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Hostel (film)
Encyclopedia
Hostel is a 2005 horror film
written, produced and directed by Eli Roth
and starring Jay Hernandez
. Due to the graphic nature of this film, its showing has been restricted in certain countries. The sequel, Hostel: Part II, was released on June 8, 2007.
) and Josh (Derek Richardson), along with their friend Óli (Eyþór Guðjónsson
), are backpacking across Europe
. After a night of partying, they meet a Russian
man named Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy) who informs them about an undocumented hostel near Bratislava
filled with beautiful, desperate, American-loving women.
The three subsequently board a train on which they meet a peculiar Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasák), whose bizarre behavior puzzles the trio until he places his hand on Josh's knee, causing him to react badly. The three leave the train at a small Slovak
village, and check into the local hostel, finding themselves sharing a room with two beautiful single women, Natalya (Barbara Nedeljáková
) and Svetlana (Jana Kadeřábková), who invite them to the disco. At the disco, Josh is saved from a gang of impoverished children looking for money and bubblegum
by the peculiar businessman.
The next day, a young Japan
ese backpacker, Kana (Jennifer Lim
), approaches Paxton and Josh, who are searching for Óli, informing them that her friend, Yuki (Keiko Seiko), is strangely missing as well. An MMS
photo sent from Yuki's phone shows Yuki and Óli, with the word "Sayonara" beneath it. A while later, they spot a man wearing Óli's jacket. Not long after, Paxton and Josh receive a second MMS photo message from Óli's phone, in which their friend appears in a closeup face shot with the text "I go home". Then, the scene shifts to the source of the photo, revealing Óli's severed head sitting on a table. Paxton and Josh decide to leave Bratislava
with Kana the following day. Paxton later notices that the photo of Oli and Yuki has been faked. Although Josh is anxious to leave immediately, Paxton talks him into staying just one more night, so they can have sex with Natalya and Svetlana one more time. Josh reluctantly agrees. Later that night, while partying with Natalya and Svetlana, Paxton and Josh are slipped tranquilizers. Josh stumbles back to the hostel while Paxton passes out in the disco's storage room.
Josh wakes up handcuffed to a chair in a dungeon-like room. The businessman comes in and starts torturing him, telling him about his unfulfilled dream of being a surgeon
. After slicing Josh's Achilles tendons and seemingly allowing him to leave, the now unable to walk Josh is killed by the businessman.
Paxton returns to his room where two women invite him to a spa, eerily similar to Natalya and Svetlana. When the local police chief (Miroslav Táborský
) proves unhelpful, Paxton locates Natalya and Svetlana. He interrogates them on the whereabouts of Josh and the girls eventually agree to show them where he is.
Once Paxton enters the factory, he shockingly witnesses the businessman cutting open Josh's corpse. He is then ambushed by thugs and taken to a cell and learns that he was sold. He is restrained in a chair and joined minutes later by a German client, Johann (Petr Janiš). After cutting off two of Paxton's fingers, he unknowingly severs Paxton's restraints. Johann slips and cuts his leg off. Paxton gets out of the chair and shoots Johann. Paxton shoots the guard that comes in by pretending he's still in the chair. He escapes the cell and hides in the bottom of a cart. The man with the cart piled with dead parted bodies goes to the bottom floor of the building. In this floor he finds the stitched up corpse of Josh. He kills the cart pusher whose job is revealed to be the one that incinerates the bodies. He goes up and makes it to a dressing room. He meets another American who has also come here to join the Elite Hunting game. He asks Paxton questions on the experience believing that Paxton also paid. He discovers Kana being tortured by the American he met and frees her, killing the American. The two flee in a car, accidentally meeting Natalya, Svetlana and Alexei on a street. Paxton steps on the accelerator pedal to run them over. Svetlana dies instantly, while Natalya survives the hit by the Volga
, but she is then run over by the car chasing Paxton and Kana. Alexei also dies. With the help of the child gang, Paxton and Kana elude the guards and head to the train station. When Kana sees a reflection of her disfigured face, she jumps in front of an oncoming train, while Paxton gets on another train.
