20 'Controversial' Movies Everyone Completely Over-Reacted To
6. Hostel
The Film:
Eli Roth's notorious horror film, in which 3 young men run into an extremely nasty organization in Eastern Europe.
The Controversy:
Slovakians didn't like the offensive portrayal of their country, which is fair enough to be honest. Its gory violence and torture scenes caused plenty of commentary and criticism. Looking on the bright side this probably helped it become such a big commercial success.
Why It Was Wrong:
Hostel is not a good movie. It spends so much time with 3 obnoxious guys travelling around and objectifying women that when it gets to the violent parts it's almost a relief. It being described as a Torture Porn movie (One of the first) is appropriate since it's an hour of sex followed by 40 minutes of torture.
There's not much to this sometimes intense but largely flat and scare-free horror flick. Therefore, why make such a fuss about something that wasn't good in the first place?
Hostel is a certain type of horror film. Like Saw, it uses violence to scare the audience in the same sense that other horror films use jump scares. It's not aimed at everyone and if people find it unpleasant, there's no need to watch it.
The film's violence isn't even as bad as people say it is. It is gruesome, but it's not that bad and the torture scenes aren't that long. The second Hostel film is far more violent yet for some reason everyone focused their attention on the first one.