Penny Blood's Heidi Martinuzzi
talks to director Eli Roth and cast
members Jay Hernandez, Barbara Nedeljakova and Derek Richardson
about the new film Hostel.
Hostel is Eli Roth’s second film. His first, Cabin Fever, was shot for a little over a million dollars and has since skyrocketed Roth’s career and reputation. For his second effort, the writer/director got some encouragement from Quentin Tarantino. “I told him the idea for Hostel,” says Roth, “and he was like ‘Are you Fucking Kidding me? That’s the sickest fucking idea I have ever heard.’ He told me ‘Eli, you’ve got to do that. Fuck it, do it low budget.’ I have a horror company called Raw Nerve, and he was like ‘Do it with Raw Nerve, do it for like 3 million bucks or something. Go to Europe and make it as sick as you want. Make it fucking balls-out. This could be like, your Takashi Miike film. This could be a classic American horror movie.’ And I thought about it…”
It’s funny that Tarantino mentioned Takashi Miike when he suggested Roth see the idea through. Miike, the Japanese director behind Ichi the Killer and Audition, was a major inspiration for Roth when he conceived Hostel.
Miike even has a cameo role in Hostel, showing his support for Roth.
“It’s really heavily influenced by Audition and The Vanishing,” admits Roth. “With Cabin Fever I started going to the Sitges film festival, Brussels, and seeing Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Audition, and all of a sudden I’m seeing the good stuff that never makes it into theaters over here. And that’s when I was like, what the fuck is going on there, in Japan…they’re making these balls-out moves that are just so disturbing. I said, ‘you know, it’s time for me to stand on my own. I can be influenced by these movies, but I am not going to watch movies and take shots.’ I wanted to go with my gut instinct and shoot what was in my head.”
The story of Hostel is a grim one; two American students are backpacking across Europe looking for pussy, drugs, and any kind of “forbidden” fruit they can find. With them is an Icelandic guy who seems to live life to the absolute fullest. When the decadence of Amsterdam, with its hookers and drugs, fails to excite them anymore, they persuade a fellow traveler to tell them about a “secret” hostel in the Eastern European city Bratislava where the women are hot and willing to do anything. Unfortunately, what they find when they get there is gruesome, terrifying, and just plain sick. Roth came up with this idea from talking with his friend Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News about a website they’d seen….
“About three years ago Harry and I were talking about sick stuff we’d seen on the Internet. And we’re talking about that site some guy in Texas set up where you could control a gun and hunt, like, lions and wild game, and rare animals, on the internet. And the FBI had shut this guy down. I think he claimed his legal defense was that he was making it so handicapped people could hunt, too. It was so fucked up. But I thought, Jesus. Why wouldn’t they just put a human being in a room? And Harry said, ‘Well, actually I found something like that’ and he sent me a link to a site where you could go to Thailand and for ten thousand dollars, walk into a room and shoot somebody in the head. And the site claimed that the person you were killing had signed up for it. That part of the money would go to their family and they were so broke and they were gonna die anyways and they wanted to do this, they wanted to be killed for this purpose, and that it gives you the thrill of taking another human life. And we said, ‘Is this bullshit? Is this real?’ It looked real. And we thought, How could this possibly be real? But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Whether this place exists or not is not important. The point is that somebody built a website about it. There’s some guy out there that’s so bored with money and drugs… they can’t get off from going to a hooker or strip club. They want to walk into a room and just kill someone without any consequences.”
Hostel is a film about testing the limits of what makes us human, and about the loss of humanity in the face of excess and decadence. “I saw parallels,” Eli continues, “between guys I knew who would go to Europe or even go to Vegas and say ‘Yeah, we’re gonna get hookers and do drugs’ and it’s kind of this American thing of going abroad and doing all the things you’re not supposed to do... That’s why I made Amsterdam purposefully look like an x-rated Disneyland; the hookers, they’re a ride. They’re not interacting with another human being, they’re just paying their money, they’re gonna go on that ride…they’re on that path. But what happens after twenty years from now? They would wind up like these businessmen. The brothel in Amsterdam is kind of like this weird mirror image of this; the slaughterhouse is a horrible, hell-version of that brothel. Josh walks up and down the hall; Jay gets dragged down the hall. I just saw parallels in exploitation and the value of life in other parts of the world and putting a price on someone else’s life, it’s like ‘Ok, it’s 100 dollars an hour for this person’s life, and you’re 25,000 dollars to this person, and to this kid? You’re just a piece of bubble gum. That’s all you’re worth.’”
