The Horror, The Horror

Finally Friday came around, and I was joined in London by the good lady - who was actually working there, not Birmingham, that day which made everything very convenient. Once she was back to the flat and changed, we headed back out at 8pm.

Friday night was the Big Kahuna: it was not one, but two, ex-university friends' 30th birthdays - both girls, so both have lots of friends and decided to hire a basement bar in Soho. It was brilliant, really good. So crazy to see everyone again, the DJ had done his research, and after we'd all drunk ourselves stupid, we waved (and no doubt, shouted and slurred) our goodbyes in a cobbled street and threw forward to our impending Bonfire Night weekend bash at another farmhouse we've hired. Must make mental note to watch my speed on the way to this one. (Last time, in Derbyshire, I got caught by the cops topping the ton - which added enough new points to my license remove it from my grasp for six months.)

My old Nigeria/Sheffield mate and his new girlfriend stayed over for Friday and Saturday nights - she's lovely, a real catch for him. On Saturday, we got up late and wandered out for lunch at The Bollo House in South Acton, before moving on to Chiswick High Road for mooching, shopping and more drinking. In the end, we got to the riverside and walked up to The Old Ship just short of Hammersmith Bridge, and got well tucked in to several pints of Magners cider (Sun-shine...came softly, through my, window to-daaaaaay...) and soon found ourselves quite roaringly pissed. We didn't last long after that - a few teas and coffees back home, me and T gibbering for longer than the girls could manage before sleep overtook us all.

Sunday, we headed back to Brum, and had about two hours to kill before T and E got back on the train to Sheffield. Bank Holiday Monday saw a couple of notable events, one that I shall breeze over and express annoyance, and another that requires a little more set-up and execution. Are you sitting comfortably?

So, I've decided to get a pedal bike and get fit. I bought some weighing scales, and I'm just shy of 14 stone. I cannot believe this, but it is true. I've visited three bike shops so far, and have certainly identified the kind of bike I'm after: I don't want any suspension, I will not be hooning down the sides of mountains. It is an urban bike, for cycling on roads and canal towpaths. It should be able to hop up a kerb without a stutter. It must be sturdy, yet light. It should have a dark paint-job. If it had cable disc brakes, that would be grand. I have a budget of £500, ballpark.

On Bank Holiday Monday, I went round to the nearest bike shop to my flat. It's about a mile away. Now, it had been raining, but I knew that this place had, in stock, the one bike I haven't seen yet in my investigations. All the others I'd earmarked I have actually picked up, sat on or even ridden. So, we ask the chap if I can try it. He says I can, as long as I give him my car keys and credit cards. I hand over my wallet and keys, and he starts to take the bike down to street level. Suddenly, his boss (I assume) asks him what he thinks he's doing. Apparently, it's 'too wet' to take out. What about just in the car park? I offer. Nope, too wet mate. If you fall off and hurt yourself, I'm not covered. What a crock of shit. Fact is: you don't want to wash the bike down after. And do you know what? That £649 bike? It's still in stock, mate. Enjoy. Wanker.

My mood somewhat afflicted by the stupidity of some salesmen in this world, the good lady returned to her parental home for the evening, and I stewed. Late on, my good friend P came around, and we chatted and drank and surfed. We hit the pub around ten, and sank a pair of Carling Extra Cold - you can't get normal Carling anymore, which is a bit poor. We thought about what might happen on our return to my flat...and it was at this point I saw an opportunity.

Over four months ago now, I was given an...ahem...copy of Hostel, by Eli Roth. I'd heard all about this film - that it breaks new ground in terror, horror, gore, special effects, and so on. It's just come out on DVD here, with the added sauce of 'including scenes too gruesome for cinema'. Now, I figure I've got the cinematic release, given how long I've owned it...

So, we decide to watch it. All in all, the assessment that I'd been given which I remembered most was: one hour of porn, one hour of torture. And I can't say that's too far away from the truth. The movie follows three backpackers - two American, one Icelandic - who were all at college together and meet up years later for an InterRail adventure around Europe. They hit Amsterdam, getting very stoned and having sex with lots of hookers. They meet up with some Russian dude called Alexei, who sets them up with more hookers, before telling them about this amazing 'hostel' in Bratislava. The place is full of people just having sex, hookers everywhere, saunas and steam rooms, and so on, the full-on sexual paradise. Needless to say, our friends are intrigued and soon find themselves...and here's where you start thinking they deserve all they get...on a train, from Amsterdam to Bratislava, to find hookers. Talk about wasting time.

