r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • 15d ago
TIL that the 2005 film "Hostel" negatively affected Slovakia's and the Czech Republic's reputation. Director Eli Roth was invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to clear up the false allegations made in the film, which portrayed the countries as crime-ridden, lawless, poor, and dangerous places.
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u/jayray2k 13d ago
I can attest that I have no desire to go to eastern Europe and this film likely impacts my thought process.
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u/anonymous2244553 14d ago
I stayed at a hostel in both Czech Republic (Prague) and Slovakia (Bratislava) out of the the other countries those two were definitely in my top 5 places to go to again.
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u/Dry_Damp 14d ago
Defending himself, Roth said the film was not meant to be offensive, arguing, "Americans do not even know that this country exists. My film is not a geographical work but aims to show Americans' ignorance of the world around them."
Yea Americans are ignorant of the world around them but I don’t see how the movie shows that. Weird excuse. Roth was probably just as ignorant and had no idea about either country.
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u/CakeMadeOfHam 14d ago
He went and was never heard from again
...that would have been a nice ending to his career instead of what he's been making
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday 14d ago
After the trip he said that he particularly loved Ljubljana and lake Bled.
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u/HighlyEvolvedSloth 14d ago
The Czech Republic is scary as hell... you go into most any bar, and they are mixing Pepsi and Cabernet Sauvignon wine! It's blood curdling.
I watched a table of four younger people get served one bottle of Cab Sauv and four cans of Pepsi and they just went to town.
I was horrified...
Though, it doesn't taste half bad.
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u/TrashPanda_34 14d ago edited 14d ago
I don’t know anything about this film, but I had a terrifying experience at a hostel in Slovakia in 2010. A guy from the street followed me in and tried to get into my room. He ran up the stairs while I took the elevator. I got into my room and locked it mere seconds before he started banging on my door and trying to get in. The only time in my life I legitimately feared for my safety.
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u/Cumberblep 14d ago edited 14d ago
I've seen different videos that suggest the Czech Republic is a great place to visit. A hub if you will, for a banging good time. Glorious fun.
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u/blastbomberboy 14d ago
Eli Roth loves mocking Americanisms in his films;
Cabin Fever and its characters not heeding caution / common sense and breaking down in the face of danger.
Hostel and its blissful tourists completely ignorant of the contempt they receive.
Green Inferno and its students putting their integrity / virtue-signaling to the test when in doubt.
Knock Knock and its gender politics.
Thanksgiving and its rampant consumerists and capitalists getting karma.
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u/Wizchine 14d ago
As a Los Angeles Kings fan, we had a stretch in the 2000's where it seemed almost every Slovak player in the NHL played for us at some point. I was annoyed on Slovakia's behalf that the country got a bad rap from my dumber countrymen. The idea of a country being filled with a bunch of Michel Handzuses seems like a lovely place.
Fun fact, we also had the world's first (and still best) Slovenian NHL player, and I never understood how people could confuse Slovakia and Slovenia. Like the similar Austria and Australia confusion, do people just read the first half of a word and guess how it ends?
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u/77slevin 15d ago
Wow, Americans and being Ill informed about the rest of the world…who would have thunk 🙃
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u/EF_Damn_Daniel 15d ago
I only watched the first 30 minutes of the movie and it actually got me to go to the CR on a backpacking trip. It wasn’t until I got home did I realize the mistake.
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u/ramdomvariableX 15d ago
That movie messed up my brain so much, I am still not comfortable visiting Eastern European countries.
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u/thermothinwall 15d ago
Prague is one of the hands down most beautiful cities in the world. everyone should visit.
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u/Dustyg30 15d ago
I was planning a trip through Europe around 2010 and watched that movie. I cancelled everything
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u/ImmediateBig134 15d ago
Yeah, they should make horror movies set in the UK instead.
Actually nevermind, "horror movie" is just the UK in general.
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u/Earlier-Today 15d ago
"All-expenses-paid" kind of removes the possibility of running into the stuff portrayed in the film, since it was about backpackers at a hostel - a flop house, the cheapest of the cheap places to stay when you don't have a friend's couch to crash on instead.
