Hotel

2004 [GERMAN]

Drama / Horror / Mystery

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 36% · 3 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 36% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.6/10 10 1986 2K

woman director

Plot summary

When Irene takes a position at a hotel deep in the woods of the Austrian Alps, she soon discovers the girl she replaced vanished without a trace.

Director

Jessica Hausner Photo
Jessica Hausner

Top cast

Franziska Weisz Photo
Franziska Weisz as Irene
Thomas Frank Photo
Thomas Frank as Bauer 2
Robert Birkner Photo
Robert Birkner as Reiseleiter
Jean Tourou Photo
Jean Tourou as Hotelgast
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
707.92 MB
1280*694
German 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 17 min
Seeds 2
1.42 GB
1920*1040
German 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 17 min
Seeds 3

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by salmon62 6 / 10

A simple mystery and an interesting study of isolation and disappointment

Irene is the new receptionist in a hotel in the austrian alps. She's not a local and thus is assigned living quarters on-site. She is obedient and pretty, modest and respectful. She likes swimming in the hotel pool, and walking close to the hotel in the foreboding woods.She is friendly and wants to be a part of her peer group. Her co-workers are either stoic or rude and inconsiderate. Irene is alone and isolated------ and this isolation is the underlying theme of the film.Irene was hired to replace another young woman, also a boarder, who has gone missing. There is a police investigation underway during Irene's early time at the hotel. We're told that there is a local legend of a Woman of the Woods, a witch who lives in the woods, perhaps inside the ominous cave near the hotel. Are the woods indeed haunted? Is someone stalking Irene?These factors contribute to the mystery of the film, but do not explain the fate of Irene.If you view this film as a horror and expect scares or gore, you will be confused and disappointed. The truer description is of a simple mystery involving young, low-paid service workers struggling to make connections in the stark, depressive environment of a mountain hotel.Irene's emotional health visibly declines as her initial hopefulness about a new job in hospitality fades and becomes lonely and odd. Even the most simple joys she seeks, the friendship of a co-worker, a brief romance, a schedule change to go home, or pool swimming, become disappointments. This is the defining quality of the film, and when viewed as such, the ending makes sense.This is an interesting, colorful, dark, film with repressed characters and dark hallways. It is relatively easy to watch at 75 minutes. This was a wise decision by the director. The runtime is perfect for the story.
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Reviewed by thecatcanwait 5 / 10

A dull hotel

Boring Austrian hotel requires boring receptionist to replace previous receptionist (probably also boring) who has disappeared, or been disappeared, into surrounding dark spooky forest; possibly gobbled up in the cave. By our Lady of the Woods. As boredom material.

Actually, I might have assumed too much there – imagined too much drama, or too much haunty horror. Which is no doubt what the director would like me to do: see all the strange goings on she's – deliberately – not been showing. And also reading into the narrative all the story she's not been developing, or even really providing. The new receptionist Irene never says very much; and the other characters don't say much to her either. Is something "funny" going to happen to her? Hopefully yes – otherwise watching this film will have felt like a waste of time.

Come the end something funny does happen to her. But it still felt like a waste of time. There's been too much concealed as opposed to revealed or released dramatic tension. The direction far too mutedly mannered. Far too withheld.

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