Hostel: Unrated Director's Cut Blu-ray Disc Review

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Title: Hostel: Unrated Director’s Cut

Region: A

Media: Blu-ray Disc

Genre: Horror

Stars: Derek Richardson, Jay Hernandez, Barbara Nedeljakova, Eythor Gudjonsson, and Paula Wild

Writer: Eli Roth

Director: Eli Roth

Feature length: 94 minutes

Extras: Commentary Tracks, Documentary, Multi-angle Interactive Featurette, All New Director’s Cut Ending, Music And Sound Featurette, Set Design Featurette, An Icelandic Meal With Eythor Gudjonsson Featurette, KNB Effects Featurette, Interview With Director Takashi Miike, Hostel Dismembered Featurette, The Treatment Radio Interview, Previews

Languages: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound and French and Portuguese Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese Language Subtitles

Packaging: Blue BD Case

Chapter Stops: 16

Sound: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 2006/Blu-ray Disc Release: 2007

Theatrical Distributor: Lionsgate Films

Home Video Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

Filmed in Eastern Europe, Hostel taps into the primal fears of the unknown by presenting the darker side of human nature as three backpackers are lured to a quaint town with the promise of beautiful Eastern European women that just love American men and soon discover a terrifying trap. Wealthy people who belong to an underground club or society pay money to have young people from all around the world abducted and placed helpless in a chair so that they can be tortured to death for the thrill of the kill. Roth knows that no monster in the world can be as frightening as humanity’s inhumanity for itself and other things because while we can reasonably be sure there are no monsters or supernatural creatures lurking about, we all know that even within ourselves there is a predatory nature that can be awakened given certain circumstances. Hostel is very much like a journey into the “Heart Of Darkness” that lingers in the viewer’s mind long after the film has concluded.

Distributed by Lionsgate Films theatrically, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is distributing the film on Blu-ray Disc. Using the AVC codec, the Blu-ray Disc edition presents an Unrated Cut of the film in a widescreen (2.35:1) aspect ratio with a choice of either English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound for a crisper soundtrack that matches the available high definition resolution of up to 1080p where available. French and Portuguese Language Dubbed Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtracks as well as English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese Language Subtitles are encoded onto the disc as options too. The picture quality is quite remarkable with a slick almost neon look for the first act that gradually grows more muted and dark as the film’s horrific events unfold. The Soundtrack can be piercing at times so be careful. Eli Roth is a very articulate speaker and a good interviewer and he also has a great passion for horror genre.

Like he had for the DVD for his film Cabin Fever, Roth participates in four feature length audio commentaries. The most entertaining commentary track is the one with Roth and Executive Producers Quentin Tarantino, Boaz Yakin, and Scott Spiegel, who all inspired Roth during the filmmaking promise and since they are all huge genre film fans, they are very informal with each other and share a lot of laughs. Tarantino is actually very fun to listen to here because he has a lot to say and his laughter is infectious. The next commentary features Roth with the film’s Editor as well as Actress Barbara Nedeljakova and Eythor Gudjonsson as well as “Ain’t It Cool News” creator Harry Knowles. This commentary is where Roth displays a remarkable talent for interviewing his cast and crewmembers. I am surprised he is not featured on more programs that discuss films because Eli Roth could have a second career on his hands while continuing his evolution as a filmmaker.

The third commentary features Producer Chris Briggs and Eli’s brother Gabriel Roth, who documented the production of the film for the original DVD release. Finally there is Roth’s own solo commentary, where he explains that there are just so many aspects about making the film that he wanted to get across to the viewers that he felt one commentary alone was simply not enough. Having watched Hostel six times in the past, once by myself, once with my brother, and the other four times to listen to each of the commentary tracks in their entirety, I am surprised that not too much information is repeated between the tracks. Four commentary tracks can feel a bit excessive though and while I liked the film, I can honestly say that seeing it six times can burn one out. Roth also participates in a radio interview program entitled The Treatment (26:52) that is included on this disc too. The commentary tracks are only available for the Unrated version of Hostel and not the Unrated Director’s Cut, which as far as I can see just has a darker, but different ending that I honestly don’t think works as well as the current ending for a variety of reasons including the ability to suspend my disbelief to think the surviving character could do what he does all the way to the end and not call some attention to himself. The Director’s Cut ending also does not fit in with Hostel Part II and so for continuity purposes, there is no point other than you can see what Roth would have preferred instead of the ending you may now be familiar with. The ending can be viewed as an isolated scene too (7:22) with equal picture quality and sound to the feature presentation. Ironically the running time between the two different versions is only a few seconds. A reel of ten deleted scenes that can be examined individually or as one reel (19:05) with short text explanations as to why they were cut from the movie and are presented in a widescreen (2.35:1) aspect ratio with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound.

Other extra value features include a multi-part documentary that covers the complete production of the making of Hostel that runs approximately 48 minutes in total. There is also a three camera interactive multi-angle feature of the car-bashing scene from the film and a bunch of featurettes that cover music and sound (12:16), set design (5:04), KNB Effects (11:10), An Icelandic Meal With Eythor Gudjonsson (3:17), four still galleries, an interview with Filmmaker Takashi Miilke (9:52) and previews for Hostel Part II (1:14), Vacancy (2:32), and Blood And Chocolate (2:31). The interactive menus are easy to navigate. Hostel: Unrated Director’s Cut and Hostel Part II: Unrated Director’s Cut are both available on Blu-ray Disc now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

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