makes sense. Anyways. It makes sense. Apparently, tourists are just overrunning Amsterdam. Tourists ruin ruin everything, so we live in New York City, so I mean we see the tourists. Um, I yeah, I'm gonna give it a two. The torture porn doesn't bother me. I can watch a s a toe get clipped off. Uh would you give hostile a smash or slash? A slash to the finger webbing. I would actually give it a light smash. I want to see the other hostels, so I have to give it a smash. Both hostile and hostile part two are on HBO Go and HBO now, so you can make that dream a reality, Ian.

Uh, I'm going to give it a slash. I don't enjoy it. I think it's kind of an oppressive movie to my lifestyle. Um so what would you say is your favorite scary movie? The Lodge. The Lodge. I'm gonna stick with my guns on scream four. Uh so next time on what's your favorite scary movie, as discussed, these two world travelers will have been tortured and killed in a hostel somewhere. So I will be here with a special guest who you might remember from our It Chapter 2 episode to in uh to uh review the new release, The Invisible Man, which is funnily enough written by Lee Wan L, who wrote Saw, so it really relates to this whole torture porn conversation.

So I will be here with a special guest to uh discuss the invisible man, uh, both new and old. So tune in for that. And while you're waiting for that hot new episode, you can head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. My name is Parker Hare, and you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Letterboxd, and the slasher app at Parker Del Rey. You can find me. My name is Caroline. You can find me on Instagram at Carol Manifesto. And my name's Ian. You can find me on Yeah. And then find the whole crew on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Scary MoviePod. You can send us some feedback or suggestions or love at ScarymoviePod at gmail.com.

You can visit our website to see reviews and our calendar at scary moviepod.com, and you can subscribe to our Patreon where we're releasing some hot bonus content. Do you want do you want this podcast to stay around? If so, join our Patreon. Exactly. We've got some very affordable options there at Scarymovie Podreon.com slash scary moviepod. Just five dollars can change everything for us and give you some new hot takes. For five dollars, you can be our friend. You can even subscribe for one dollar and get our newsletter every single month. All right. Well, goodbye. Bye, I think.