Hostel: Part II (2007)

24th Oct 07





Plot
Meet Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo), three American girls travelling around Europe and doing the odd bit of life-drawing along the way. They are soon befriended by the rather stunning Axelle (Vera Jordanova) and end up in Slovakia and indeed the same hostel from the first movie.

Whilst brothers Todd and Stuart (Richard Burgi) and (Roger Bart) get themselves psyched up for cutting up and killing the prize they have bid for, the three girls soon realise the terrible truth behind the hostel they have checked into.

Review
Writer / director Eli Roth loves to talk. In fact the fucker just won’t shut up. When you first hear him, the bugger is contagious with his enthusiasm for all things gore and sex related, so much so that you find yourself sitting there nodding in agreement with pretty much everything he says - from his opinions on the classic horrors that helped mould his warped mind, to the horrors he himself was looking to bring to the big screen.

With 2003’s Cabin Fever, his much trumpeted calling card to the movie world, Roth showed that he was going to be true to his agenda and indeed bring back blood and copulating couples to the horror genre. Whilst having kids stay at a shack in the middle of nowhere is pretty much a standard, Roth chose not to go for some demonic force being unleashed in the woods or have some nut-job stomping around the grounds with a machete, but went instead for a flesh-eating skin disease. His choice made for a refreshing change as did the fact that pretty much none of the characters were particularly likeable or sympathetic.

For his second feature Roth had the big-chinned wonder that is Quentin Tarantino putting on his producing hat and matching Eli in the mouthy stakes when it came to telling people just how ground-breakingly vile Roth’s next picture would be. That movie would be the controversial Hostel. Hyped up no end by an effective and gaudy poster campaign it came as a big disappointment when the promised level of shock that both gobs had been talking up a storm about failed to be nothing of the sort.

Instead we got pretty boy Jay Hernandez, so plastic he’s almost Ken, pouting his way through Slovakia before he and his buddies are lined up to be slaughtered for other people’s entertainment. Roth’s work could be best described as infantile. You can almost hear him squealing "Ooo, look at me, aren't I cutting edge" from behind the camera. Well frankly no, the movie was bollocks Roth so shut the fuck up. The idea of a sequel to the surprisingly successful Hostel was about as thrilling as bowel cancer and yet here it is. And a very pleasant surprise it is too.

Roth has reigned in some of his more adolescent tendencies and produced a better written and a well-rounded slice of entertainment. By opening up a back story about two American brothers travelling to claim their victims after winning a bidding war, Roth ensures that proceedings are less one dimensional second time around. It also helps that he has a cast that can act, which whilst not a prerequisite for genre movies has to be better than chubby lipped Hernandez and co from the original.

Roth actually manages to evoke sympathy for his characters, a first for him, meaning that when things do go bad for them you are rooting for them to survive. The scene in which one character is flayed as she hangs upside down pulls at the heartstrings as much as it appeals to the gore hound in us.

Indeed so satisfying was the viewing experience that any reservations regarding Roth's adaptation of Stephen King's novel Cell - where a phone signal spins the world as we know it into frenzied zombie mayhem - is now eagerly awaited. The boy did good, now if only he could learn to shut his trap and the film world would be a lot better place.

As he did with Audition director Takaski Miike in the first Hostel, Roth manages to work in Cannibal Holocaust director Ruggero Deodato for a cameo as um, a cannibal and look out too for Roth and Tarantino popping up as heads on sticks!

Posted by
S Cockwell



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