Trivia / Hostel

• All There in the Manual: According to Tarantino (who produced and helped develop the film's plot), the hostels are frequented by criminal syndicates (namely, the Yakuza and the Russian Mafia) who utilize their services to help their interrogators perfect their craft.
• Amateur Cast: Actual street kids were cast to play the Bubblegum gang.
• California Doubling: None of the film was actually shot in Slovakia (or Amsterdam, for that matter). The entire film was shot in the Czech Republic.
• Cast the Runner-Up: The actor playing the male desk clerk at the Slovakian hostel dropped out right before filming. He was replaced by the film's production assistant Milda Jevi Havlas.
• Costume Backlash: Barbara Nedeljáková admitted that she didn't enjoy appearing nude in the film.
• Dark Horse Casting: Eythor Gudjonsson was a local entrepreneur with no acting experience that Eli Roth had met while doing press for Cabin Fever. The director was impressed with his charisma, and wrote the part of Oli specifically for him. He has not acted since, aside from a few commercials.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Most of the actors in the first film were Czech, including those playing the Dutch Businessman (Jan Vlasák) and the German Surgeon (Petr Janiš). The only actual Slovak actor in the first film was Barbara Nedeljáková (Natalya). And then her character claims to be Italian and Russian.
  • Quentin Tarantino cameos as a German about nine minutes in. That's him screaming at Paxton for arriving at the hostel after curfew.
  • Japanese tourist Kana is played by British-Chinese actress Jennifer Lim.
  • The Italian Detective in II is played Luc Merenda, a French actor whose nonetheless very well known in Italy for starring in their poliziotteschi films of the 70s.
• Inspiration for the Work: Eli Roth came up with the idea for the first film while brainstorming in Quentin Tarantino's pool. The idea was based on a Thai "murder vacation" website he came across on the dark web that stated that users could pay $10,000 to go to Thailand and shoot a stranger in the head — both for sport and for the site's claim that part of the money would go to the stranger's family, as they had signed up for it and were in poverty.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Eli Roth originally debated making the film as a Faux Documentary that would incorporate real people and locations from supposed real underground "murder vacation" spots. When he could barely find any credible information on the topic, he scrapped the idea in favor of a traditionally flowing narrative using fictional locations and characters.
• Playing Against Type: Roger Bart, who, Desperate Housewives aside, tends to play bright and friendly roles as the villain of the second film. And he still mostly seems nice.
• Star-Derailing Role: The whole cast of the second movie suffered from this. Neither one of them appeared in any mainstream movies again. Vera Jordanova who played Axelle never appeared in another movie again, and this was only her second film. Jay Hernandez would later appear in Suicide Squad (2016), though. Lauren German would also nab a starring roles in the TV-series Lucifer.
• Throw It In!: Josh's screams when his Achilles tendons get sliced were real. Derek Richardson accidentally pulled the chair up and brought it down on his foot.
• What Could Have Been: Subverted. Eli Roth intended for the film to be NC-17, and directed it in a certain way that he knew what would be cut to get an R-rating. However, the MPAA gave it an R-rating without ordering any cuts. He did make a few minor edits, but left the majority of violence and gore intact.

---