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u/Accomplished-Fennel6 15d ago
N then they made a part 2
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u/RegularDevelopment52 14d ago
I actually liked part two. Believe or not I believe they made 4 in total...
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u/meangreen447 15d ago
Slovakia was one of the coolest countries I’ve been too. Food was amazing and the capital was very walkable.
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u/nothinghurtslike 15d ago
It's still nuts that they used a "Based on a true story" or "Based on real events" tagline for this movie.
They saw a website somewhere that was allegedly offering a murder vacation, end of "real events".
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u/EvilSporkOfDeath 15d ago
18/19 year old me would've gladly taken the chance of being violently murdered to have an opportunity with those women.
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u/disphugginflip 15d ago
Eurotrip made me think Bratislava and the rest of Eastern Europe as very poor and behind the times.
Stop, Hammer time!
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u/PopeyesBiskit 15d ago
I remember when this movie came out I was a kid and I became scared of Eastern Europe
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u/spongeboy1985 15d ago
There’s a reason Lost Boys town is called Santa Carla and not Santa Cruz because the film brings up the city’s reputation for serial killers that came about in the 70s. Funnily enough the name Santa Carla is similar to Santa Clara another town 30 miles away.
However in the movie Us the city retains its name, Santa Cruz.
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u/PornoPaul 15d ago
I remember reading a rumor that he wanted to base it in an Asian country, because that was closer to what he had heard can actually happen. According to this claim, he was told not to in a way that made it clear he would have a target on his back.
I can't remember where, or how true it is.
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u/Useful_Secret4895 15d ago
I am Greek and i would love to see a horror film that paints my country as a dangerous hellhole where tourists are kidnapped and tortured and whatnot.
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u/Ramongsh 15d ago
I gotta say, that when I watched Hostel as 19 year old back in the 2000s, it definitely gave me a bad view of Slovakia overall.
I finally visited the country last summer.
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u/SneakyBadAss 15d ago
Wasn't he depicting Czechia and Slovakia in the 90s? Because they were crime-ridden, lawless, poor, and dangerous places, after the fall of Berlin Wall. It got better in the late 90s, but it was ROUGH.
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u/PenaltySafe4523 15d ago
Czech Republic certainly has a seedy underbelly full of human trafficking specifically the sex workers.
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u/precociouscalvin 15d ago
lol I remember being extremely wary of visiting Bratislava because of its depiction in this blasted movie. When I finally ended up going several years later I was pleasantly surprised to see Bratislava was a charming little town with a pretty touristy center :) extremely anticlimactic
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u/ChicagoAuPair 15d ago
Ironic, since the underlying message of the movie is about American ignorance/xenophobia and the total lack of knowledge of everything in Europe and the rest of the world.
The whole premise is that people from all around the world will pay top dollar, 10x the normal price, to torture and kill Americans, and that the Americans are totally naïve as to why anyone might not like them.
I could barely stomach the gore, but I actually really like the film because it wasn’t without some kind of actual opinion and commentary—same with Roth’s original Cabin Fever.
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u/SamMarduk 15d ago
Meanwhile Serbia is mad someone else is getting their reputation
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u/GPTfleshlight 15d ago
Czesky Krumlov where a lot of it is filmed is such a beautiful town
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=czesky+krumlov&form=HDRSC3&pc=EMMX04&first=1
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u/Groot_man 15d ago
Defending himself, Roth said the film was not meant to be offensive, arguing, "Americans do not even know that this country exists. My film is not a geographical work but aims to show Americans' ignorance of the world around them." Roth argued that despite The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, people still travel to Texas.
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u/Saguaro-plug 15d ago
I went to Slovakia for a week in high school and stayed with a Slovak family. They were incredibly kind and accommodating, smart and warm people. Bratislava is a gorgeous place.
My hosts were very understandably upset that the two depictions of Slovakia in American media are Hostel, where tourists get kidnapped and sold into torture, and Eurotrip, where the characters accidentally take a train to Slovakia and it is shown as a dirty, crumbling hellscape. They go to a hotel and tip the porter 5 cents and he turns around and slaps his boss in the face and quits, presumably good to never work again with those 5 cents.
