Hostel (Unrated Director's Cut)

31 Days of Horror

I was not looking forward to Hostel.  Judas Pato claimed that it was pretty hilarious --- and I almost always agree with Judas --- but my horror movie guru, Danny O'D, pointed out that this was a movie about torture, which I share John McCain's attitude toward: it's a no-no.  Ugh.  But I'm pretty open to watching whatever someone suggests, so I chose to finally watch Eli Roth's Hostel.  I liked Roth's Cabin Fever, but this...?  This feels like something that is just outside my comfort zone.  Will that be a good thing or not?

Hostel begins with a few stupid Americans, Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson), and their randomly picked-up Icelandic buddy, Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), partying in Europe.  They like to party, Josh has no game with the ladies, and Oli wants to stick his penis in anything that moves.

Yes, even them, with their Eli Roth-nipples

The guys, being stupid Americans (and Icelanders), come back to their hostel after curfew.  Thankfully, a cool guy, who totally smokes pot and has a weird mole on his lip, lets them into his apartment.  There, he tells them that sure, Eurpose is okay for sluts, but Eastern Europe -- Slovakia, in particular --- will have them up to their necks in pussy in no time.  Failing to take the time to realize that "up to their necks" could be face-first or feet-first (let alone the desirability of such a state), the boys head to Slovakia.

"We do not fear vaginal asphyxiation"

On the train, they meet an unnamed businessman (Jan Vlasák) who is creepy as you can get, while still eating salad.  Nothing happens on the train, though.  Once they arrive in the Slovakian hostel, they are told that they are going to have to share a room with other people, which is totally lame.  Until those "other people" are total slut babes, that is.

If this was CSI, we would hear Roger Daltrey screaming "YEAAAAHHH!!!"

After a night of booze and sex with their roommates, Paxton and Josh awake to find Oli missing.  Well, maybe he walked his one night stand home, and he'll be back in time for breakfast.  Or lunch.  Or dinner?  That's weird.  Oli's a horn-dog, but he also loves to send text messages with photos of him boning random chicks, so it's especially odd for him to be absent AND silent via text.  You might think that a missing friend would ruin the party for Pax and Josh, but that's not the case; Paxton rationalizes that they will be leaving tomorrow (for Spain) anyway, so they can either be bored or have sex with beautiful sluts.  Emotional angst takes a backseat as the boys try to consummate that thesis.  There's just one problem...the boys seem to be getting drugged.  Pax accidentally gets trapped in an alley and passes out, but when he wakes up, Josh is also missing.  There's something sinister at work here, and Paxton is determined to get to the bottom of it.  That's a choice he's definitely going to regret.  Why?  Um...in a hyphenated word, torture-porn.

If this looks too "edgy" for you, then it is

The acting in Hostel is surprisingly decent.  There are no good actors in this film, but Jay Hernandez was as good as I've seen him here.  Granted, he's usually pretty mediocre/awful, but even his limited acting ability didn't get in the way of his character's believable reactions and motivations.  Derek Richardson was fine as the bitchy, conservative member of the troupe, but that also made him fairly unlikable.  Eythor Gudjonsson, though, was the saving grace of the main cast.  Oli was awesome.  In a film filled with profanity and lewd remarks, Oli stood out, thanks to the joy and unique nature of his work.  Jan Vlasák was suitably creepy in a small, but important, role.  It could have been a more substantial part, but I blame that moer on the script than on Vlasák. 

"I'm the one paying them!" could have been epic with a better script

Barbara Nedeljakova and Jana Kaderabkova were absolutely perfect as the bait for this trap; both girls were sultry and sexy when they needed to be, but sinister and strung-out when they were outside their assigned playtime.  There are only two other (substantially supporting) roles worth mentioning in Hostel.  The first is the absolutely random appearance of Japanese director, Takashi Miike, who plays a member of the Elite Hunting group; this cameo is obviously a show respect for Miike's awesome Japanese horror movies, but I wish he had something more substantial to contribute in his few lines.  On the bright side, the special features interview with Miike was occasionally interesting, in a philosophical way.  The final noteworthy member of this cast is Rick Hoffman, who excelled at being a hateful stereotype of American business aggression; I think I liked Hoffman's performance, but he does such a good job of being unsympathetic that I'm not sure whether to appreciate or hate him.

