The wet, brutal torture scenes and cheap sociological jabs at Europeans’ hostile view of ugly American bluster are dutifully nasty. And the economic satire equating the world’s wonton wealth bracket grinding up into gristle the teeming throngs of upwardly mobile youth is… well, it’s a start. But only the first half hour of Hostel is actually terrifying. And that’s only because Eli Roth’s follow-up to Cabin Fever (a feverishly schizoid flick, almost necessitating a new genre classification — “neo-screwball splatterpunk,” or something) spends way more time than you’d think necessary to confirm Roth’s heterosexuality. To quote executive producer Quentin Tarantino’s words from another self-fulfilling gutterbrow wannabe: “This is a pussy blow out! We got white pussy, black pussy, Spanish pussy, yellow pussy, hot pussy, cold pussy… Naugahyde pussy… If we don’t have it, you don’t want it!” Hostel’s three protagonists — a pair of American students and an Icelandic lothario traipsing across Europe from one hothouse hostel to the next — are in perpetual pursuit of the Brandenburg fleshgates. The stench of it is so pervasive that it’s actually surprising that Roth aligns himself with the horny trio. (He’s shown in a cutaway at an Amsterdam hash bar, grinning his oversized frat smirk, while our lovable sexual conquistadors conspire to get their pasty, newly dumped sissy friend some poon — not so much to help him get over his old girlfriend, but rather to set their minds at ease that they’re not sharing lofts with a fag.) What’s with this homo panic, dude? Was is the fact that some read AIDS iconography in your last film’s subtext? Or could it be that the same Rider Strong-starring film was campy as Liberace clutching a lace hanky to his mouth while fighting consumption? Or maybe you’re just trying to pretend that you don’t dig turning your copious photo ops into your own bloody fashion spreads more than anyone else in Chelsea on Halloween night? (Provided that Cabin Fever, and not Hostel, sets the tone for the rest of his career, Roth will undoubtedly go down as the first GQ Master of Horror.) But maybe I have this movie completely backwards? Is Jay Hernandez and Company’s sex-fiendish, Uncle Sam-approved pursuit of Euro girls meant to be looked at from askance, considering that their co-ed hostel honeys are leading them directly to the maw of Iron Curtain hell? Even if it is (and, judging from what appears to be a Maniac homage on the film’s crotch-centric German one-sheet, it’s not), that only adds insult to the injury when Hernandez goes all vigilante in the final reel. Fine, Eli, you’re not gay. Congratulations. Now can you go back to being a cool, campy straight horror auteur, like Sam Raimi?

• Movie Reviews

Posted by Eric on Thursday, January 19th, 2006 at 6:51 pm.