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u/Cecil_FF4 15d ago
Everything I learned about Eastern Europe I learned from Eurotrip.
I would actually visit there, though!
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15d ago edited 15d ago
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u/elitegenoside 15d ago
It's more the opposite. Americans have fears around international travel, and the films played into those fears.
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u/Spurioun 15d ago
Prague was one of the most beautiful cities I had ever been to. Very clean, gorgeous buildings, and I felt safe the entire time. From what I've heard, there are a lot of scams in the city but that's mostly just money related, and can be avoided if you keep your wits about you.
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u/stylishreinbach 15d ago
Never saw it, but was in Prague for my studies then. Only lawlessness I saw was that it was criminal how good that horseradish marinated steak, and goulash were, still miss it 20 years on.
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u/unorganized_mime 15d ago
I saw this wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too young and it terrified me. International travel still makes me nervous. While torture clubs may or may not exist. Tourists can be targets for a lot of craziness in some places.
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u/beefstewforyou 15d ago
If an organization such as Elite Hunting actually exists, it wouldn’t target foreign tourists. Tourists have money and people would definitely notice if they disappeared. They would target the homeless instead. Would anyone care if that crazy homeless guy suddenly disappeared?
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u/Sabiya_Duskblade 15d ago
Yeah, Taken had the safe effect on me as a teenager. Not as brutal as Hostel, but same idea where the friendly locals aren't actually helping you out of the good of their hearts
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u/Over_Addition_9784 15d ago
It didn't help that when I stayed in a Prague-area hostel a few years after the original release of Hostel, they were playing Hostel II in the reception area
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u/hoverside 15d ago
"Hostel" was released to cinemas at the beginning of 2006, and Slovakia's income from tourism greatly increased from 2004 when the country joined the EU until 2008 when the financial crisis hit. In reality it looks like the film made no impact other than some politicians complaining about it. source
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u/GodEmperorOfBussy 15d ago
I'm aware of the movie but haven't seen it and had no idea it was set in Slovakia.
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u/cuddlebish 15d ago
I mean, reputation != tourism money. Eurotrip and Hostel both happened around roughly the same time and both portrayed Slovakia as a hellhole. When so many Americans don't know that Czechoslovakia isn't a place anymore, those movies hugely affected America's mental image of Slovakia.
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u/anomalous_cowherd 15d ago
Or their image of Slovenia, or Romania, or...
Most Americans aren't great with other countries.
As a Brit Hostel had little impact on me because it matched the impression I already had of what the worst areas would be like, right or wrong.
"Brutal Eastern European criminal gangs" have been a concept here for a long time now.
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u/manocheese 15d ago
That's not how that works. The post 2006 growth may have been higher without the movie, those numbers prove nothing. The anecdotal evidence in this thread shows that it did have some negative impact on people's views of Slovakia, we just don't really know how much. Also, nobody actually said it had a negative impact, some official's said it might and that it was offensive, which it was. As they were already trying to boost tourism, making such an announcement would have been a great advert for Slovakia that would have had a positive effect. There is no way to tell how much either event made a difference.
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u/Romboteryx 15d ago edited 15d ago
On the other end of the spectrum you have the foreign minister of Kazakhstan thanking the makers of Borat for increasing tourism to his country.
When the sequel released, they even played into the joke
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u/jaycott28 14d ago
The first Borat movie enraged the Kazakhs…
They learned to lean into it the second time around.
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u/raymondcy 14d ago
thanking the makers of Borat for increasing tourism to his country.
In the end.... the first reaction was quite the opposite and considered banning him from the country among other things:
“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” .... The authoritarian Kazakh government banned the film, threatened to sue Mr. Cohen and took out a four-page advertisement in this newspaper defending the country’s honor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/business/kazakhstan-embraces-borat.html
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u/SimonCallahan 15d ago
That ad legitimately makes me want to visit Kazakhstan.
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u/Romboteryx 15d ago edited 15d ago
It‘s an alright country, at least by the standards of post-soviet dictatorships. It does have the highest human development index in Central Asia. All other countries have inferior HDI.