Hostel stars Derek Richardson (Dumb and Dumberer, Reeker), Jay Hernandez (Friday Night Lights, The Rookie) and newcomer Barbara Nedeljakova. Richardson and Hernandez are Josh and Paxton, respectively, the two young American travelers taken unawares by the evil femme fatales Natalya (Nedeljakova) and Svetlana. Jan Vlasák gives a chilling performance as a Dutch businessman intent on spending his money in the sickest ways possible, while Eythor Gudjonsson as Oli, the Icelander and Rick Hoffman as the American businessman offer a little comic relief.
Eli was very pleased about his cast; he feels they fit the roles perfectly.
He says, “Jay Hernandez is really underrated. He is an amazing actor. I met him, and I thought, this guy would be incredible. I’d be lucky to get this guy. He was such a good actor that he feels like a regular guy. I didn’t want people who looked like pretty boys, or movie people. I wanted people who felt like guys I went to college with, that I grew up with, and that I know.”
Hernandez’s natural acting style and every-guy good looks made him an excellent choice for Paxton, but what really cinched the deal was his eagerness to reduce himself to a pile of tears in front of a chainsaw. “You know, a lot of those guys want to be macho and tough all the time and they don’t want to sit there crying like a baby when they’re about to die in a movie and Jay was willing to do that and he did it really well in a way that you don’t go ‘Oh, that pussy’ I mean, you genuinely feel sorry for him. You go ‘Fuck yeah, I’d be doing the same thing.’”
Eythor Gudjonnson, who plays the outgoing Oli, is the next big thing to come out of Iceland, according to Eli Roth, anyway.
“It’s funny,” says Eli, “because Iceland inspired Cabin Fever and I went there with Cabin Fever and met this guy Eythor, who was one of the funniest guys I had ever met, and we went out and he was, like, insane, and I had never met anyone like him, and I thought, ‘This guy has to be in a movie.’ He does Iron Man competitions, he’s been on televisions, he has businesses, and he’s just like, this fascinating character… And Icelanders aren’t in movies, you know, you don’t see an Icelandic character. So I figured, you know what? I can take 1100 years of Icelandic culture and fucking flush it down the toilet in 90 minutes. Because I will make everybody think that everyone from Iceland is like this guy. You know, Bjork is fine, she’s had a good run, but it’s time for her to step aside. I think Eythor should be the most famous person in the world from Iceland.”
The beautiful-but-deadly Natalya is one of the most evil women in horror film history. Barbara Nedeljakova is a native Slovakian, and the movie takes place in the Slovakian capital Bratislava. While Barbara enjoyed being in the film and loves how evil her character is, she doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea about Slovakia….
Barbara says, “I think this is a really interesting version of Slovakia. It’s not really that scary place. It’s actually nice, beautiful and the people are friendly, look normal, and beautiful, not as scary. It’s a little bit different than reality.”
Eli Roth found the exactly what he needed for the villainess in Barbara Nedeljakova.
He explains, “I’d say out of 400 girls who auditioned, nobody came close to Barbara, who played Natalya, the brunette… She walked in the room and she was like a young Monica Belucci. That quality of Louise Schneider, one of those foreign girls that are from another era, that are just...that don’t look like the typical Los Angeles beauty…. I wanted someone that had that looks like they are from another world. And when she read the scene she completely understood it... She was really, really terrifying. Nobody came close to her.”
Barbara had to do something many women in horror films do; take her clothes off. The argument about whether female nudity in horror is exploitative or necessary has gone on for years and will go on for more, but Barbara had to come to terms with her own misgivings about it for her role in Hostel.
In her Eastern European accent Barbara describes how she reconciled with director Roth about the level of nudity she would be doing. “I was fine with violence. It’s just that I had a problem with nudity and we found a way to both be satisfied and comfortable with it. He did a compromise for me. I thought in some scenes, it’s not necessary to be nude, so I was thinking that I could be wearing a bra and T-shirt and he said okay, we can do that.”
