Hotel

I saw that movie at a film festival in Januray 2005. On my personal record, it was the second best out of the 10 movies I had seen there. The film does polarize very much - either you like it or you hate it. Especially the end is very controversial.

"Hotel" is not a conventional horror movie and it is certainly not meant to be shown at the big block buster cinemas. It is much more a low budget, minimalist, purist version of a scary movie. The film has very subtitle, psychological horror! If you liked "Blair Witch Project", you will enjoy this movie too.

The Austrian accent of the most actors give the soundtrack a special note and make the already very reserved atmosphere between the characters even more chilly.

By the way: No one left the cinema or fell asleep during screening as reported in other comments on this site ... <:

Before I buy a flick on DVD, I read reviews. First, I come here to IMDb to see what other viewers think. Then, I seek professional reviews to help me determine whether or not I should shell out $20.

Had I listened (as I normally do) to these reviews, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near Hausner's "Hotel" and would've checked in at the Motel 6 down the block. It seems, across the board, the reviews of this film call it "technically adept, but dull," or they complain that "Nothing happens! There's no plot!" Indeed, I almost DID listen to these reviews, but something about the premise of "Hotel" intrigued me. So, I decided to buy it, and I just finished watching it ten minutes ago.

Suffice to say, I feel inclined to come to the aid of this much maligned film. First, I agree with many reviewers about how the film is photographed. Without question, it is technically adept. The cinematography is precise and beautiful; carefully crafted (and often static) shots fill this flick, much like a Tarkovsky film. Colors are both vibrant and menacing--especially the void-like blacks (of the night forest) between the gray bark of the bare trees. Also the sterile greens and grays of the hotel interior. And don't forget the blood reds (of the front-desk-clerk's uniform) as she disappears into those horribly beckoning trees...

Now onto the ubiquitous "nothing happens" complaint. The movie depends much more on atmosphere (and brilliantly so) than jump scares or plot turns. So if you are looking for big action, you will not find it in "Hotel." And (NEWS FLASH!) this is precisely the purpose of the film. Like many great films (and I'm not calling this great, just exceedingly well done and marginally upsetting--in a good way), this film does not tell the viewer what to think. In fact, most of time, it doesn't even show the viewer what happens. Imagine that! Indeed, this is where the IMAGINation of the viewer (if the viewer has ever practiced using his or her imagination) fills in the dreadfully empty gaps.

The hinted-at story of the "forest witch" who used to live in the cave near the hotel (and the accompanying tales of vanishing hikers in the thick forest) is anything but fairytale-like. The cold, black crack in the mountain wall (the cave itself) seeps off the screen as it draws in the new young hotel desk clerk inch by inch. There's a lot of pathos here--the nervousness of beginning a new job for our protagonist; the impersonal darkness and dead-end corridors of the angular hotel; generally unfriendly and persnickety (even zombie-like) coworkers (one of which, in an understated dramatic moment, soullessly tells the protagonist to "Leave the hotel" and begins reciting the Rosary while mechanically cleaning a room); the suggestion of a "disappearance" (or perhaps, supernatural murder) of the previous desk clerk and everyone's unwillingness to discuss it. Yes, there's plenty of pathos.

But a warning is in order: This is not "The Shining." Kubrick's great film had a lot of Big Wheel action and Nicholson's drooling and babbling. Hotel has neither. But to create its own sterile, haunting effect, "Hotel" doesn't need Redrum or Scatman Crothers.

The clincher, however, is the ending of "Hotel." (Editorial: It reached valiantly for similar territory as the ending of Tarkovsky's "Solaris," in my opinion--"Hotel" didn't quite make it, but WOW!) Of course, I read many reviews that complained that "Nothing is explained" in the end. Whine, whine, whine! I guess ever since the "big-splashy-ending-that-explains-everything-in-a-surprise-twist" of "The Sixth Sense" and similar films, viewers are spoiled and need everything explained in a way that knocks their socks off. Well, my socks were absolutely knocked across the damn room, and at the same time NOTHING was reduced to a nugget-like explanation! I thought the abrupt, strange, pushed-off-a-cliff feeling invoked by director Hausner was PERFECT! It will stick with me for a while, and I recommend this film because of it.