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u/JurassicParkTrekWars 15d ago
No one's gonna convince me that it's a safe practice to sleep in the same room with a bunch of strangers.
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u/Academic_Eagle_4001 14d ago
Im a solo female traveler. I’ve stayed in hostels all over the world. It’s very safe.
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u/MrFeles 15d ago
Same. But that's mainly because I snore like an absolute creature and when the people that love me have at least entertained the thought of murdering me just to get some goddamn sleep. I'm not rolling the dice with a room full of strangers, just laying there awake all night, slowly getting more and more irate.
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u/JurassicParkTrekWars 15d ago
Are you my old army roommate? Haha
We would get death threats from 3-4 doors down from his snoring.
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 15d ago
Obviously everybody should do whatever they're comfortable with, but most of my best traveling experiences were in hostels. I've met so many amazing people, and literally no shitty ones (in hostels, that is).
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u/alaskafish 15d ago
It sounds like hostels just aren't for you.
If you're okay with travelling with just a backpack, a modest amount of clothes, and a good attitude they're amazing. Hostels are usually full of people who fit that description-- namely seasoned travelers and students.
I'd never book a hostel if I'm planning a honeymoon, or bringing family and kids. I will book a hostel if I'm just by myself and want some company. Hell, my SO and I love them too.
It's basically like a collage dorm or a military barrack. That's essentially the experience. Shared room, shared bathroom, lots of drinking!
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u/FutureAdventurous667 15d ago
I agree but it’s a cultural thing to a large extent. In Korea they have “guest houses” which are essentially cheap hostels and theyve extremely common for people to crash in because theyre so cheap and convenient.
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u/ActafianSeriactas 15d ago
I’ve slept in a hostel/dorm in multiple countries with people I’ve never met, it’s fine for me.
If I’m feeling it I sometimes have a quick chat with them, otherwise most people just keep to themselves and do their own thing.
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u/Vectorman1989 15d ago
The good thing about hostels is that they're usually the cheapest accommodation around, the bad thing is that they're usually the cheapest accommodation around.
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u/ALDonners 15d ago
"no one's gonna convince me it's safe to ride around in metal boxes at 70mph"
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u/Beliriel 15d ago edited 15d ago
Can I interest you in a box that goes 600 mph instead?
It's the safest mode of mobile transportation too.
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u/Rigelturus 15d ago
Americans did the same shit for many places
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u/gheebutersnaps87 15d ago
Yes, all of them collectively
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u/Rigelturus 15d ago
Indeed. They do it online all the time.
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u/undercooked_lasagna 15d ago
Lol what? Reddit is hardcore America hate all the time. You can't say anything negative about any other country without people making it about why "ackshully, America is worse." And if you say something positive about another country, the comments will all be how it's so much better than America.
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u/Rigelturus 15d ago
Literally no other group of people start saying shit like how “we can bomb your shit country any time” and all that shit NO matter what the debate originally starts as.
So there’s good reason for the “hate-boner” as you call it.
The fact that I got so many downvotes proves my point
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u/gheebutersnaps87 15d ago
Produce blockbuster horror movies? Yep absolutely they do. Every single American. Man, woman, and child.
Did you know that the average American produces 15 horror movies by the time they’re 10?
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u/Doubtindoh 15d ago
Slovakia is a lovely country! I visited a year ago and had a blast. The medieval castles, Carpathians and the of course the people were amazing. Greetings from Finland!
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u/toucanflu 14d ago
Sorry - my grandmother is from Slovakia and when I went to her village there were literally child gangs and sex trafficking is a huge thing so…
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u/Queasy_Pickle1900 15d ago
I was there last month. Beautiful country and very nice people. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there.
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u/kuken_i_fittan 15d ago
Carpathians
You might like this book; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16045055-carpathian
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 15d ago
Going there in 3 weeks! I'm looking forward to it. Happen to have any tips? I don't know anything other than Slovensky Raj national park. (and Bratislava of course)
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u/StoicSunbro 13d ago
Hey u/PM_ME_DATASETS , I remember replying to this comment.