"Hey, dick, I'm a little preoccupied here"

Hostel is only the second film directed by Eli Roth, but it shows a surprising amount of confidence on the part of the director/writer.  One thing at a time, though.   Roth's direction shows a talent for building suspense; the torture scenes bordered on masterful, with regard to suspense.  The overall pacing of the film is a little uneven, and it would have been better if that sense of suspense or dread was carried through more of the movie, but this is a torture/horror movie --- let's be honest, we're lucky to get anything this competent.  Roth's best moments lie in particular scenes; he does a fantastic job making uncomfortable moments feel absolutely excruciating.  That doesn't translate into the movie as a whole, which has an almost comedic tone at times, but those moments are what sticks out most in the memory.

In other words, you recall the torture more than the boobs

Roth's writing is, at times, a strong point in Hostel, but not so later.  If you like profane penis references, then Hostel has the script for you.  Personally, I don't care about dick jokes one way or the other, but I prefer it when they are legitimately funny, instead of just foul-mouthed.  Hostel doesn't have a lot of clever lines in it, but it is jam-packed with semi-comedic rudeness, disguised as the-kids-really-talk-like-this.  While that may be true, I would have hoped for funnier dialogue.  The script feels a little forced, like it's trying too hard to be edgy.  As for the plot as a whole, I think Roth missed the mark with the final act of the film.  I don't buy Paxton as a savior, even with his drowning story, and I definitely don't buy him as a ruthless kidnapper/probable killer.

[To be fair, that was my reaction to the Unrated Director's Cut, which has a different ending than the Theatrical and Unrated editions.  After seeing the other ending, I stand by my statement.]

Hostel is a movie about torture, so how violent is it?  Not as bad as you would think.  The first half of the movie is almost devoid of violence and gore, so it really isn't until Josh gets kidnapped that the viewer sees anything gross.  Even then, the violence is not nearly as unbearable as I had imagined it to be.  Of course, "not as unbearable" does not mean that this is a gore-free film.  The worst moments are probably when Josh has his Achilles' tendons slashed and when the Japanese girl gets her face torched.

I don't want to look for it, but I'm sure there is a Japanese fetish porn site that loves this picture

Well, okay, the dangling eye was obviously a makeup job, but the puss that oozed out of her wound was disgusting.  There just wasn't as much torture as I was expecting, I guess.  While a lot of people die in the film, most of them get their just desserts in action-ish sequences, where they are not helpless victims.  There is far more implied violence than there is actual onscreen violence; that doesn't mean this is a film that is violence-free, it just has a lot of dead bodies in the background of the main action.

Thankfully, the hunchback body-part-retriever doesn't deliver puns.  In English, anyway.

Eli Roth is famous for supporting both extreme violence and nudity in his movies, and Hostel is no exception.  If you are a fan of female nudity, there are over a dozen breasts pairs to ogle.  Are they gratuitous?  Mostly, yes.  However, they are gleefully gratuitous, which somehow makes it seem less sleazy, although I'm not sure I can explain why. 

What's the verdict on Hostel, then?  I fully expected that I would cringe my way through this movie, but I found it surprisingly watchable.  There are some elements in this film that I loved --- the fact that there were no subtitles added to the sense of isolation, the girls did a good job, and there was enough humor to offset the uncomfortable moments --- but there were just as many that I disliked --- the inconsistent tone, the "edgy" dialogue, the action movie final act.  If I could change only one thing in this movie, I would have had more suspense, even if that meant longer torture scenes.  The fact that the most memorable scenes are so short, and yet have such a central importance to the plot makes this an uneven story, at best.  Given the actors Roth was working with, I think this movie turned out surprisingly good for what it is.  "What it is," though, is a couple of graphic scenes wrapped in another hour-plus of stupid character syndrome.

Audition

When spending an entire month reviewing horror movies, you've got to revisit some of the classics, right?  I didn't watch Audition (or, Ôdishon in its native Japanese) when it first came out.  Once I had been exposed to the true awesomeness of Asian horror, though, I tracked it down --- and it left an impression on me.  There are not a whole lot of movies that make me physically cringe when recalling them, but Audition is certainly one.  Over the years, it has built up a solid reputation, making some best-of-the-decade horror lists and it was prominently listed among Bravo's scariest films countdown (that link is totally worth checking out, by the way), but I've never gone back to it.  Until now.  Wish me luck.

