8 Horror Movies You Won’t Watch Once You Know The Truth

5. Hostel

hostel death scene
Screen Gems

It might not completely put you off watching Eli Roth's Hostel - for the film itself, whilst wince-inducing, is actually pretty good - but the scary truth of Hostel is that the sort of sh*t you see in the movie really does go on in real life.

The concept for 2006's Hostel came to Roth after he'd discovered "murder vacations" online. Yes, very real people pay very real money to commit very real murder. As to how Roth ended up on a murder vacation website in the first place, who knows.

Being a torch bearer of what would become known as torture porn, the acts seen in Hostel certainly caused quite the ruckus amongst critics and fans, with many turned off by the sheer violence depicted in that '06 effort. Likewise, Slovakia and the Czech Republic launched scathing attacks on director Eli Roth for the negative vision the movie gave of these countries.

Still, that didn't stop Hostel being followed by two sequels, as the overarching narrative dived deeper on the Elite Hunting Club organisation at the centre of the franchise - an organisation that has some chillingly similar real world counterparts.

While this won't necessarily stop you watching the Hostel franchise again, it certainly puts an eerie new slant on any such rewatches when you know that what you're seeing play out could very well be happening elsewhere across the globe.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.