The Infinite Napkin

Did I watch this? I forget.

Okay, yeah I watched it. Sue me, I thought Richard Grieco was too drunk to get work. Turns out he’s good for an opening sequence, anyways.

This movie evokes those non-porn Chuck Vincent epics of yore where he’d try to show porn actors could be in regular movies. Here you get Ginger Lynn Allen, Chasey Lain, Jenna Jameson, and others. They set this thing in Ireland so that some of these fine thespians could show what great Irish accents they have. Oy.

Still, I gotta give this flick credit for an eye-popping gore idea that reminds me why HOSTEL is for seventh-graders–one poor fellow gets the killer’s fist rammed up his butt and his snaky entrails yanked out by the handful. There’s even an extended version of it in the extras! Lots more yanking! Other than that, not so much fun.

They even try some meta-narrative a la THERE’S NOTHING OUT THERE (No, not SCREAM. Never SCREAM.). You know, the now old horror movie cliche where the horror character talks about horror cliches. Movies like that are devolutions into mimes. Not Shields and Yarnell mimes–I’m talking about the first form of Western stagework. Before tragedy and comedy, at festivals, early Greeks had a guy stand apart and do a funny narrative as a famous character. A few bits survive, and they’re perfect for the drunken festivals, but that’s about it. A horror movie that says explicitly to you “I’m a horror movie” is just like a sloppy drunk at a party belching and saying “I’m Jack Nicholson as a gynecologist. No, dude, totally, roll with me on this. Jack Nicholson…as a gynecologist! This is gonna be awesome! Cause I’m like totally not Jack Nicholoson, right?” I forget the cynic who said “Irony can be defined as the part the audience doesn’t get”, but in cases like this, he’s got something. The meta-narrative method of validating the ham-handedness of the movie while attempting ironic detachment on the part of the filmmakers (“No, I totally knew it was a piece of crap, dude! But…it was pretty awesome, right? I mean, for a dumb horror movie. What would be the point of trying anything new in a dumb horror movie, right?”) equals disaster.

Lets face it–you don’t have to make HOWARD’S END on no budget, but if you already have pretty girls willing to be naked in your movie, that means you can do more in your movie. A distributor will buy a movie with cute topless girls in it. You can try weird ideas. Look, DR CALIGARI, a flat insane experiment, got made and is still available (from a porn distributor, even though it’s not so much porn) because they hit it hard with the cute naked girl factor. They made it a part of things. They did the most insane flick they could think of (cowritten by Jerry Stahl in the middle of his Permanent Midnight). Why make the naked girls (or boys–David DeCoteau is proving there’s serious appeal in that in the traditionally boob-centric cheap horror realm) the reason AND the purpose of the movie. The naked girls can be the audience’s purpose for being there, but they don’t have to be your purpose for making the film.

Like porn, the money shot has swamped cheap horror. Pennywise auteurs are boiling and reboiling the must until it becomes the hardened crust on the pan, a cinematic barnacle that no-one can accuse of being a dolphin.

So, I’ve been laid up for a while with a pretty painful condition. Things are subsiding some now, but after a few days of every arm movement feeling like a good smack from a ball bat shot through with sewing needles, I thought I’d look at this pain-fest.

I’m actually still watching it and already feel the need to comment.

The beginning, where some horny Americans and a guy named Ole are in Amsterdam. One wears a fannypack and wants to be a writer has, anyone? Anyone? No life experience. Yep. Two points. Another is merely obnoxious, and then there’s Ole.

There’s a sequence in a red light district where the budding writer reveals he’s getting over a girl, but doesn’t want to pay for a replacement. He chickens out on a paid assignation. He opines that it’s weird to go to a place where every room is a place to seek your pleasures. Got that? The whorehouse is the POSITIVE of the terrors to come, the mirror image.

Now they boys have been talked into going to Slovakia where all the women are hot girls who lie around all day wishing horny American boys would come do them. Got that? Slovakia is Castle Anthrax. They ride a train with an older fellow who eats with his hands and sagely talks of acting according to your nature. The most featureless of the jerk Americans puts on a brave face and tells him that he’s a vegetarian and that’s his nature. See, those minimum required attendance days in Basic Philosophy just paid off, brother! Boo yah!