Like many scream queens past and present Barbara runs the risk of being typecast in horror films because of her debut performance. Is she reluctant to play another “femme fatale” type, or to act in another horror film?
“We’ll see. I’m fine with that, being evil. I can be evil
again.”
Barbara was a gem that Roth picked up by casting his female leads in Slovakia itself, rather than importing American actresses. Likewise, he got to use Gudjonnson, who would otherwise have never been in the film, and several other extremely talented local actors.
“That was one of the great things about getting to shoot in the Czech Republic,” he says. “…Getting to work with these actors like, Jan, who played the Dutch businessman, we called him Hannibal Czechtor. He was a fresh actor from the Czech Republic, he usually only does Shakespeare, he very rarely does film and he just decided to do this, and all of a sudden, there’s this guy who seems like a nice guy who’s doing these terrible things and he’s got those piercing eyes. That was what was so fun about shooting there. Most people who shoot in Prague will shoot it for America. So they’ll have someone who will be waiter #3 and they’ll hire them and they’ll dub their voice. But I wrote something that could incorporate local actors acting at the top of their game and not trying to fake their accent or hide it.”
Of course, when you get two young American guys together in a place like Prague, in the Czech Republic, you’re bound to have some interesting stories. Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson had an interesting run-in with a moneychanger who screwed them over…
Jay Hernandez told us his version of the story first…”Yeah, I’ve got a funny story about Derek, it’s not a bad story, I’m not going to give all his personal stuff away. We were on the streets and we were trying to exchange some money, and we go to the exchange place and there’s a guy standing outside. He says ‘I’ll give you a better rate’ with this cheesy Czech accent and so Derek says ‘Ok, what’s the rate?’ He looks at me and says ‘Should I take it?’ And I say ‘I don’t know, I don’t care; if he’s giving you more money for a $100 bill, as long as it’s cool, as long as it’s legit.’ He does it and the guy gives him a $2000 bill, which neither of us had ever seen. So he’s looking at this thing, the guy walks off, but something is still bothering him about it. He says ‘I’m going to try to break this’ and we go into the exchange place. He shows it to the lady and asks if he can have change for it; she points up to a sign on the wall that has the same bill and it says ‘This is not Czech money, don’t accept this on the street.’ And so he looks up there, and says ‘oh shit’ and so we run out of the door to try and get this guy; basically, he gets one hundred dollars taken from him. So a few weeks later, about three weeks later, we’re walking down the street and see that same fuckin’ dude in front of a money exchange place, and I said ‘Derek, that’s the guy.’ So I walk up to him and he says ‘Hey, do you want to exchange money?’ And I think what am I going to do to this guy? I’ve got to get back the money. So I just reacted and grabbed the guy by his shirt and started cussing in his face – ‘You better give me back that fuckin’ money’ and I’m shaking him [laughing]; the guy must have been kind of freaked out. The guy says ‘I didn’t take your money’ and so I say ‘Yes you did, like three weeks ago.’ And so he says ‘No, no, not me; how much did I take from you?’ I say ‘If you’ve got to ask that question, than you did.’ So he says ‘Ok, ok’ and reaches in his pocket and gives him this huge wad of money. And so I turn to turn to Derek and say ‘I got your money back!’ True story.
However, Richardson isn’t quite as happy about telling the story….
“Did Hernandez bring that up?” Asked Richardson. “By the way, that was all him because I remember, I was changing money and this guy’s like, ‘Oh, do it with me. Do it with me.’ And I was like, ‘I don't know, you think I should do it with this guy? Why not do it right here?’ And he’s like, ‘This guy’s got a better exchange rate.’ I’m like, ‘Do you think so?’ He’s like, ‘Just do it, dude. Do it.’ And I was like, ‘All right, Jay Hernandez, I will.’ So I did it and as soon as I brought it inside, there was a big sign that’s like, ‘this money isn’t real. It’s from Turkey or something.’ And he’s like, ‘Dude, I’ll buy you a dinner, it’s cool.’
But Derek, didn’t you forget about Jay nearly beating the shit out of the guy once you found him….
