I have Hostel on my waiting list, but so far I haven't had the guts to watch it yet (haha pun). Although I will admit I'm curious and I'm not really bothered since it's all fake. There are other horror movies from the 70s or so where they actually slaughtered animals to achieve more gore and those I can't even bear to think about. But why should I be bothered about a couple of gallons of fake blood, rubber skin and CGI.

I think the reason why these movies are being produced (and watched) is because horror movies have always been a response to recent fear and culture. Eary horror movies... fear of science, of the perversion of mankind, experiments gone wrong. Then the cold war, aliens as a metaphorism for the unknown invader. Film noir and the homosexual as an allegorism of the undetected evil among us. Splatter, the reaction to liberation of youths, punishment of the morally depraved.

And now what do we fear? Terror in our own homes, terrorism, idealistic murders. Who hasn't heard of or even seen public executions, beheadings, mutilations. Our lives are getting gorier and more terrible than anything a director could come up with. So this is kinda a way of dealing with these things. It's not really that sick and depraved as it seems at first.