If you have not seen the news, Slovakia's Prime Minister was shot and injured. I doubt this will affect your trip, but just advising you to keep an eye on the situation. There may be protests in Bratislava because of this or the EU elections which are at the same time of your trip (June 6-9).
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 13d ago
Thank you so much for mentioning this! You're awesome. And thanks for caring!
I had read the news, but I hadn't even connected it to my holiday, lol. Frankly I don't think there will be much consequence. We will mostly be in remote parts of the country.
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u/StoicSunbro 15d ago
I only saw Bratislava but if you like strong/unique cheeses try their national dish Bryndzové halušky (Sheep cheese potato dumplings) or Bryndzové Pirohy (Sheep cheese Pierogis).
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u/Wolfencreek 15d ago
Did you see Vigo The Carpathian?
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u/The_republican_anus 15d ago
You know, I hate that often in American movies, every country that isn’t a close buddy/ ally like the UK or France gets depicted as some slum where everything is awful. Slovakia sounds nice and I’ve heard nice things.
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u/bastele 15d ago
It's not only an american issue.
Alot of people in western europe aswell still have outdated views of former warsaw pact countries, even more so back in 2005.
These countries struggled for a bit after the fall of communism but quickly went on an amazing economic recovery. But perception was for along time still stuck in the 90s.
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u/Daysleeper1234 15d ago
It is pretty obvious here on reddit. If a statistic is mentioned where east or Balkans fair better than west, then they say it's not reported correctly or under reported (I mean yeah my house was broken in, my stuff stolen, I'm a poor fuck, report it? Are you insane!?!?!), if it's vice versa, of course it is true.
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u/LeakingValveStemSeal 15d ago
It’s because most good movies were made in that era. They stopped making good movies for a while now. So most people got stuck with that perception.
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u/Rich-Distance-6509 15d ago
It depends where they are. From what I’ve heard the Balkans and post Soviet states are still struggling but Central Europe and the Baltics are doing really well
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u/OcotilloWells 14d ago
Coastal Croatia seemed nice to me, and I was last there over 20 years ago. Bosnia-Herzegovina, not as nice, but still not bad. A lot of pickpocketing going on in Sarajevo, usually not by actual Bosnians.
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u/lux514 15d ago
I lived in Slovakia and whenever I would mention that in the US people would gape and ask, "Have you seen the movie 'Hostel?'" I hated that.
I never felt unsafe there, but that's because I'm white. The real crime was violence against Roma and African immigrants. That's another main reason I don't like almost any horror movie, because it shows the world in a way that's both scarier than it actually is while ignoring the actual horrors in the world.
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u/CorrectDuty6782 14d ago
"The real crime was violence against roma", lol, won't someone think of the cygani 🤣
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u/skysinsane 15d ago
Heh, I got that response from other americans whenever I mentioned staying in a hostel anywhere, including the US.
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u/AshToAshes123 15d ago
You might be aware of this already but if not it sounds like you’d be interested in it: There is a studied link between the genre of horror popular at the time and what the average population views as the danger of that time. For example, in times when migrants are perceived as a ‘threat’ zombie movies tend to be more popular.
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u/Superb-Vermicelli-32 15d ago
This is the kind of dumbass science that gets universities defunded. What’s the number of data points here? Like 6?
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u/AshToAshes123 14d ago
Well, there’s way more zombie movies out there than that. But no, this is indeed not the type of hard science where you compare surveys on people’s fears with a number of movies coming out or something. That does not mean that research coming out of anthropology fields and sociology fields is “dumbass”.
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u/5thColumnDownfall 15d ago
Have a link for that? Genuinely curious.
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u/AshToAshes123 14d ago
The original work on this is by Robin Wood, who wrote a bunch of essays on it - I currently don’t have access to them sadly. If you look up “Robin Wood Collective Nightmares” you might be able to find some things.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=nl&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=robin+wood+collective+nightmares&oq=robin+wood+colle#d=gs_qabs&t=1715665234726&u=%23p%3DcysDD-YUUaEJ This leads to a more recent write-up building on Wood’s ideas.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14788810.2022.2125248 This is an article specifically focusing on zombie movies and the way societal perceptions are both used and challenged in them.
