Quote:
Originally posted by Roderick Usher
Really liked Hostel - the idea of someone paying more to torture an American over any other nationality makes this the most subversive film to come out of Hollywood in a while. A real indictment of the "ugly American."
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I completly agree; It's a fantastic idea. Too bad it was so poorly executed.
Both of these films are basically different sides of the same coin. Both spent a good portion of the film on character development. Both tried to show a darker side of human nature, without straying very far from the relm of the "possible".
The major difference, to me at least, is that Wolf Creek could actually pull it off.
There are a few minor spoilers here and there through this post, but nothing major.
Hostel's character development was entirely pointless. It failed to make the characters believable in the least (plus dumber than your average slasher fodder), and the incredibly flat acting really didnt help that fact. Plus, they managed to fill the movie with more tits than most softcore porn. By the time we got to the "payoff", I had lost all interest in the film. A potentially great concept, dragged through the mud. It had a few things going for it (The scene where Paxon is escaping and has a conversation with one of the toturers was genius), but not enough.
Wolf Creek on the other hand created some very realistic and sympathetic characters. The actors made them believable, likeable, and above all
real, where Hostel totally missed the mark. By the time the shit started to fly, you actually liked these people to some extent. You even had started to like the killer, which made it all the more eerie. It did have flaws of course (Borrowed ALOT from Texas Chainsaw), but overall was MUCH better than Hostel.
See? I told you I'd expand on what I said.