Hostel 2 (DVD, 2007, Unrated Director's Cut)

Eli Roth's 'Hostel' was one of the Best Horror Films; a brutal rollercoaster ride by a Writer-Director who exhibited both the intellect of a film studies professor and the enthusiasm of a teenage fan.
The combination serves Roth well again with 'Hostel: Part II' a smart, stylish and extremely violent follow-up that shatters the limits of the "R" ratings like its characters transgress the boundaries of conventional morality. Roth follows the model of the greatest sequel of all time, 'The Godfather Part II', by creating a parallel structure in which two separate storylines complement and comment upon one another.
The primary focus is on Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips), and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo), American Art Students on vacation who take a stranger's advice and alter their plans to attend a spa in Slovakia. Of course, as anyone who has seen the first 'Hostel' knows, the girls are headed not to a spa but to a torture chamber; where wealthy customers pay for the privilege of murdering with impunity.
Roth's cleverest conceit in 'Hostel: Part II' is to balance the girls' story with the darkly comic journey of Stuart (Roger Bart) and Todd (Richard Burgi), two Americans who travel to Slovakia to kill the girls after "buying" them in an exclusive International Auction. The uniformly strong performances in the film allow Roth to take his time, steadily raising the tension as he moves back and forth between the killers and their unsuspecting prey; when the two stories intersect for the first time it's absolutely chilling, and when they collide head-on at the climax it makes for one of the most outrageous and entertaining gross-out endings in the History of American Horror.
'Hostel: Part II' doesn't operate on exactly the same levels as its precursor. The less sympathetic male protagonists in the first movie allowed 'Hostel' to work the arrogance and ignorance of the guys as they set out to sexually conquer Europe. Part of the movie's raw power for American Audiences came from the exploitation of our ever growing fears about being in too-deep in a land; not our own.
'Hostel: Part II' mostly limits its text to the Stuart and Todd storyline, making wry comments about globalization and materialism that are as amusing and harrowingly effective; as the rich previous film.
Roth also gains as much as he loses: by making his heroines more complex and sympathetic, he overcomes the inevitable problem of predictability that afflicts nearly all sequels. The fact that we know what is in store for the girls doesn't make the story any less scary, because we like them so much that we're more emotionally invested in their fate. Beth, Whitney, and Lorna have more dimension than the 'Porky's'-esque horny guys from the first 'Hostel'.
Throughout, Roth deftly juggles tones; moving from ferocious horror to genuine emotional resonance. A more confident film than the original; Roth takes his time and goes for short, concentrated bursts of terror over the onslaught of pummeling torture of the first 'Hostel'.
'Hostel: Part II' is a more complete experience. Emotions are more invested, as even the most lighthearted scenes have a sense of underlying tragedy. It's clear early; that at least some of the people we like are going to die slowly and painfully in the film.
'Hostel: Part II' has something that most big-budgeted, heavy-handed sequels don't: the ambition to not only repeat it's predecessor, but to expand and improve upon it.

This is marketed as a sequel to the film "Hostel;" I did not see the other film but saw some of the clips as I switched between channels on cable. The only thing that bothers me about such sequels (e.g. "Rocky" and "Rocky 26") is that the writers/directors/producers don't seem to have much imagination. In the good old days, when there was a series of films around the same character or premise, they would have distinct titles (e.g. "Charlie Chan in Chinatown," or "Charlie Chan and the Chinese Cat"). Just some editorialization - now to the plot.

A group of young female Americans embark on a tour of Europe; on the train they meet thieves and boorish men, but when they arrive in this country town in Slovakia (their tourist board should sue), they are greeted with friendship and the local festival.
As it turns out, this local town is run by a local "mafia" who sell rich folk the right to kill people for fun. One by one, the women are abducted and given to their torturers for death. One is hung by her heels and cut open in a scene reminiscent of Elizabeth Bathory; another is strapped into a chair and has her face sliced open with a circular saw; the third is set up for murder, but it seems that she is so rich that "she could buy Slovakia" so she turns the table and becomes one of the patrons of the death spa.
Interesting premise and some bloody scenes; interesting twist to the plot; the only real flaw to this is the premise that the only people who engage in such savagery are the rich - you should see some of the documentaries about serial killers; they weren't rich and did far worse things to infinitely greater numbers of victims.

We find the kill/torture genre type of films finding their way into the minds of more people these days ever since the Tobe Hooper film Texas Chainsaw Massacre came on the scene nearly 25 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the genre, however, it seems to me that more directors are overshooting the terror just to get an extra ooh, ugh, ouch, oh no, or jolt from the viewer.

The overblown scene in the film of snipping off the guy's body part was totally unnecessary in my opinion and distracts from the overall feel that those who are in control and in power to do these things are just clowns getting too bored and lazy and think that people are just going to sit there and volunteer.

So much for powerful men getting liberated! This film definitely kills any chances of any sequel coming out, which is much appreciated.

I'm going to give this film a 3/5 for the extravagance, good production, and trying to impress, but this somehow makes film-making not about telling a story, but just having something to do that pays all the bills and lets everyone have a good time, laugh, and party while making the audience wonder how this could wind up on film.

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GOOD FOLLOW UP TO THE ORIGINAL HOSTEL. AS WITH MOST MOVIES THE SEQUEL NEVER OUTPRODUCES THE FIRST AND THIS IS NO EXCEPTION. THERE ARE A COUPLE OF SCENES THAT WERE NOTEWORTHY AND VERY GRAPHIC,BUT YOU CANNOT MAKE A MOVIE ON THAT ALONE. KIND OF A BEEN THERE DONE THAT. BUT WHAT COULD YOU REALLY COME UP WITH ON A HOSTEL THEME? FOR A HORROR FAN YOU WILL WANT TO WATCH IT AND IN THAT ASPECT IT IS GOOD. NOT AS GOOD AS THE FIRST BUT WORTHY OF THE MONEY TO WATCH IT.

This second film definitely shows Roth's absolute courage as a director. He didn't pull any punches with this follow up. Hostel: Part II does succumb to mere ghoulishness in the last-reel bloodbath, but up to that point its moral tension feels horribly persuasive.