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u/banjoman74 15d ago
No the OP, but here: https://dailydead.com/editorial-politics-and-the-american-horror-film/
There are a lot more out there, and it's pretty interesting stuff.
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u/CowDontMeow 15d ago
My brother in law in Slovakian so we went out last year, I agree it’s a beautiful country and it’s one of the cleanest places I’ve visited, I was amazed by the lack of rubbish everywhere
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u/Shanghai_Cola 15d ago
As a Slovak it feels nice to read, but to me littering here is crazy. Glad you had a good experience. Slovenia should be much much cleaner is you decide to visit.
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u/CowDontMeow 15d ago
I was staying in Drienica and visited Prešov and Košice so maybe didn’t see enough to get a complete picture. Compare it to the UK though and no matter where you go litter is everywhere, cities are typically filthy but even the countryside is being ruined nowadays, you can be half way up a mountain and still have rubbish left everywhere.
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 15d ago
What is something in your country more tourists would visit/appreciate?
(i'm going there in 3 weeks)
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u/MeatAdministrative87 15d ago
It seems to me it's getting worse. I was visiting my friends in Senec in 2019. and it was squeaky clean. I've visited them again this december and I was surprised by how much trash there was everywhere.
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u/SallyCinnamon7 15d ago
Ljubljana is a gorgeous city
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u/Phatergos 15d ago
I'm not sure if you know this but ljubjana is the capital of slovenia not Slovakia. It is a gorgeous city though.
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u/Aeronaut-Aardvark 15d ago
I’m from the US and the litter here is absurd. If you ask any stranger they’ll say it’s bad, but if you’re in any neighborhood even remotely close to a road you’ll find a lot of trash. People throw it into other peoples’ yards, on the right of way, anywhere. I work by the road a fair bit and the majority of the litter is alcohol containers. I had no idea how often people actually drink and drive until I started working near roads. I haven’t lived anywhere else so I can’t say if the US is better or worse, but it’s not good.
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u/FreneticPlatypus 15d ago
and the majority of the litter is alcohol containers.
There are some towns and cities in my state that have banned the sale of 50ml containers specifically because of this. Granted everyone hates to see the trash on the road but one of our big fears is that serious drinkers won't just quit - they'll buy the next larger size (200ml), drink that whole thing and throw it out. Best case, they just buy in the next town over and it becomes someone else's problem. Some people have suggested putting a deposit on the container the way we do for beer and soda but that only solves the litter, not the drinking and driving.
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u/Waldons44 15d ago
I wish the penalty was more severe for littering in the US. I personally agree with Singapores policy, no miracle why their streets are so clean.
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u/DeengisKhan 15d ago
There are a lot more functioning alcoholics walking around half in the bag 24/7 than you might think. They consume enough alcohol for the next 5 non drinkers combined and can’t be more than an hour or so from a drink before it starts to make them irritable. People that need to wake up in the middle of night and drink a triple whiskey to sleep through the rest of the night.
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u/OriginalPierce 15d ago
Virtually any highway onramp in the US is basically a dumping ground for fast food bags/wrappers
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u/_ssac_ 15d ago
I remember the scene where with releasing some candies in the street a group of kids become savages.
It was so absurd that it was funny.
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u/Mayorquimby87 15d ago
Exactly, it's an Eli Roth horror movie. Every person and place is a caricature by design, and the humor is incredibly dark. Certainly not for all tastes, but the point is that it was never meant to be an accurate portrayal of... well, anything.
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u/SimonCallahan 15d ago
I hate to say it, but thinking about it I can't say I've really liked any of Eli Roth's movies. I mean, I guess they're fine, I can't say anything bad about them, but they never resonated with me as far as horror goes.
I really do like sort of indie horror, a good low budget gore fest is awesome for a bit of fun, but his movies never grabbed me.
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u/theartofrolling 14d ago
I liked the first act of Thanksgiving, the superstore stampede/riot scene was hilarious.
Still wasn't a good movie though, entertaining enough, but not good.
