10 Horror Movies To Watch If You Love Hostel

After the success of his previous film, Eli Roth came out with the gory Hostel. Other than the expected slasher tropes like lots of gore and panicked terror, it also has a few other features that set it apart into it’s own little subgenre.

There’s more than one antagonist, for starters- a whole conspiracy works together to drive the plot. It’s also somewhat constrained in setting, with much of the plot revolving around the titular hostel and a few places outside of it. Finally, it’s heavily influenced by the victims in captivity and their attempts to escape or rescue others from it.

10 Cabin Fever (2002)

This is a horror-comedy, as opposed to straight horror, but it’s also a Roth film and has a lot of the same feel. In fact, it was the success of this movie that really launched his career and allowed him the freedom to make Hostel.

A group of college students visits a remote cabin and suffer the effects of a rapidly spreading virus that seems to eat their flesh. Every time someone thinks they’re safe they find out differently; things behind to spiral further and further out of control as the virus spreads.

9 Wrong Turn (2003)

In the first film in the franchise, two college students meet a gruesome end. Days later, another group of students finds themselves stranded on a lonely road after driving into a booby trap which disables their vehicle.

While some go to find help, the others are murdered by a mysterious figure. After the survivors find a derelict cabin, they soon discover it’s the home of malformed cannibals who intend to murder them all. The group attempts to escape to safety while being chased and picked off one by one by the killers.

8 Saw (2004)

One of the most commercially successful horrors in years at the time it premiered, the first entry in the Jigsaw Killer franchise spawned numerous sequels. Two men awake to find themselves chained at the ankle in a bathroom, with a corpse between them.

Tapes they find have instructions for each- one must escape, while the other must kill their fellow captive to save their own wife and child. They soon realize they’re captives of the Jigsaw Killer, who is shown with his captives as the two men try to figure their way out of his trap. It ends with one of the more famous twists in modern horror.

7 House of Wax (2005)

A group of young people on their way to a football game in Louisiana run into car problems after camping the night in a field and breaking the headlights of someone who drives up. As part of the group leaves for the game, the rest head to a run downtown with a man they meet.

While waiting for the funeral to end, they enter a wax museum. They’re separated and abused, and things take another turn when the rest of the group arrives after failing to get to the game on time. The killers chase the group while picking them off one by one until a dramatic finale and surprise ending.

6 Vacancy (2007)

A couple with marital problems takes a wrong turn on a country road and ends up at a decrepit motel for the night after their car breaks down. It’s full of tightly wound suspense after they discover just what goes on in the hotel. Every time they think they’ve found a way out of their predicament, they’re met with another threat.

It’s a little different than other movies on the list, with a much smaller cast and fewer kills, but the setting and tenacity of the villains give it the same feel.

5 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre originated the long-running character of Leatherface as well as many of the common elements of the slasher genre. It struggled to find distribution and evade bans, being considered too violent and gory at the time it was released.

Friends going to visit the old family homestead of one character meets a strange hitchhiker, and eventually, force him out of their van and continue on. A nearby house turns out to be harboring a family of psychopaths- predominantly Leatherface, who kills them off one by one in ways that would later become typical in the slasher genre.

4 See No Evil (2006)

The first film out of the World Wrestling Entertainment Studios, in typical fashion for the studio’s offerings it featured wrestler Kane as the major character- this time the killer. Starting out with a pile of corpses in an abandoned house, detectives find they’ve all had their eyes ripped out- true to the name of the film.

Years later, a group of delinquents is sent to clean up an abandoned hotel. The killer reappears and in slasher fashion starts to kill them off while they make assorted attempts to escape while being killed off.

3 Storm Warning (2007)

A yuppie could are spending their time sailing in coastal Australia and dock for the night. Still being close to their car, they decide to move it before resuming their sail the next day, only to discover a man being beaten.

Stumbling upon a drug farm as a huge storm begins, they’re soon discovered by the family who lives there. As the family begins to mistreat and threaten them, the couple attempts to escape only to be repeatedly thwarted.

2 The Collector (2009)

Fairly low budget, The Collector is nevertheless a great horror flick. A couple returns home to find a mysterious trunk- which when opened, reveals something that terrifies them. At another house, a family’s handyman plans to steal a valuable hidden in a safe to pay off his wife’s debt.

He’s discovered by the father, who is bruised and beaten, and shortly dragged away by a mysterious figure. The handyman eventually discovers the trunk from the beginning of the film, which is opened to reveal the man who discovered it and tells that it’s own by a psychopath that collects people- one person from each household. The entire house has been booby-trapped by the collector, and the inhabitants and visitors are picked off one by one.

1 The Green Inferno (2013)

Another of Roth’s films, this one features a group of ill-fated college students who travel to the Amazon to protest and film forest crews clear-cutting to raise awareness and was strongly influenced by Italian cannibal films.

After an arrest by a private militia and their subsequent release, they attempt to leave by plane- which promptly crashes into the forest. They’re captured by cannibals, and spend the rest of the movie attempting to escape while being tortured and killed.

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