Oh, and to really drive the point home, he makes a pass at the virginal writer kid who freaks out. FYI, kids–all Europeans are bisexual fork-eschewing potheads with ponytails and an agenda tailored to get your Wisconsin ass laid, brother! Woot! Or (and this is no doubt what people who like this movie, the set of which may or may not include or be solely occupied by, Mr Eli Roth, the writer/director), are they?

I catch myself briefly wondering if Roth means the virginal writer kid to be autobiographical. Could HOSTEL be this generation’s BILOXI BLUES? The whores angle, the gay subtext…jury’s out but still suspicious.

I could blot the movie out by counting the “fuck”s, but I’m not feeling that compulsive.

Ominous music is the smog of Slovakia. It trickled into the train even before the doors opened upon arrival.

Gap toothed redneck mapped onto character of Slovakian cab driver…check.
Moment of concern followed by “hey, everything’s great!” euphoria…check.
Mild euphoria followed by too good to be true chickie-baby paradise…check.

The arrival of our three idiots in this Amazonian paradise knocks the total amount of bare boobs in the paradise into an odd number.

Slovakian Heavy Metal…check.
Roaming violent gang of six year old demanding cigarettes…check

Now there’s a classic moment sure to be imitated in dozens of direct-to-video sequels to come…the hot foreign girls who took an immediate shine to the two American boys (don’t forget, Ole is Icelandic and I’m betting part of the scheme) are both mounting them in separate beds; string music plays, then they share a long conspiratorial look as they thrust atop the hapless lads. It’s MISSIONARY POSITION IMPOSSIBLE!

And they go to a museum of torture, complete with a fine ironic way of punching tickets…with a mini guillotine!!!! Funny, right?

Oops, early fears about Ole unfounded. There’s his head. Poor Ole. Best character gone.

Ah, there’s the “Americans would never fuck each other over like that” meme. Ole’s friends, ladies and gentlemen.

Our American representatives have officially been drugged, and the fun begins. Forty one minutes in, the horror movie equivalent of Godzilla finally showing up is here. Josh the writer is up first.

Aaaand the big surprise that Mr. Meat Eater from the train is our torturer. Cut Achilles tendons, drills into the collarbone, fun fun fun. He wanted to be a surgeon, see? It’s all very, I dunno…logical? Something. Anyways, he reveals that he’s on a vacation of his own, one where you get to torture and kill Americans in a fun form of rendition where they use E and cute chicks instead of the CIA to get you there.

Aaaand we’re also left with the least of the characters to sort it all out. Fortunately, they’re dying to explain it to him. Hey, maybe they’ll ask him if he’s in Al Qaeda!

Ah, there’s a premium on rich Europeans torturing Americans. Less existentialism, I guess, cling to life harder. Fresher meat.

A moment of reprieve, because the American speaks German. The torture stops! An argument for multiculturalism! Uuuuntil the ball gag goes in. Must be linked to the quick look at PULP FICTION on a tv earlier in the movie.

Oh my good god. HOSTEL just ripped off THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE worse than the remake did. The torturer falls with a chainsaw and it sinks into his leg. IT’S NOT AN HOMAGE WHEN YOU COPY!!

The cat and mouse bits of bland guy’s escape are well-done. It hangs together well.

Is torturing cute Asian girls every rich American’s dream?

Time enough for revenge? Triple revenge, baby!

It’s like a whole other movie, this escape. I kinda like it. Hmm, then the Asian girl commits suicide because she lost an eye. Hmm. Poor plot device. She might have even been a character. But she’s a girl, so she’s a victim or a whore. Or evil.

Bland American has become an enthusiastic revenger. The movie ends right when he gets the last of it. If he hadn’t hit the two chicks from the Hostel (who happened to be standing right next to the dude FROM AMSTERDAM who recommended the place originally) with that tiny car, there’d be another 15 minutes to this thing.

Overall–it was okay. Not particularly recommended. With a better plot, this could have really sung. Roth is good enough to direct such a feature. But as for the whole “New Horror” thing, the day they top Cannibal Ferox for gore, call me. Hell, SNAKES ON A PLANE had ookier stuff.