Hostel

Director: Eli Roth

Starring: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson

It's every adventurous just-graduated-college guy’s dream; you go travelling with a friend around Europe in search of women, booze and a good time, and actually find them. How likely is that! Well, for Josh (Richardson) and Paxton (Hernandez), it’s exactly what happens…and a whole lot more!

Set in the Czech Republic, the two American backpackers start their travels in Amsterdam but after befriending obnoxious Icelander Oli, they realise that the city is overflowing with low-life losers like themselves who are all after the same thing. So, they decide to find somewhere else to go. Cue the seemingly friendly stranger who suggests a particular hostel in Slovakia where the three of them are sure to discover beer, drugs and an array of promiscuous beauties with a particular taste for American twenty-somethings. In true horror style, it's too good to be true, and this is when the dream quickly deteriorates into a nightmare. Oli goes missing, supposedly with a Japanese girl, as does Josh soon after. Anxious to discover what happened to his friends, Paxton unearths some intensely dark secrets about the hostel he so willingly entered, and now desperately struggles to escape from.

What perhaps makes Hostel all the more shocking and intriguing is that it is actually loosely based on a true story, the idea behind the film coming from the discovery of a Thai Internet business through which, for $10,000, you could have somebody assassinated. Roth, with the co-production of friend Quentin Tarantino, has moved the tale to Eastern Europe, with lascivious ladies intent on seducing and drugging unwitting tourists that can be fed into the machinery of recreational death.

If you're one for graphic violence this is one for you (chainsaws, pliers and blowtorches); Roth made use of over 150 million gallons of blood in the making of this film, nearly three times the amount used on his first film, Cabin Fever. There have even been numerous reports of audience members fainting at preview screenings, making this a must see for those with the stomach for some gruesome and bloodthirsty fun.

Laura Sparshot