Whether or not this kind of horror movie is your cup of tea, you have to at least admire Roth for the daring and creativity with which he illustrates that concept.

Full Review | Dec 29, 2006

Hostel's merely unpleasant and more than a little dumb.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Nov 27, 2006

The first act's filler, otherwise it's a squirmer. Bring a bucket.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 2, 2006

Sadly, as with [director Eli] Roth's promising but flawed debut feature, its central conceit is more compelling than what ended up on screen.

| Jun 24, 2006

Beyond its 'How far can I go?' attitude to violence, Hostel has no reason to exist.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 21, 2006

There's a feeling of not quite hitting the mark here.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 15, 2006

All this in a 94-minute movie that takes 45 minutes getting started!

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 14, 2006

Although I spent much of the second half staring into my lap while listening to a cacophony of screams and shop tools, I processed enough of the first to appreciate Roth's sinister evocation of a Slovakian provincial town.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 13, 2006

Is there a point? No. Will you like it? Perhaps, but if you do... you should see someone about that.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 12, 2006

Wants to be preeminent shock cinema, but doesn't have the [courage] to fully follow through on its promise of unbridled carnage.

| Original Score: C | Jan 11, 2006

If last year was the beginning of the end for horror films, Roth shows there is still life - life in death - in the old girl yet.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 11, 2006

The film is too casually misanthropic and enamored of its expulsive prosthetic virtuosity to be politically relevant, and it's not clear what response -- shame? outrage? titillation? -- Roth is after.

| Jan 10, 2006

The tone is too schizophrenic for the movie to be great, but writer/director Eli Roth is showing serious potential.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 9, 2006

Occasionally, the film even cuts beneath the skin (thematically), but don't expect enough political subtext to distract genre fans or to convince the uninitiated of its merits

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 6, 2006

Roth doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. Piling the gore on without benefit of artful tension, the film ends up approaching parody.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 6, 2006

Hostel is a screaming good time, marred only by a lazy ending.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 6, 2006

The thing is just a clunky and tasteless and dumb scare picture, isn't it? Clunky, yes. Tasteless, for sure. But not so dumb I fear.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 6, 2006

[The film] willfully takes us someplace cruel -- and deeply unfunny. Just because that's Roth's intention doesn't mean his movie is any good.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 6, 2006

Even after an outré punch line is revealed, the film is neither shocking nor adequately terrifying.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 6, 2006

Eli Roth turns to modern-day Asian fright filmmakers as inspiration for his latest blood-soaked effort while demonstrating an intriguing, original voice of his own.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2006