Aboard the train, Paxton hears the voice of the businessman. In Vienna
, he follows him to a public restroom and throws the Elite Hunting's card under his stall. When the businessman reaches to pick it up, Paxton cuts off two of his fingers, holds his head underwater and, when the businessman sees Paxton's reflection, slices his throat. Paxton then boards a train leaving Vienna.
, Slovakia
, actually not a single sequence was shot in Slovakia. The filming locations were at the Barrandov Studios
, Prague and in Český Krumlov
, Czech Republic
. In addition to the lower costs of filming in the Czech Republic, Barrandov has well-equipped sound stages, making it a popular choice for US productions set in Europe
. 95% of the film was shot on location
in and around Prague
, and the stage was only used for the main torture rooms.
, 59% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 98 reviews, with the sites consensus stating, "Featuring lots of guts and gore, Hostel is a wildly entertaining corpse-filled journey -- assuming one is entertained by corpses, guts, and gore, that is." On Metacritic
, the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 21 reviews.
EW
s film critic Owen Gleiberman
commended the film's creativity, saying "You may or may not believe that slavering redneck psychos, of the kind who leer through Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, can be found in the Southwest, but it's all too easy to envision this sort of depravity in the former Soviet bloc, the crack-up of which has produced a brutal marketplace of capitalistic fiendishness. The torture scenes in Hostel (snipped toes, sliced ankles, pulled eyeballs) are not, in essence, much different from the surgical terrors in the Saw films, only Roth, by presenting his characters as victims of the same world of flesh-for-fantasy they were grooving on in the first place, digs deep into the nightmare of a society ruled by the profit of illicit desire."
Guardian
film critic Peter Bradshaw
noted that Hostel was "actually silly, crass and queasy. And not in a good way". David Edelstein
of New York Magazine
was equally negative deriding director Roth with creating the horror sub-genre 'torture porn,' or 'gorno,' using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act. Jean-François Rauger, film critic for Le Monde
, a French newspaper, and programmer of the Cinémathèque Française
, listed Hostel as the best American film of 2006, calling it an example of modern consumerism
. Hostel won the 2006 Empire Award for Best Horror Film. The film's underlying social critique and its link to Marxist
and Nietzschean philosophy was recently debated by a panel at Rider University's 2010 Film Symposium by Dr. Barry Seldes, Dr. Robert Good, and James Morgart
.
, and also from the Czech Republic
. Slovak officials were disgusted by the film's portrayal of their country as an undeveloped, poor and uncultured land suffering from high criminality, war
and prostitution
, fearing it would "damage the good reputation of Slovakia" and make foreigners feel it was a dangerous place to be. The tourist board of Slovakia invited Roth on an all-expense paid trip to their country so he could see it is not made up of run down factories and kids who kill for bubble gum. Tomáš Galbavý, a Slovak Member of Parliament, commented: "I am offended by this film. I think that all Slovaks should feel offended."
Defending himself, Roth said the film was not meant to be offensive, arguing "Americans do not even know that this country exists. My film is not a geographical work but aims to show Americans' ignorance of the world around them." Roth has repeatedly argued that despite the many films in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, people still go to Texas.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
written, produced and directed by Eli Roth
Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Roth is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Award and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award...
and starring Jay Hernandez
Jay Hernandez
Javier Manuel "Jay" Hernandez, Jr. is an American actor.-Early life and career:Hernandez was born in Montebello, California, the son of Isis , a secretary and accountant, and Javier Hernandez, Sr., a mechanic. He has a younger sister, Amelia, and two older brothers, Michael and Gabriel. Hernandez...
. Due to the graphic nature of this film, its showing has been restricted in certain countries. The sequel, Hostel: Part II, was released on June 8, 2007.
