Hostel (2005) follows two college students named Paxton and Josh backpacking Europe with their Icelandic friend Oli. On the way in Amsterdam, they meet a young man named Alexei who tells them about an inn that is not on the list in Slovakia where there are many beautiful women. The three friends decide to go there. But, as the boys discover, this place has more than just beautiful women. He has a deep, dark secret that will make you wish you were away.

What is at the root of most of the experiences in this movie are the forbidden pleasures. Two college students are lured into an unlisted dorm in Slovakia with the promise of beautiful women and subsequently sex. The girls who seduce them and the young man who takes them there do so with the promise of a significant cash reward. The rich who pay for the experience of torturing boys are there to carry out their deepest and darkest fantasies.

Yes saw (2004) introduced film audiences to what many American film critics called “pornographic torture,” Hostel expanded on the concept without restrictions. For those of my readers who don’t fully understand what torture porn is, it’s basically a movie that shows a lot of gore and gore for the sheer thrill of the viewer, quite similar to sex scenes. saw showed a lot of gore with a certain moral restraint of having the antagonist “Jigsaw” secretly hoping the victim would survive and become a better person for it. This movie, on the other hand, is about torture. It is about money and forbidden pleasures, as stated above. There is no moral leash for this movie.

My final summary of this movie is that it is not something you should be in the habit of seeing often. But it is a decent movie if viewed in moderation.

Cast: Jay Hernandez as Paxton, Derek Richardson as Josh, Eythor Gudjonsson as Oli, Barbara Nedeljakova as Natalya, Jan Vlasak as the Dutch businessman, and Jana Kaderabkova as Svetlana.