And to those of you who "want your money back" from this "boring" film, I suggest you relax. Stop watching movies with expectations of having your entire life (and the lives of those on screen) explained away into absolute nothingness. News Flash #2: You don't know everything; you can't know everything. In fact, you may know very little about ANYTHING. (Just like the protagonist in this film; she knows so little--even about herself--that she may in fact BE the dreaded witch who dispatched her predecessor--who knows?)

You want REALLY SCARY? Here's a suggestion: Try existing in uncertainty. That's where "Hotel" lives. It's probably the scariest of all places to be.

The stuffy provincial atmosphere reminds me of "Requiem" or "Dogville", but the lighting is more like "2046" or "The Matrix". Irene (Franziska Weisz) is the new girl at the movie's eponymous hotel. She isn't the paranoid type, but soon feels slightly claustrophobic nevertheless. In fact, neither Irene nor the camera get to leave the hotel until 20 minutes into the movie. Although her colleagues' disposition ranges from grumpy to openly hostile, she can't be sure she'd be better off outside. We are led to believe the girl Irene is replacing went out and never came back. For there's a witch lurking in the forest. Or something. No matter where Irene goes, there are curtains everywhere to conceal the truth. The fact that there is no music other than from the creaky speaker in the elevator (and Irene's noisy next-door neighbors) adds to the eerie mood. There are obvious overtones of "Lost Highway", especially when Irene discovers she looks almost exactly like the missing girl. Of course, there is no living up to this promise. "Hotel" is probably a little too stylish for its own good, but it's a real pleasure to look at and leaves you feeling agreeably spooked.

I usually don't comment what fellow critics on IMDb write, but giving this little masterpiece only an average of 4,2 is bad taste indeed. In short; it's been a while since one saw a movie there so much happens, even if you don't see all of it on the screen. Franziska Weiss is really great, with a face which tells you a lot, with just a small correction of the glimpse in her eyes.

This is creepy, but in a way you might be rather familiar with from your own life. That life is here, by very small means, a nightmare. Maybe the end doesn't really fulfill what is promised, not really. Maybe the camera spotlights in the forest surrounding the hotel are too sharp.

But still this is supposed to give you much worse dreams than for example "The Grudge", which is made by amateurs.

This is my first review, but there's something about that movie that made me want to share my thoughts about it.

I've seen this movie a few times, and for me this movie is pure masochism, the joy of feeling uncomfortable. The Horror does not come from jumpscares but from the cold distance that comes from the colleagues. Maybe you really need to be an austrian to fully understand the feeling that Irene goes through.

When i was somewhere around the same age like Irene, i moved to eastern Austria close to the location this movie was filmed, at the same time when to movie was released. I also got a job in a kinda old fashioned Business that aimed the upper classes. The distance between colleagues themself and the bosses was huge and cold. Something i never experienced before. And this movie is so honest and good in portraying this distance, that i always can identify myself with Irene. I am the opposite of a shy person, but this tension at work makes you a shy mouse like Irene is. You're trying to create a friendshipy like relation to your colleagues, whom you see every day, but for an outsider it's nearly impossible to join the "inner circle". For an open minded person this is hard to accept, that it needs many months, if not years, to join the inner circle of the staff, that makes you feel welcome into the business you spend every day in. And theres no other movie, wich i saw so far, that is so good in transporting that feeling of cold Austrian distance between co-workers.

I especially want to mention the great work of Marlene Streeruwitz who did a brilliant job in acting one of the bosses, Frau Maschek. For me she is the austrian counterpart of Robert de Niro - An actor who loves to play the kind of person she hates like the most in real life. She keeps in all good manners, but lets you know that she doesn't trust you by the way she speaks to you in a bored and slightly annoyed way.

The work of the actors and how they are portrayed is brilliant and couldn't be performed better. The story itself has some weak parts, but in my opinion this movie isn't about the story, it's about what you feel while you're watching how Irene tries to become part of people who may be forced (?) to keep a distance but still sometimes show a little spark of sympathy that gives Irene the hope to become a real part of the team someday.

Allthough the story on itself isn't that thrilling i love the feelings that this movie is able to transport. If the story itself would be a bit more demanding this movie would get 10/10.