Horror History: Eli Roth’s HOSTEL Opened 16 Years Ago

Hostel

On this day in horror history, writer-director Eli Roth’s Hostel opened in 2005. For those keeping score at home, that’s – gasp – 16 fucking years ago now. Whoa.

It tells the tale of best friends who spend the summer after college on an all-out backpacking trip across Europe. While stopping in Amsterdam to indulge their tastes for drugs and sex, they meet a like-minded traveler from Iceland. When the three set off to investigate enticing rumors of a Slovakian hostel in a city populated by lusty women, they find themselves drawn unwittingly into a deadly game.

Jay Hernandez stars along with Derek Richardson and Barbara Nedeljáková.

Hostel was a box-office hit and earned $19.6M opening weekend, snagging the number one spot at the box office. By the end of its run, the film grossed $47.3M in the US box office and $33.3M elsewhere for a worldwide total of $80.6M.

RELATED: Eli Roth Talks Cabin Fever, Hostel 3, Endangered Species, Thanksgiving, and More!

The film sports a 61% rating over on Rotten Tomatoes. The Critics Consensus reads: 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.

The MPAA slapped the film with an R-rating for brutal torture and violence, strong sexual content, drug use, and language. Eli Roth produced with Mike Fleiss, and Chris Briggs. It spawned two sequels, Hostel: Part II and Hostel: Part III.

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