Synopsis

While backpacking through Europe, two American friends and their Icelandic companion are lured to a remote Slovakian hostel by promises of sex and adventure. Their carefree trip turns into a nightmare when they discover that the hostel is a front for a secret organization catering to wealthy clients who pay to torture and kill unsuspecting travelers.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was made for approximately $4.8 million and became a commercial success, earning about $80 million worldwide.

• Although the story is set in Slovakia, much of the production was filmed in the Czech Republic, including Prague and Cesky Krumlov.

• The scenes inside the film's slaughterhouse were shot at Prague's Bohnice psychiatric hospital, using a long-closed wing of the complex.

• The travelers' room number, 237, references the hotel room in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

• Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike appears as one of the wealthy clients visiting the torture facility.

• The film's premise was partly inspired by a story about a supposed "murder vacation" website where customers could pay to kill someone.

• The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 17, 2005, before its United States theatrical release on January 6, 2006.

• A guard's DVD player briefly shows Sex Fever, an explicit parody of the earlier horror film Cabin Fever.