That's How It Happened

Hostel is a mostly run-of-the-mill Hollywood excursion into pseudo-grindhouse. It does have one brilliant cameo, just seconds before the moment of anagnorisis. The audience is already all too aware of the Slovakian "death factory" at which millionaires pay to torture and murder hapless American tourists. As our protagonist, Paxton, approaches the death factory, believing it to be an art gallery, he sees a swanky asian business man leaving.

Paxton: What's it like in there?
Takashi Miike: Be careful...(long pause)...you could end up spending all your money.

Hostel's director Eli Roth is a huge fan of Miike, the king of Japanese gore-cinema. He elaborates more today in The Guardian, on why Audition is his favourite horror flick. Jaded on the many facets of post-irony as I am, I was still amused by the conceit of Miike's filmic fantasies funding a real career, as a millionaire torturer.

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