“Oh, but yeah, later on we found him. I thought Jay was going to beat him up. He’s like, ‘Give us our money. We know who you are!’ And then he gave us half of our money back. We’re like, ‘we know you’ve got more. Open up your pockets.’ How random? But you know, Prague is pretty small and that guy goes from kiosk to kiosk just being like, ‘Hey, you need fake money? I got it for you.’ Freakin’ Hernandez killed me on that one.”
Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson spend a great deal of the movie being tortured in an underground facility that resembles a hospital. The sets are amazing, and the makeup, done by KNB (the hot and charming Greg Nicotero’s FX company) is really gruesome. The sets are what really freaked Jay Hernandez out after having to work with them for some time.
“It’s cool, dude; it’s classic horror,” says Hernandez. “Having a chainsaw on set makes everyone excited…Just the sound of the chainsaw, it gets everyone’s blood flowing.”
Jay talks about the torture chamber sets: “…that was a real place from back in the 1900’s. There were these underground rooms that hadn’t been inhabited in almost 60, 70 years; I keep saying this, but it really freaked me out. There was this one room, I walked off set, just trying to get some fresh air and there was this huge room that had these hooks on the wall. I was asking some of the guys what those hooks were for, and nobody could give me an answer. I still, to this day don’t know what those hooks were for; something was being hung up there, was it bodies? Was it meat? I don’t know.”
Later this year, Hernandez will star in Oliver Stone’s currently untitled drama about September 11th.
“It follows Port Authority officers on the day of 9/11.” Hernandez says. “I play a guy, Dominic Bazulo; after the first plane hit the Tower, the guys go in and try to get people out of there, try to save them. It’s a sensitive subject, cause there are still family members that are there, so it’s pretty sensitive. The main person the story is about is Will Jimeno; he was a Port Authority officer. He was on set practically all the time, advising Oliver and myself and Mike (Peno) and Nicolas (Cage) and everybody else; he’s trying to make it as real as it was.”
Roth and Stone have both been described as “eccentric” directors.
“Yeah,” Hernandez agrees, “Eli is inspired by psychosis and Oliver is inspired by Vietnam.”
Hostel will have tons of extras on the DVD release that were too sick to show to a regular theater audience. There will also be some cool things like the alternate ending that Eli had originally written.
[Caution: Spoiler. It’s Jay Hernandez’s fault.]
Jay cautiously starts to tell us about it. “Well, I don’t know, should I give it away? Yeah, it’s fine; it’ll probably end up on the DVD anyway. Instead of killing the guy, I go in and kidnap the guy’s daughter, the only thing that meant anything to him, that’s pure in his life. So I get off the train and follow him into the bathroom and it makes you think I’m going to do something to him, but I kidnap his daughter instead. There’s a shot of me back on the train with my hand over her mouth, and you don’t know if I’m going to hurt her or if I’m going to save her. So it sort of leaves on that note, is he going to kill her or is he trying to save her from this evil monster, you don’t really know.”
For Eli Roth, the toughest part of the shoot was leaving Prague.
“We had KNB there; there was blood, guts, and chainsaws...I didn’t want it to end. The hardest part was when the shoot ended and I had to go back to the editing room.”
So we know what Jay Hernandez is doing next. But how will Eli Roth follow up Hostel? Will he be making more independent projects or be working on a studio picture? It’s a tough call for someone like Roth who has had such massive success working independently. He talks a little bit about the future of his career…
“I kinda feel like, if this movie does well, it kind of reinforces my confidence that maybe I should just follow my own ideas. And maybe, if I keep going on this path, I could eventually wind up like Quentin or Robert Rodriguez, who get to make movies in the 40-50 million dollar budget level, they’re completely control and they do it their own way. That’s how I’d like to do it. So I truthfully don’t know. But after this movie I am spoiled. It’s making me think twice about how I want to do everything in the future.”
Cabin Fever grossed us out and reminded us of the horror films we missed so much from the 70’s and 80’s. What does Eli Roth want us to take away after watching Hostel?
“I want people to feel like they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them.”
Hostel opens January 6th from Lionsgate
(formerly Lions Gate).
www.HostelMovie.com
Heidi Martinuzzi
Pretty-Scary.net
HeidiMartinuzzi.com
