Hostel Part II (2007)

Directed by: Eli Roth | 93 minutes | horror | Actors: Lauren German, Roger Bart, Bijou Phillips, Heather Matarazzo, Richard Burgi, Vera Jordanova, Jay Hernandez, Jordan Ladd, Edwige Fenech, Stanislav Ianevski, Patrik Zigo, Zuzana Geislerová, Milan Knazko, Ivan Furak, Monika Malacova

Director Eli Roth seems to rely on recommendations from other filmmakers. His debut ‘Cabin Fever’ had the support of Peter Jackson, and trashy horror hit ‘Hostel’ prominently used Quentin Tarantino’s name on the poster to provide some extra publicity. It is not important that the best man has little to do with the film itself. The main thing is that the audience is lured into the cinema. Because marketing is everything. To get the audience excited about ‘Hostel Part II’, Roth decided to praise the “gore” quality. The director tells anyone who will listen that this film is absolutely groundbreaking in its atrocities. ‘Hostel Part II’ is the scariest, most extreme horror movie ever, if Roth is to be believed.

This is disappointing. Yes, there’s at least one scene in it that’s quite gruesome to endure – especially for the male viewers – but the bulk of the film is relatively tame or at least uncontroversial. For the lover of bleak and darkly comic torture scenes there is a lot to enjoy, but nowadays the viewer is already so much exposed to these kinds of extremities that the reaction will not go much further than a raised eyebrow.

It is mainly about constructing the most effective possible context around the torture scenes. And it is in this area that ‘Hostel Part II’ fails the most. After all, now that the whole “hostel from hell” idea has been stripped of surprise, it’s not advisable to build the sequel in much the same way as the original. And this is what Roth largely does.

For starters, the structure is almost identical. It looks like there will be some interesting continuity with the original for a moment, when the film turns out to be a seamless fit with the original; with the runaway Paxton (Jay Hernandez) on the train. Unfortunately, his character soon disappears from the scene, at which point everything starts all over again. Replace the three guys traveling to the Slovakian utopian hostel with three girls and let them go there for the relaxing hot springs instead of arousing hot women and, voila, you have your sequel.

And the annoying thing is that this approximately forty-five minutes of build-up is a lot more boring than in the original. The approach of sex-hungry students may have been exploitative and an excuse for unfunctional nudity, but at the same time it fitted very nicely into the horror tradition. That tradition where sex is your downfall. In addition, the temptresses were very tantalizing, not only because of their physical attraction, but because of their mystery and danger. Beautiful women who just present themselves on a silver platter, that is of course too good to be true. The boys should have blindfolded themselves and turned around. Like the sirens who wanted Odysseus to go on the rocks with their enticing chants, there could only be trouble from the sexy ladies in the Slovakian hostel.

None of these stimuli (sexual and dangerous) is discernible in ‘Hostel Part II’. The ladies go on holiday to Prague and then hear about the therapeutic heat sources in Slovakia: not exactly imaginative. Also, the disappearances do not create the tension that there was in ‘Hostel 1’, when it was left open what exactly had happened and thus the uncertainty and fear increased. Here everything is shown quite quickly. Also, the ladies are quite two-dimensional. And even the skilled Heather Matarazzo, who plays another typical nerd here, can make little of her colorless character. However, just when the viewer threatens to doze off and get the impression that they are dealing with a completely useless sequel, something interesting happens. Fortunately, Roth understands that most viewers of ‘Hostel Part II’ have also seen part one, and therefore already know how the demonic hostel works. So he now offers the viewer a glimpse into the world of the hunters, in addition to that of the prey. When the ladies arrive at the hostel, the organization immediately sends photos via PDAs and laptops to potential customers, who bid on the young, female flesh in an amusing montage. This is what actually happens far too little in the film: looking for a different angle. The client side is extremely intriguing. What sick minds choose to slaughter defenseless youths for fun? In the aforementioned montage, we see one of the potential customers just sitting at the table with his son, and one of the winners also has a family. In short, they seem to be “normal” men, who can be found everywhere. Two clients are featured in ‘Hostel Part II’, the fanatic, sadistic Todd – an amusing Richard Burgi – and his doubting friend Stuart (Roger Bart). Both characters are interestingly designed by the actors and especially the moral dilemma seems to be a fascinating spearhead of their story, but this is unfortunately unsatisfactory worked out. Just when, in addition to the portions of “gore”, there also seems to be some content perceptible, the characters do something incomprehensible again that almost cancels out all the above. It’s also a shame that the film ends with a reasonable anticlimax (although the scene in question is quite gruesome). This is in contrast to the hyperkinetic ending of part 1.

‘Hostel Part II’ has some nice finds – including the destination of half-edited victims – and decent acting, but it simply loses out to the superior original, which was more exciting and tantalizing, and just as enjoyable for the “gorehound” was like this largely unnecessary sequel.