On the train, a very strange old man joins them in the carriage and tells them about this same hostel. Hmm. Seems like a legendary place. He gets a little 'overfamiliar', touching one chap's leg, who goes mad at him. The old, weird man hurries off. It's not the last you'll be seeing of him. So, our lads arrive and start getting into some serious drinking and shagging of the locals. They have two female roommates at the hostel who are, quite simply, foxy. They are whooping. They are invited to the sauna with them, where they sit there, naked, with two girls they've just met. Bars and nightclubs and sex follow. And then: the Icelandic bloke goes missing. The other two search high and low for him. A day later they get a video text of him saying I GO HOME, with his head 'pulling a funny face'. Unfortunately, the two numpties haven't noticed that his face is green as well, and is making said monstrous visage because it has been removed from his body and photographed on a spike.

Sure enough, one by one, they're picked off and taken to the torture place. Backpacker number two is seduced into the dark, and suffers a very nasty fate. He's drilled in the chest. He has his Achilles tendons - both of them - cut with a scalpel...and is then given chance to escape. Of course, his wounds mean he can't stand up, so he's crawling through the muck of these dungeons...he doesn't make it. When the third and final lad is brought to the slaughter, he passes a room where his mate's chest is splayed open, and...yes...the old man from the train is poking around in his lungs with forceps and tweezers...

At this point, I need to break in the story to tell you what happened in my flat, in the world of the real. P and I had been regularly taking screen breaks from the gore and screaming, as it really is rather intense and graphic. Very disturbing. P had originally suggested projecting it on my flat wall - when you hear this, you'll appreciate how glad I am that we didn't. So: when the Achilles cutting is happening, I leap up and run into my bedroom like a big girl. P has already gone to make another pair of teas in the kitchen. He comes to my bedroom door, where he finds me jumping up and down making disgusted faces and bemoaning the sick fucker that made this movie.

'I really don't feel well, dude!' he says, as I pass him to return to the living room, and a fate worse, much worse, than simple, straightforward death. As I see the next horror - a man dropping to the floor with non-functional Achilles tendons, gaping wounds as he tries to stand up - I screech and turn for P's reaction. Through the living room door, I see legs lying as if someone is asleep. I run to the door, and P is lying prostrate on the floor. I pull him into recovery position - head to the side, airway clear. His eyes are part open, but gazing, glazed, unblinking. I slap his face, softly. Dude! Dude! Are you OK? He comes to with a start. Dude! Are you OK? Can you hear me? Yes! Yeah! Shit! Dude, did you just faint?! Yeah! I think I did! Shit! That is one bad film!

And so: this film makes people faint with horror. I've seen it.

I manage to watch the rest of the film, with P lying offside from the screen, just hearing the noise and receiving my probably-unwelcome descriptions of the on-screen action. The twist soon arrives: the blokes doing all the torturing here aren't sicko, psycho, ex-military men - they're tourists, too. Elite Hunting is the company, getting paid lots by millionaire businessmen, to get hold of torture victims. So: it's all a big holiday industry. Which is nice. The film does have a postive ending. The last bloke gets away, but not before being meathooked in the leg several times, and - even when he does get away - he goes back to rescue a Japanese girl from the clutches of one of the holidaymakers. He hasn't got far with her before he gets shot: her only wound is her eyeball, cut from the socket, hanging down her cheek. Our friend helpfully cuts this off before they make good their escape.

In the final coup de grace, the Japanese girl diverts attention from her rescuer by throwing herself in front of a train. She's seen her reflection and obviously can't live without one eye, so makes the leap, which creates a large, blood-spattered crowd, through which the bad men can't catch our last American backpacker, who gets on a train back to western Europe. But it's not over. He overhears a conversation. It's an old, Germanic man. He's talking about how he likes to eat with his fingers, how people have lost their relationship with their food. It's the same old man from train at the beginning, the one who was dissecting his mate so thoroughly.

Our man follows him off the train and into the toilets. He shuts and locks the entrance, flips the sign to closed, and heads for the cubicles. He goes in next door. He drops one of the Elite Hunting business cards on the floor. Old psycho picks it up, our man grabs his hand and cuts off the same two fingers he's lost, with a penknife! Then he comes round into the cubicle and pushes the old dude's head down the loo. He nearly drowns him, then lifts his head and cuts his throat from ear to ear. Then he drops him in the toilet and leaves. And that's the end.

I'm now going to make a nice cup of tea.