Hostel Intent
Rue Morgue is by far my favourite horror magazine on the market today. I pick it up first thing every month without hesitation, and rarely am I dissatisfied. Today is one of those rare exceptions. On their message board, Editor-In-Chief Jovanka Vuckovic has asked the board members to nominate feature films for their annual Best Of list. The nomination of Hostel was answered with the reply that it was released in 2005, and the underlying assumption to this statement is that it is not eligible for the poll.
If this were to happen with any other magazine, or any other movie, I would probably let it slide. But considering Hostel was my favourite movie of the year, and my favourite horror movie of the past seven, I’m more than a little disappointed. Hostel did have it’s premiere in 2005, but only at festivals, not in wide release. Presumably this would have made it eligible for the 2005 list, but since barely anyone had seen it by that point it was in all likelihood not considered. For the record, the film they chose as the Best Feature for 2005 was Haute Tension, which, if you follow the logic found above, was actually released in 2003, making it ineligible by a long shot.
Considering the strong support for Slither, I wouldn’t necessarily expect Hostel to come out on top anyway. It just would have been nice if it had been a contender.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
not the first time they have gotten fact wrong in the polls/and best of awards. they told Eli Roth that Cabin Fever was not eligible for best independent b/c they had distrib by Lions Gate, not understanding that LG came in after it was all done independently. and btw - when Hostel played at fests, it was in the form of a work in progress with temp music and unfinished FX. love the mag dearly, but sometimes they need to back track and pay attention to details.
November 10th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for popping by. I love your Kung Fu Fridays blog and wish that I could have made it out for some of the screenings.
As an update, Jovanka has posted again saying that they will allow Hostel to be in the poll.
One thing I didn’t mention was how Rue Morgue’s review of Hostel was probably the one time I most disagreed with anything I found in that magazine. I have no problem with people hating on the film, and in many cases I can understand it, but Rod’s review seemed to miss so much of what I loved about it that I wasn’t sure he had seen the same film. This applies especially to the last twenty to thirty minutes, which I found to be incredibly suspenseful. Now it makes a certain amount of sense, if all they had based their review on was a work print, considering just how much the music contributed to the final product.
November 10th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
wait, Slither is gonna win? come on, Hostel is much funnier. Both are massive rip-offs - funny how everyone is talking about this is such a great time for horror and those two movies are at the top.
November 13th, 2006 at 3:04 am
My guess is that Slither is going to win based upon the goodwill it seems to have generated over there. In polls like this I imagine it’s less a popularity contest than simply the least contentious option getting the most votes.
It’s really easy to show the “rip-off” card, but I think sometimes telling a story well is more important than whether it was original or not.
November 14th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
thanks for the kinnd words about the blog. check out the new one I just started: http://spiltpopcorn.blogspot.com/
cheers
colin
November 15th, 2006 at 3:46 am
I visited Spilt Popcorn a few days back after viewing your post on it at Kung Fu Fridays. Great stuff!