By the way, am I the only one who fins it hilarious that the Japanese word for "Audition" is "Ôdishon"?  It's spelled and pronounced the same way Jerry Lewis would have said it while doing a really offensive Japanese impression, back in the 1960s.  Is it racist to laugh at something because you realize it's racist?  I hope not.

Audition begins with Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) playing the part of a hard-working widower.  He spends time with his teenage son, Shigehiko(Tetsu Sawaki), and they clearly care about each other, but...well, they're dudes, and dudes don't talk touchy-feely stuff.  Especially in Japan's emotionally conservative culture.  Still, they're as affectionate as they can be, although it often takes the form of awkwardness.

"Thanks Dad, I had hoped you would say something creepy tonight"

One day, Shigehiko straight up tells his father to find a girlfriend.  Apparently, all it took for Shigeharu to rejoin the dating pool was for his son to sign his permission slip.  But Shigeharu is not a young man anymore.  How is he supposed to find the right woman?  Bar hopping?  No way.  Shigeharu's work buddy has a bright idea, though.  Since they are in the entertainment business, they will find a pitch for a TV show and set up a casting audition for the lead part.  That way, they can have the ladies come to them, instead of the other way around.

"We're looking for women who like having their aspirations toyed with"

During the audition process, Shigeharu finds himself smitten with the very demure Asami (Eihi Shiina).  He asks her out, and they start dating.  The more he gets to know about her, the more he likes her.  And while Asami does seem very sweet, she also seems a little...off.  It's nothing concrete, but Shigeharu's friend notices it and tries to learn more about her.  No dice.  None of her references can be contacted.  None of them.  He can't even find any official record of her.  Well, that's probably not that big of a deal.  After all, it's not like she is obsessively focused on Shigeharu and spends her entire day doing literally nothing until he calls.

Even without the mystery sack, this shot creeps me out

Shigeharu continues his relationship with Asami until she abruptly vanishes.  Desperate to find his new love, Shigeharu starts doing his own investigation into her past.  And let's just say that what he finds, disturbing as it is, is nothing compared to what she has in store for him.

The store she shops at is Crazy Mart, and she cleaned them out

Audition is fairly unique among modern horror movies because it takes its time.  It's not just that the movie has a slow pace, either (although it does).  The entire movie builds up to the last fifteen minutes.  Up until that point, Audition feels more like a romance than a horror film.  If it wasn't for the single scene of Asami waiting for the phone to ring (and the reaction of the monster in her burlap bag), the last act would be a complete shock.  But with that single, short, bizarre scene, Audition whets your appetite and the suspense starts to build.  Most of the time, when a movie builds the suspense for over an hour, the payoff is a little underwhelming.  Not when the movie is a horror film from director Takashi Miike, though.  Miike is known for his absolutely ludicrous movies, and he doesn't skimp out with Audition.

To give you an idea of the horror, tongue injections are "the good old days" in Audition

This is the best storytelling effort from Miike that I have seen (so far).  As absolutely bizarre as Miike can get with his films, he did a pretty good job of constructing a convincing love story in the first hour of Audition.  All the characters are pretty likable and, in a typical romance movie, could have eventually been described as "precious."  But then Miike decides to bring the pain.  It's not what is done that is so horrifying --- although it absolutely is scary --- it is that Miike was able to get such a gleeful performance from Eihi Shiina while she was doing it.

This is her reaction to dismemberment

I've never thought of Takashi Miike as a director who gets good performances from his actors, but Shiina in those last fifteen minutes...?  Absolutely terrifying.

Audition hits a little close to home for me, because one of my greatest fears is that I will somehow upset a crazy woman.  I know it's an irrational fear, because I'm a nice guy and I've married a woman who probably wouldn't torture me to death, but movies about batshit-crazy, take-no-prisoners, nothing-left-to-lose ladies freak me the hell out.  Just thinking about the end of this movie makes me want to buy something nice for my wife, just to extend my miserable existence a few more days.

I probably won't buy her needles, though.  Just in case.

If you do not want to see a movie with freakishly believable torture in it, you might want to skip Audition.  The scenes are deceptively gory; you might flinch or close your eyes in those last few scenes, but there is actually very little gore in this film.  There is a high WTF quotient, though.