Plot
College students Paxton (Jay HernandezJay Hernandez
Javier Manuel "Jay" Hernandez, Jr. is an American actor.-Early life and career:Hernandez was born in Montebello, California, the son of Isis , a secretary and accountant, and Javier Hernandez, Sr., a mechanic. He has a younger sister, Amelia, and two older brothers, Michael and Gabriel. Hernandez...
) and Josh (Derek Richardson), along with their friend Óli (Eyþór Guðjónsson
Eyþór Guðjónsson
Eyþór Guðjónsson , often anglicized as Eythor Gudjonsson, is an Icelandic actor. He stands 6'3" tall.He got his first big role in the 2005 horror movie Hostel, where he plays an Icelandic backpacker named Óli, famous for his catchphrase "King of the Swing", traveling through Europe with American...
), are backpacking across Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. After a night of partying, they meet a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
man named Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy) who informs them about an undocumented hostel near Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
filled with beautiful, desperate, American-loving women.
The three subsequently board a train on which they meet a peculiar Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasák), whose bizarre behavior puzzles the trio until he places his hand on Josh's knee, causing him to react badly. The three leave the train at a small Slovak
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
village, and check into the local hostel, finding themselves sharing a room with two beautiful single women, Natalya (Barbara Nedeljáková
Barbara Nedeljáková
Barbara Nedeljáková is a Slovak actress, best known for her role as Natalya in the 2005 horror film Hostel.-Filmography:-External links:*Barbara Nedeljakova's Official website...
) and Svetlana (Jana Kadeřábková), who invite them to the disco. At the disco, Josh is saved from a gang of impoverished children looking for money and bubblegum
Bubblegum
Bubblegum is a type of elastic chewing gum, designed to be blown out of the mouth as a bubble.-History:In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum,...
by the peculiar businessman.
The next day, a young Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese backpacker, Kana (Jennifer Lim
Jennifer Lim
Jennifer Lim is a British actress, who is perhaps best known for her appearance as Samantha in the first television show made especially for mobile phones, called When Evil Calls directed by Johannes Roberts....
), approaches Paxton and Josh, who are searching for Óli, informing them that her friend, Yuki (Keiko Seiko), is strangely missing as well. An MMS
Multimedia Messaging Service
Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up to 160 characters in length.The most popular use is to send photographs from...
photo sent from Yuki's phone shows Yuki and Óli, with the word "Sayonara" beneath it. A while later, they spot a man wearing Óli's jacket. Not long after, Paxton and Josh receive a second MMS photo message from Óli's phone, in which their friend appears in a closeup face shot with the text "I go home". Then, the scene shifts to the source of the photo, revealing Óli's severed head sitting on a table. Paxton and Josh decide to leave Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
with Kana the following day. Paxton later notices that the photo of Oli and Yuki has been faked. Although Josh is anxious to leave immediately, Paxton talks him into staying just one more night, so they can have sex with Natalya and Svetlana one more time. Josh reluctantly agrees. Later that night, while partying with Natalya and Svetlana, Paxton and Josh are slipped tranquilizers. Josh stumbles back to the hostel while Paxton passes out in the disco's storage room.
Josh wakes up handcuffed to a chair in a dungeon-like room. The businessman comes in and starts torturing him, telling him about his unfulfilled dream of being a surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
. After slicing Josh's Achilles tendons and seemingly allowing him to leave, the now unable to walk Josh is killed by the businessman.
Paxton returns to his room where two women invite him to a spa, eerily similar to Natalya and Svetlana. When the local police chief (Miroslav Táborský
Miroslav Táborský
Miroslav Táborský is a Czech actor who has appeared on Czech television series, as well as in American movies....
) proves unhelpful, Paxton locates Natalya and Svetlana. He interrogates them on the whereabouts of Josh and the girls eventually agree to show them where he is.
