Legendary podcast Hard Ticket put together one of the bloodiest events since the last time America did a war crime yesterday. Hostel vs. House of 1,000 Corpses. It’s like being stuck between a rock and hard place while watching someone being graphically crushed between a rock and a hard place! It is also worth noting that Mr. Scott’s self-prescribed role of sitting back and making witty comments is the non-Israel half of what this blog is. I never thought I’d say this, but if he starts speaking out against the genocide, we’re gonna have a big fucking problem.
2005’s Hostel is single-handedly responsible for the declining popularity of hostels. I can say from experience that when I visited Lauren in San Diego, I stayed in a hostel and it was only a little bit like the movie. I had a decent bed, clean showers, and none of my wounds were life-threatening. The protagonists of the film, however, have a very different experience. After a night of partying, Americans Paxton and Josh have sex with two vaguely European women. Their friend Óli leaves with another woman and does not return. Figuring they should probably do drugs about it, Josh and Paxton are roofied and wake up imprisoned in a strange torture pit. Josh has his Achilles tendon severed, but quickly calms down after his throat is slit. Paxton is luckier, and the silly billy torturing him accidentally cuts his own leg off with a chainsaw. After rescuing fellow traveler Kana from a blowtorch, the pair flee to a train station. Kana is unhappy with her hot new look and decides to kiss a train about it. This provides Paxton with the opportunity to board a different train unnoticed. Realizing his tormentor is also aboard, Paxton follows him to a nearby restroom and kills him. If it were remade today, Chappell Roan’s “My Kink is Karma” would be an appropriate choice of soundtrack.
House of 1,000 Corpses is a movie close to my heart. Its sequel, The Devil’s Rejects is one of my mom’s favorite movies, and I actually met Rob Zombie when I was 15. I crop-dusted him, which makes us closer than brothers in a non-consensual, fart ambush sort of way.
The movie properly starts with a grizzly double murder. Captain Spaulding, having temporarily satisfied his blood lust, greets our heroes/victims. These young people are writing a book on offbeat roadside attractions, and are encouraged by Spaulding to seek out the legendary tree from which Dr. Satan was supposedly hanged. On their way, they pick up a hitchhiker named Baby and soon after, suffer a shotgun-induced flat tire. Luckily, Baby’s brother arrives and is able to give them all a ride to a totally normal house which is definitely not filled with 1,000 corpses. What follows is a slew of fucked-up torture wherein the Firefly family viciously and enthusiastically kills the young would-be writers. The last of these survivors is Denise, who manages to escape the house and catch a ride from Captain Spaulding. Believing herself safe, she drifts off, only to find upon waking that she has been taken right back to Dr. Satan’s operating table.
In the torture porn sub-genre of horror, it’s worth considering why our killers do what they do. In both of these movies, it certainly appears to be a matter of enjoyment and personal fulfillment. The wrongness and unabashed brutality is exactly what appeals to them. It’s why none of the Firefly family are in the IDF. What fun is an organization that encourages savagery and seeks to legally justify atrocity to someone like Dr. Satan? For the members of Hostel’s club of hunters, their motivation is in the power fantasy. Paying for the pleasure of killing Americans is part of the enjoyment—financial domination on top of the physical ownership exercised over others’ lives. That thrill would be erased if they were to join the IDF, and instead be the ones getting paid to inflict suffering. That’s why Israel is a special kind of villain, far beyond anything Eli Roth or Rob Zombie could ever dream of.
Hard Flickit 
Oh shit, it’s baby Kobe.
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