Final Guy: Paxton

After a gore-movie-buff friend INSISTED that he's seen a lot of Final GUYS in recent movies, I decided to watch Hostel with this gender-switch in mind. Sure enough...the Final Girl role is filled by a guy.

I didn't believe it at first when, late in the film, I started seeing the Paxton character conform to "Final Girl" standards...I thought I was seeing an "indiana Jones" resourcefulness at first (when Paxton starts 'catching on' to why people keep disappearing) but - alas - then I remembered that American hottie, Paxton, also uncharacteristically turned down SEX late in the film, where - in the beginning - he was leading his friends into sex-drugs-and- rock and roll bliss...

I had to hit "rewind" and take some notes...

Some limited insight into the film, "Hostel," from Executive Producer Quentin Tarantino and Director Eli Roth. Now, because we're talking about a Tarantino/Roth combination for this film, we have to assume that film makers are going to put a twist on 'the conventional' in these films. Nothing Tarantino does in the film industry is without creative twists and tests to the boundaries of 'the usual' or 'the accepted.'

This is basically a film that leads to a visual gore-fest, so most audiences who select this movie to watch are expecting a killer to be on the lose, killing to happen, and for someone to at least play a strong Final Girl or Last Man Standing role in the film.

The storyline is simple: 3 guys are backpacking in Europe (two Americans with an Icelandic friend) and they chance upon every heterosexual American male's dream...access to a lodging facility (Hostel) in Europe where the women are foreign beauties and have a sexual yearning for American males. Naturally (sorry - spoiler right away here), since one of the guys is Icelandic, he's gotta die first...and from here, the storyline doesn't really get more complicated, so follow me closely here...just so you 'get it' about how straightforward (sex-drugs-rock'n'roll-blood'n'gore-death-end) this film is.

Basically, the "Hostel" is a trap for mainly American males. The foreign beauties are at the Hostel to distract the guys with liquor, partying and sex, so they can be later taken to a sort of 'torture and death warehouse.'

Did you follow that okay? I know...the storyline is, well, apparently not the big feature of appeal in this movie. The torture warehouse is - once you get past all the naked women, party/booze scenes, etc.

So that's it...Paxton, our Final Guy is nothing like a Final Girl trope until this role is needed in the storyline. Technically, badboy Paxton should have been killed off either very early on or about halfway through the film at the point when, usually, viewers are just solidifying their decisions on who the Final Girl character happens to be in the movie.

Technically, Paxton shouldn't live as long as he does because he's actually the most major instigator of trouble who talks his American and Icelandic friends into making a special trip to the "Slovakian" Hostel that ends up being the trap they all get caught in.

Once Paxton is needed in the Final Girl way, he becomes quite a conventional Final Guy, acting as a non-sexual (sexually unavailable) character, suddenly becoming curious, cautious and resourceful.

Fourth Generation Mexican-American, Jay Hernandez was born in Montebello, California, U.S.A. on February 20th 1978. Jay's parents are Isis (nee Maldonaldo) an accountant and secretary, and Xavier Hernandez Sr. - a mechanic. Jay is third born in his family and has two older brothers (Michael and Gabriel) and a younger sister, Amelia.

Jay's start in show-business comes from a lucky incident that happened while he was in Los Angeles. While riding in an elevator in a building in said major city, Jay was approached by a talent manager named Howard Tyner. Tyner spoke to Jay and suggested Jay might have the right stuff to make it big in Hollywood, so Tyner also enrolled Jay in acting school and also started sending out Jay's picture to casting agents. After a minor role in 2000, Jay hit upon a role alongside well known actress Kirsten Dunst in the film "Crazy/Beautiful," and Jay has since been in over a dozen movies - on of which is Hostel (and very small role in Hostel II) directed by Eli Roth.

This lens is part of a March 2010 Hub Challenge I'm doing. I started March 1 and have a personal goal to publish at least 60 hubs over the month of March.

To check out how I'm doing, see my challenge hub, link below:

Mythbuster Hub Challenges

This hub is part of a series on "Final Girls" and the series will contain no less than 7 Final Girl personalities once my Hub Challenge goal is realized.