Horror obsessive Eli Roth introduces his film Hostel.

Produced by Quentin Tarantino, Hostel is the latest exercise in gratuitous blood-letting from Cabin Fever director Eli Roth.

As the opening credits roll, the sight of blood, flesh and teeth being rinsed down filthy drains is ideal preparation for the kind of grisly yarn where nobody ends up with their full complement of body parts.

Our hapless heroes are Paxton (Hernandez) and Josh (Richardson), two horny Americans trekking around Europe with Icelandic buffoon Oli (Gudjonsson) in search of strong weed and loose women.

They find the former in Amsterdam and learn that they can get as much of the latter as their loins desire at an obscure hostel somewhere near Bratislava.

On arrival, it seems that all their (wet) dreams have come true. Local attractions include delicious, sauna-loving roomies Natalya (Nedeljakova) and Svetlana (Kaderabkova), and Pax and Josh waste no time in exploring their charms.

The next morning, Oli has gone. But the time for real concern comes after another night out when Josh regains consciousness shackled to a chair in a medieval chamber, surrounded by steel instruments. Not good.

And when a sadist in a butcher's apron purrs "I al-vays vonted to be a surgeon", it's time to scream.

You see, this is where innocent hostellers become the playthings of a global cabal of ultra-rich sickos - a fact that Paxton discovers terrifyingly late.

Roth got the idea after chatting with internet heavyweight Harry Knowles about the sickest thing they had seen on the web.

So as the Daily Wail prepares its "Ban this sick film!" campaign, it's worth remembering that we live in a world where scenes of torture are everyday news, real executions can be downloaded at will and people queue round the block for the London Dungeons.

Like it or not, Roth is merely pandering to our fascination with gore. And he has a nailed-on talent for making gorges rise and neck-hairs bristle (enhanced here by Nathan Barr's Psycho-style score).

Better skip that popcorn because Hostel is the movie equivalent of sticking two fingers down the back of your throat.

Elliott Noble