Hostel and Hoodwinked
HOSTEL
Possible Spoilers
Ok, so THIS is how you make a horror movie! You take some kids, put them in a bad situation, show some nekkid womenses and get on with the gore!!
Ah, but this is ALSO how you do something just a little… different with the genre. Much like Final Destination, the “villain” is more a concept than an actual person. Sure, you have the people doing the killing but the “heroes” of the piece can’t tell who the bad guys even ARE. They are ordinary people who just have enough money to be able to buy people to torture. No hockey masks, knife fingers, human skin masks or Shatner heads in sight! Just some seriously twisted people who have WAY too much money and WAY too much free time. The film also does a serious No-No that anyone who watched the classics back in the 70’s and 80’s will know… you don’t get rid of the GOOD KID. Remember watching those old movies where you could easily pick who would survive? They were the ones who DIDN’T do the drugs or the sex (or if they did, felt bad about it) and were the goody two-shoes of the bunch. You don’t kill the goody two-shoes. You hurt them and chase them and get them all bloody, definitely, but you don’t KILL them.
Hostel doesn’t care about such things. Such rules. You’re even allowed to laugh AT the bad guys in it and are encouraged to root for their destruction. You WANT the kids to get the upper hand and kill the bad guys. The whole last twenty minutes of the flick are just some of the most uproarious fun you will have in almost ANY movie and it’s all about giving the film a “happy ending”.
Oh, wait… I forgot to really talk about the movie. Anyone remember Euro Trip? The one about the kids going to Europe to find the one guy’s net-girlfriend? They go to the one country where their last bit of money ends up being a HUGE amount due to the exchange rate? That SAME country is where Hostel takes place. But whereas in Eurotrip where the moral was “When in Amsterdam, go elsewhere to avoid non-pot filled brownies, bad sex and dull hostels”, the moral of Hostel is “When in Amsterdam, STAY THE HELL IN AMSTERDAM!!” The movie starts out with thirty minutes of sex and drugs and just a little hint of the violence to come. The second half hour has less nudity but a bit more implied violence and some shots of the AFTER effects of it. (You see the swing and all but not when the object hits skin but what marks are left afterwards, that sort of thing.) The last bit is all about the gore and the violence and the chase. I enjoyed it. My friend Jon was cheering and laughing and REALLY enjoying himself. My friend Dave was breaking into cold sweats trying not to throw up. But let’s just say Dave REALLY liked the first half hour a LOT.
So there you go… if you don’t like horror movies, don’t go. If you DO like them and are tired of this PG 13 crap we’ve been having WAY too much of lately, go see Hostel.
HOODWINKED
First off… this is NOT Shrek 2 ½. This is in the same vein with the poking fun at fairy tales and all but the talent behind isn’t as good. Not the writing or acting, that’s all fine. It’s the ANIMATION that truly is crap. Stuff on Saturday mornings is better than this. Jimmy Neutron had better animation. Which is a shame cause I do believe it had better CG, this thing could be HUGE.
It’s the “true” story of what happened to Lil Red Riding hood. Sort of. It’s ok for kids but they took that whole bit of putting in stuff for the parents to keep them from getting bored a bit too far. You have parodies of Fletch (down to the clothes he wore and the theme), XXX (down to the ski chase), Commercialism and commercials, ET, Disney tunes/movies, COPS and crime dramas and more. Most of these won’t really strike home for the “target audience” of lil kids. And I think half the parents in my audience didn’t realize they WERE making fun of those things at first. They didn’t know how to react but slowly got into the joke of it all. Like I said, I think if the animation was better… people would’ve been right THERE with the movie the whole time. Shame really. But it’s a fun flick… take the kids… or don’t. You’ll probably still enjoy the STORY.
Possible Spoilers
Ok, so THIS is how you make a horror movie! You take some kids, put them in a bad situation, show some nekkid womenses and get on with the gore!!
Ah, but this is ALSO how you do something just a little… different with the genre. Much like Final Destination, the “villain” is more a concept than an actual person. Sure, you have the people doing the killing but the “heroes” of the piece can’t tell who the bad guys even ARE. They are ordinary people who just have enough money to be able to buy people to torture. No hockey masks, knife fingers, human skin masks or Shatner heads in sight! Just some seriously twisted people who have WAY too much money and WAY too much free time. The film also does a serious No-No that anyone who watched the classics back in the 70’s and 80’s will know… you don’t get rid of the GOOD KID. Remember watching those old movies where you could easily pick who would survive? They were the ones who DIDN’T do the drugs or the sex (or if they did, felt bad about it) and were the goody two-shoes of the bunch. You don’t kill the goody two-shoes. You hurt them and chase them and get them all bloody, definitely, but you don’t KILL them.
Hostel doesn’t care about such things. Such rules. You’re even allowed to laugh AT the bad guys in it and are encouraged to root for their destruction. You WANT the kids to get the upper hand and kill the bad guys. The whole last twenty minutes of the flick are just some of the most uproarious fun you will have in almost ANY movie and it’s all about giving the film a “happy ending”.
Oh, wait… I forgot to really talk about the movie. Anyone remember Euro Trip? The one about the kids going to Europe to find the one guy’s net-girlfriend? They go to the one country where their last bit of money ends up being a HUGE amount due to the exchange rate? That SAME country is where Hostel takes place. But whereas in Eurotrip where the moral was “When in Amsterdam, go elsewhere to avoid non-pot filled brownies, bad sex and dull hostels”, the moral of Hostel is “When in Amsterdam, STAY THE HELL IN AMSTERDAM!!” The movie starts out with thirty minutes of sex and drugs and just a little hint of the violence to come. The second half hour has less nudity but a bit more implied violence and some shots of the AFTER effects of it. (You see the swing and all but not when the object hits skin but what marks are left afterwards, that sort of thing.) The last bit is all about the gore and the violence and the chase. I enjoyed it. My friend Jon was cheering and laughing and REALLY enjoying himself. My friend Dave was breaking into cold sweats trying not to throw up. But let’s just say Dave REALLY liked the first half hour a LOT.
So there you go… if you don’t like horror movies, don’t go. If you DO like them and are tired of this PG 13 crap we’ve been having WAY too much of lately, go see Hostel.
HOODWINKED
First off… this is NOT Shrek 2 ½. This is in the same vein with the poking fun at fairy tales and all but the talent behind isn’t as good. Not the writing or acting, that’s all fine. It’s the ANIMATION that truly is crap. Stuff on Saturday mornings is better than this. Jimmy Neutron had better animation. Which is a shame cause I do believe it had better CG, this thing could be HUGE.
It’s the “true” story of what happened to Lil Red Riding hood. Sort of. It’s ok for kids but they took that whole bit of putting in stuff for the parents to keep them from getting bored a bit too far. You have parodies of Fletch (down to the clothes he wore and the theme), XXX (down to the ski chase), Commercialism and commercials, ET, Disney tunes/movies, COPS and crime dramas and more. Most of these won’t really strike home for the “target audience” of lil kids. And I think half the parents in my audience didn’t realize they WERE making fun of those things at first. They didn’t know how to react but slowly got into the joke of it all. Like I said, I think if the animation was better… people would’ve been right THERE with the movie the whole time. Shame really. But it’s a fun flick… take the kids… or don’t. You’ll probably still enjoy the STORY.
posted by wmjwatson at 9:00 AM
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