Case in point

Even with the disorienting nature of the randomly weird scenes, the torture can be hard to stomach.  It has nothing to do with the gore or the sound effects (although those are pretty great).  It has everything to do with Eihi Shiina's performance.  On paper, it might seem hilarious that the Japanese word for "deeper" sounds an awful lot like "kitty," but when Shiina is saying that with a smile, look out.  Rarely have I seen such an abrupt, yet believable, turnaround in a character, but she was terrific.  She was shy and humble at first, but there was just enough creepy desperation for her to feel inexplicably wrong; when she finally reveals her true colors, it is a surprise, but only in the degree of crazy she turns out to be.

First clue: she ordered a glass of Homicidal Psycho Bitch on draft

As much as I legitimately love/hate the payoff to all the buildup in this film, there are some issues with Audition.   The biggest is probably the abrupt way it ends; it's believable, but I was hoping for something to top the craziness that is the last fifteen minutes of the movie.  The other is the symbolic dream sequence that occurs just before the torture.  While I like its symbolism, it is fairly inconsistent by Western standards.  If it had stuck to revelations and insights into the characters, it would be fine.  However, it lets Shigeharu discover some clues that he could never have uncovered outside of the dream world, and I thought that cheapened the payoff.  Thankfully, the revelations were really, truly weird, disgusting, and totally worth fitting into the film however they could, but there had to be a better way to do it.  Japan seems to have a greater lenience for unexplained psychic phenomenon in their horror films, but that just felt out of place.

Kind of like asking "Do you like torture?" in an interview --- out of place, but probably worthwhile

One thing about Audition that surprised me during this, my second viewing: Shigeharu's friend never comes up with a convincing argument against Asami.  All he has are vague misgivings.  Really?  It takes Shigeharu just a day to track down some disturbing information on her, but his friend, who has allegedly spent weeks digging, finds nothing?  Hell, all he had to do was point out she was a dancer.  It is a known fact that all dancers fall on the sliding scale of scary-craziness; the scale goes from 1 to 10, with Staying Alive a 1, Black Swan a 5, and Audition a 7.  You don't want to know what a 10 looks like (hint: killer hammertoe).

As good as I think Audition is --- there are few movies that can build up to a single scene so effectively --- I can't say that it is a particularly fun movie to watch.  Of course, that's not the intent, I know.  But...I really mean it.  This movie makes me uncomfortable.  Part of it is the crazy lady core, and part of it is the torture, but I think it also has to do with the first hour.  I love how effective Miike is at building the tension, but he doesn't really give the audience a good picture of these characters in the first hour.  Shigeharu and his son are too good to be true, and we learn that in the dream sequence (for Shigeharu, anyway).  I think keeping Asami a mystery is a good choice, but making Shigeharu a genuinely compelling character instead of a fairly generic nice guy would have pushed Audition from "effective" to "fantastic."

13 Assassins

I haven't watched all that many films featuring samurai in them, but most of them have been Akira Kurosawa movies (with the exception of the very cool Sword of Doom).  Obviously, that's not a bad thing by any means, but when Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins came to America last year, I was excited.  I've seen five of his films so far (for the record, the Dead or Alive trilogy, Audition, and Sukiyaki Western Django), and his talent for ridiculous violence and sheer "Did I miss something in translation" weirdness would seem to lend itself well to the violence of a samurai movie.  Imagine my surprise when I sat down to watch 13 Assassins and found it to have a comprehensible narrative, free of excessive gore.  I guess that makes this the acid test for Miike --- can he make an entertaining movie without being ridiculously extreme?

You don't count flaming, explosive bulls as extreme, right?

13 Assassins starts out with a scene of utter manliness.  A man sits down and commits seppuku (AKA harakiri) all by his lonesome.  That might not sound especially bad-ass, but the basic act has a samurai giving himself a mortal wound by slicing his belly open --- since this was an honorable death, an attendant would cut off the samurai's head before he could start screaming "Oww...!  What the hell was I thinking?!?" and thus maintain his dignity (NOTE: that may or may not be a highly inaccurate summary of seppuku).  So a dude killing himself without the benefit of a sympathetic beheading is pretty tough.  Why did this guy do such a thing?  Out of protest.  You see, Lord Matsudaira Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki) is the son of the last Shogun and the brother of the current one; nepotism being what it is, Naritsugu has a position of great power and is essentially untouchable.  He takes advantage of that freedom to rape, murder, and butcher people left and right, usually out of boredom.  Seppuku guy was protesting the imminent promotion of Naritsugu to the second-most powerful position in Japan.