Once Paxton enters the factory, he shockingly witnesses the businessman cutting open Josh's corpse. He is then ambushed by thugs and taken to a cell and learns that he was sold. He is restrained in a chair and joined minutes later by a German client, Johann (Petr Janiš). After cutting off two of Paxton's fingers, he unknowingly severs Paxton's restraints. Johann slips and cuts his leg off. Paxton gets out of the chair and shoots Johann. Paxton shoots the guard that comes in by pretending he's still in the chair. He escapes the cell and hides in the bottom of a cart. The man with the cart piled with dead parted bodies goes to the bottom floor of the building. In this floor he finds the stitched up corpse of Josh. He kills the cart pusher whose job is revealed to be the one that incinerates the bodies. He goes up and makes it to a dressing room. He meets another American who has also come here to join the Elite Hunting game. He asks Paxton questions on the experience believing that Paxton also paid. He discovers Kana being tortured by the American he met and frees her, killing the American. The two flee in a car, accidentally meeting Natalya, Svetlana and Alexei on a street. Paxton steps on the accelerator pedal to run them over. Svetlana dies instantly, while Natalya survives the hit by the Volga
GAZ-24
The Volga GAZ-24 is an automobile manufactured by the Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod from 1968 to 1985 as a generation of its Volga marque. A largely redesigned version - GAZ-24-10 - was produced from 1985 to 1992...
, but she is then run over by the car chasing Paxton and Kana. Alexei also dies. With the help of the child gang, Paxton and Kana elude the guards and head to the train station. When Kana sees a reflection of her disfigured face, she jumps in front of an oncoming train, while Paxton gets on another train.
Aboard the train, Paxton hears the voice of the businessman. In Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, he follows him to a public restroom and throws the Elite Hunting's card under his stall. When the businessman reaches to pick it up, Paxton cuts off two of his fingers, holds his head underwater and, when the businessman sees Paxton's reflection, slices his throat. Paxton then boards a train leaving Vienna.
Cast
- Jay HernandezJay HernandezJavier Manuel "Jay" Hernandez, Jr. is an American actor.-Early life and career:Hernandez was born in Montebello, California, the son of Isis , a secretary and accountant, and Javier Hernandez, Sr., a mechanic. He has a younger sister, Amelia, and two older brothers, Michael and Gabriel. Hernandez...
as Paxton - Derek Richardson as Josh
- Eyþór GuðjónssonEyþór GuðjónssonEyþór Guðjónsson , often anglicized as Eythor Gudjonsson, is an Icelandic actor. He stands 6'3" tall.He got his first big role in the 2005 horror movie Hostel, where he plays an Icelandic backpacker named Óli, famous for his catchphrase "King of the Swing", traveling through Europe with American...
as Óli - Barbara NedeljákováBarbara NedeljákováBarbara Nedeljáková is a Slovak actress, best known for her role as Natalya in the 2005 horror film Hostel.-Filmography:-External links:*Barbara Nedeljakova's Official website...
as Natalya - Jan Vlasák as The Dutch Businessman
- Jana Kaderabkova as Svetlana
- Jennifer LimJennifer LimJennifer Lim is a British actress, who is perhaps best known for her appearance as Samantha in the first television show made especially for mobile phones, called When Evil Calls directed by Johannes Roberts....
as Kana - Keiko Seiko as Yuki
- Lubomir Bukovy as Alexei
- Jana Havlickova as Vala
- Rick HoffmanRick HoffmanRick Hoffman is an American actor and is best known for his roles as Patrick Van Dorn in Jake in Progress and more recently as Louis Litt in USA Network's legal drama Suits.-Early life:...
as The American Client - Petr Janiš as Johan, the German Surgeon
- Takashi MiikeTakashi Miikeis a highly prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker. He has directed over seventy theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. In the years 2001 and 2002 alone, Miike is credited with directing fifteen productions...
as Miike Takashi - Patrik Zigo as The Bubblegum Gang Leader
- Milda Jedi Havlas as Desk Clerk Jedi
- Miroslav TáborskýMiroslav TáborskýMiroslav Táborský is a Czech actor who has appeared on Czech television series, as well as in American movies....
as Police Officer - Josef Bradna as The Butcher
- Eli RothEli RothEli Raphael Roth is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Award and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award...
as American Stoner
Production
Despite the fact most of the movie is set in a small fictional location near BratislavaBratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, actually not a single sequence was shot in Slovakia. The filming locations were at the Barrandov Studios
Barrandov Studios
Barrandov Studios is a famous set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe.Several of the movies filmed there won Academy Awards...