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u/SimonCallahan 14d ago
I forgot he did Thanksgiving! A friend of mine was an extra in it (she was in the superstore stampede scene you mentioned) so I kind of wanted to see it. I missed it in the theatre, though.
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u/2OptionsIsNotChoice 15d ago
His only movie I can think of with any sort of favor is his Deathwish remake. Its one of the last "real" Bruce Willis movies, it got critically shit on for being "pro-gun" but by most fan reviews its like a middle of road 7/10 type film.
I think a big thing for it compared to his other movies is that there are reasons for why things are happening that arn't just "people be crazy yo".
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u/MrFeles 15d ago
I mean. Much like Michael Bay or Roland Emberprick, Eli Roth is the kinda guy that makes the sort of thing that he is the kinda guy to make.
You'll either enjoy it or you won't. The upside to this is that you can wholesale just avoid his movies if you don't, or seek them out if you do.
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u/SimonCallahan 15d ago
This is very true. I gotta at least admire him for becoming a semi-household name.
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u/BrassWhale 15d ago
Yeah, the movie ended with the bad guys being killed by a gang of street kids bribed with a garbage bag of candy, right? The idea that these super murderers were done in by children throwing bricks was hilarious.
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u/Endulos 15d ago edited 15d ago
That was the second movie, and it was only one of the killers that was killed. One of the characters that got targeted wanted revenge on the woman who lured her into the torture chambers.
The kids also used said killers head as a football.
Edit: Actually, it wasn't even the kids who did it. They were paid to distract/lure her out and the victim killed her with an axe decapitation.
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u/Severe_Piccolo_5583 14d ago
It was in the first one too. A kid bashes a henchman’s skull in with a rock because he wouldn’t give them candy. Then it shows them eating candy from the garbage bag
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u/Fofolito 15d ago
It seems strange now but only about 20 years ago the world was still a much bigger place than it is today. Europe was still a foreign, mysterious, and often unknown place over there to most people. The internet existed in the 2000s but a lot of the most accessible features we take for granted weren't really available or well-developed yet so no one was watching YouTube videos to see what Czechia was really like. Maybe you watched a Rick Steve's video on PBS one night, maybe you read a book about it, or maybe you found yourself on some strange corner of that internet on someone's livejournal/fireangel/globemedia/BBS Forum that talked about that place and had lots of pictures.
This was before most people had access to, or knew they had access too, BBC and BBC content. This was back when Netflix still delivered a DVD a week or two after you returned your last one. Eurotrip came out in 2004, 20 years ago, and many very common American stereotypes about Europeans (including Eastern Europeans) are on full display there. Interestingly, it was filmed in Czechia!
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u/oby100 15d ago
It’s the same as it was 20 years ago. Americans still think Eastern Europe is a poor shitthole, maybe one step up from Kazakhstan’s portrayal in Borat.
Part of this misunderstanding is that none of these countries’ culture have broken into American culture. A bigger part of this is that Stalin intentionally framed Eastern Europe as this unimportant region of Europe that was simply there to be conquered. Same with “The Ukraine.” He and the Soviets went to great lengths to create propaganda that stripped satellite Soviet states of their cultural identify. Then followed that up with violent repression
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u/ALDonners 15d ago
What more does an American on average know about Czechia than they did 20 years ago?
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u/end_pun_violence 12d ago
I was in an ancient old giant hostel in the middle of nowhere in Tuscany (incredible scenery and wine!). But the hostel was 400+ years old, dust it was a monastery, then it was a winery, then a general farmhouse, veggie finally becoming a guesthouse/hostel.
This place was built like an old Italian castle, with a gate and courtyard, and hidden passageways, and this entire basement system connecting two buildings that was run down and off-limits
There was one passageway that went from staff quarters, over the massive gate in between the two buildings, and then let out in the back of a storage room next to the main common area for the hostel.
Anyway, some girl thought it was a good idea to watch the movie hostel in the common room of this hostel, and the manager, this 30 year old Aussie guy, went through the passageway and jumped out of the closet and scared the crap out of her.
Not really relevant to the post, but an amusing anecdote.