The new position?  Douche Lord

Nobody wants to see this spawn of Satan in a higher seat of power, but the Shogun will not admit that his future heir lacks quality.  How can Naritsugu be handled in a way that doesn't throw off the delicate political balance of Japan?  If you answered "hire a guy to kill the jerk," you're way off.

The correct answer is "hire thirteen guys"

So, the fuse has been lit.  The leader of the assassin samurais, Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho), plans to attack Naritsugu and his entourage as the evil lord makes a long trip.  His plans are complicated by Naritsugu's head samurai figuring out that Shinzaemon plans to kill the lord; the target is now traveling with 200 samurai instead of 70, and they are all on guard.  Shinzaemon's response is to take over a town that Naritsugu needs to pass through and declaring "We will transform [this town] into a town of death!"  And then the last forty minutes is filled with samurai death and awesomeness.

Good guys wear black

I will be blunt.  13 Assassins surprised me.  I was expecting over-the-top violence, blood mist spraying in the air and a healthy dose of severed limbs.  That doesn't really happen.  Sure, there is some violence and a good amount of fake blood, but I was expecting to flinch occasionally or maybe rewind a particular scene to take in the ridiculousness one more time.  Instead, 13 Assassins tells a very macho tale of honor and doing the greater good, without exploiting the shocking gore that super-sharp swords can create.

That's not to say that 13 Assassins skimps on the action.  The sword fights are not amazing, but they are definitely plentiful.

Above: Shinzaemon vs. three extras, Part XVIII

What I liked most about this movie was not the quality of the violence or even the quantity.  I loved the attitude of it.  Honor and responsibility, and the personal interpretation of the two play large parts in this story.  In a lot of ways, this film clearly indebted to Seven Samurai, and yet it both acknowledges the futility of samurai life in the 19th century and also makes it seem like the manliest lifestyle imaginable; most films indebted to Kurosawa take the simplest message possible and run with it, so it was nice to see some complexity here.  Complex or not, this is definitely one of the best guy movies I have seen in a long time.  It's like somebody watched Conan the Barbarian and said "This would be good, if only someone would give Arnold some more testosterone."  Here are some examples of this movie's awesomely macho moments:

• A master swordsman stands at the end of an alley with his apprentice behind him.  Thirty or forty bad guys enter the alley and the master asks his apprentice to "Kill the ones that get past me" with the nonchalance of someone carrying laundry asking you to pick up any socks that fall on the floor.

Dual wielding?  Skyrim is awesome!

• After the assassins make their initial attack, Shinzaemon announces "Only 130 left!"

• 

  'Nuff said

Director Takashi Miike took a premise that could have easily fitted his established talents of crafting crazy-violent, weird-ass movies and played it straight for a change.  The results are far more interesting than I would have imagined; he shot a beautiful movie with an engaging story that made sense.  Except for that dude from the woods, who I assume was supposed to be a Japanese godling or an elf or a fairy or something like that; he's not the important part of the movie, so having just one bit that crinkled my brow was a huge step up for Miike in the storytelling department.  Oh, and for the record, yes, I realize how odd it is to think of 13 Assassins as a relatively nonviolent film, considering that 200+ samurai characters die in the movie; the difference between this movie's violence and other Miike movies is similar to the difference between war movie violence and horror movie kills.

The acting was pretty good all around, but there are a lot of characters and very few have time to shine.  I thought Kôji Yakusho was pretty good as the leader of the assassins.  I liked the friendly and deadly rivalry between his character and Masachika Ichimura's role as lead protector of Lord Naritsugu.  Both actors internalized a lot of their emotions and gave some layered performances.

Samurai chess is serious

I also enjoyed Gorô Inagaki's turn as the emotionally numb Lord Naritsugu.  He was suitably evil for most of the film, but his reaction to seeing a large-scale slaughter first-hand was chilling.  And his last scene was extremely gratifying; it was exactly what I hoped it would be.

It's always nice to stumble across a movie that is willing to surprise you, and that is what I got from 13 Assassins.   I appreciated the fighting, enjoyed the story, and was pumped up by the unrelentingly bad-ass characters.  While I do enjoy foreign films, I have had difficulty making sense of foreign action films in the past, but this story was easily understood.  If Miike had indulged his graphic sensibilities a little more and shown some super-cool deaths, this would move up in my book from "good" to "awesome."  Still, if you're looking for a movie with brass balls and are tired of the homo-eroticism of 300, this is a nice pick.