, Prague and in Český Krumlov
Český Krumlov
Český Krumlov is a small city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, best known for the fine architecture and art of the historic old town and Český Krumlov Castle...
, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. In addition to the lower costs of filming in the Czech Republic, Barrandov has well-equipped sound stages, making it a popular choice for US productions set in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. 95% of the film was shot on location
Filming location
A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage...
in and around Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, and the stage was only used for the main torture rooms.
Box office
The film's opening weekend North American box office gross was $19.5 million, making it the top grossing film that weekend. It went on to gross a total of $47.2 million in the U.S. The film's budget was around $4.8 million, and the film went on to gross over $80 million at the box office worldwide.Critical response
The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 59% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 98 reviews, with the sites consensus stating, "Featuring lots of guts and gore, Hostel is a wildly entertaining corpse-filled journey -- assuming one is entertained by corpses, guts, and gore, that is." On Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 21 reviews.
EW
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s film critic Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
commended the film's creativity, saying "You may or may not believe that slavering redneck psychos, of the kind who leer through Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, can be found in the Southwest, but it's all too easy to envision this sort of depravity in the former Soviet bloc, the crack-up of which has produced a brutal marketplace of capitalistic fiendishness. The torture scenes in Hostel (snipped toes, sliced ankles, pulled eyeballs) are not, in essence, much different from the surgical terrors in the Saw films, only Roth, by presenting his characters as victims of the same world of flesh-for-fantasy they were grooving on in the first place, digs deep into the nightmare of a society ruled by the profit of illicit desire."
Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
film critic Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.Bradshaw is a film critic for The Guardian...
noted that Hostel was "actually silly, crass and queasy. And not in a good way". David Edelstein
David Edelstein
David Edelstein is the chief film critic for New York Magazine, as well as the film critic for NPR's Fresh Air and CBS Sunday Morning. He lives in Brooklyn, New York....
of New York Magazine
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
was equally negative deriding director Roth with creating the horror sub-genre 'torture porn,' or 'gorno,' using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act. Jean-François Rauger, film critic for Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
, a French newspaper, and programmer of the Cinémathèque Française
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...
, listed Hostel as the best American film of 2006, calling it an example of modern consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
. Hostel won the 2006 Empire Award for Best Horror Film. The film's underlying social critique and its link to Marxist
Marxist philosophy
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms that cover work in philosophy that is strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory or that is written by Marxists...
and Nietzschean philosophy was recently debated by a panel at Rider University's 2010 Film Symposium by Dr. Barry Seldes, Dr. Robert Good, and James Morgart
James Morgart
James Morgart is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and critic.-Biography:...
.
Slovak reaction to setting
The film's release was accompanied by strong complaints from the country of SlovakiaSlovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, and also from the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. Slovak officials were disgusted by the film's portrayal of their country as an undeveloped, poor and uncultured land suffering from high criminality, war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, fearing it would "damage the good reputation of Slovakia" and make foreigners feel it was a dangerous place to be. The tourist board of Slovakia invited Roth on an all-expense paid trip to their country so he could see it is not made up of run down factories and kids who kill for bubble gum. Tomáš Galbavý, a Slovak Member of Parliament, commented: "I am offended by this film. I think that all Slovaks should feel offended."
Defending himself, Roth said the film was not meant to be offensive, arguing "Americans do not even know that this country exists. My film is not a geographical work but aims to show Americans' ignorance of the world around them." Roth has repeatedly argued that despite the many films in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, people still go to Texas.