Hostel: Part II

WARNING! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T LIKE SPOILERS!!! It amazes me that they can show murder, torture and blood and gore in this movie yet when it comes to nudity, they have to hide it by blurring the images. Even swearing with the F-bomb is omitted out which is stupid. In this movie, murder, torture and even decapitation are somehow more acceptable to televise but no swearing or nudity allowed? The Network censors are nuts!

This movie is sick and very disturbing! It's about an international club of sadistic rich people who pay big bucks through a bidding process to murder a man or woman through torture. Victims come from the hostel in Slovakia and their passport images are scanned and sent out to members. Once you enter into a "contract" to do this, you cannot leave until you murder your victim. Each of the members have a dog tattoo that identifies them as part of the club. Expect to see kids have guns pointed to their heads (one is shot in the head), cannibalism, dogs tearing a person to pieces, and a woman having her face shredded up with a saw to name a few. It seems like everyone in this town is bad to the bone.

You get the sense that once you're marked as a victim there really is no escape from the factory where they keep the victims. Even if you do, the reach of this group is so wide that they can still get you as you'll find out with Jay Hernandez's character. You really need to see the fist movie to understand the second although you can get the gist if you have not.

Sadly we see a decent caring person forced into becoming a monster herself first in a bid for survival then for revenge! It seems that in both the first and second movies, the lead characters commit murder without hesitation after being victimized themselves.

The message is that having enough money can do anything even turn the tables on those that would have you be the victim. I think most of us like to see evil people get their comeuppance so seeing some of them pay for their evil deeds is satisfying but unfortunately not all the people that deserve it do and it thus opens the door for yet another sequel! If you have a sick sense of humor, you will like the ending with the street kids playing soccer with someone's head! It's disgusting yet the victim got her comeuppance for being evil so to me it was good!I won't divulge who it was.

An unnecessary re-hash of the original which was already bad. Plot-hole after plot-hole, improbable situations leading only to an anti-climax and an embarrassing ending, this turkey is cold meat instead of gushing hot blood it would have liked to pretend. I thought that the first one was not remarkable, but kind of wished that Mr Roth would've learned for the second. Instead, i just can't comprehend the need for this... "sequel"...

For starters, forget the scenario, there isn't one. I suppose that as the first one set the scene, we needn't embarrass ourselves with a convoluted script, right ? OK, let's assume so (but it doesn't make it right). So this time, let's just introduce the necessary brain-dead bunch, and get to the nasty parts as soon as possible, right ? OK, let's assume i could buy that (but this is already stretching it a bit too far). So we get to meet the girls, don't learn anything about them (except they're brain-dead alright), so let's get to the immoral stuff already, right ? Erm, no. In the quest for going even further, Mr Roth has crossed the line of ridicule, and as such the movie has nothing left ; no script, no characters worthy of existence, and no horror, let alone gore.

He however decides to show a bit more of the machinery of this secret society ; we see the clichéd-to-death mean faces of those who pull he strings, sunglasses and expensive suits obliged, sipping beverages on a town café's terrace, and receiving occasionally a decapitated head in a box delivered by a courier, just as the dude at the next table might get his soda. The most natural thing in the world you might say. Of course he lives in a manor, filled with everything of exquisite taste, art galore. Their men are everywhere. We get the feeling they control the town. In fact i got the impression that they might even control the whole country. OK so they're powerful. So how come all the convoluted plans to trap the girls ? Which, as they never work as planned (i imagine i should've felt for the girls at these moments, but was too amazed by these sloppy amateurs), makes me feel very embarrassed for an organization of that size. I mean, they control *everything*, and they had to empty a whole SPA of people in the middle of a day so that their men can come to capture the girl left alone and in a bathrobe, who, without any effort at all just jumps over the fence and escapes ? And this is just one example but everything is just as air-headed (i could just go on and on), suffice to say the whole film follows this same logic : no logic at all.

So the nasty stuff then ? What could be morally worse than torturing people and then killing them (so as to surpass the first film) ? Mr Roth must've thought that he would surely get there by killing a child for no reason (and another example of a scene which has no reason to exist, it's just there so as to shock, and even there it fails), and making someone bathe in blood (mixing sex and death in a literal sense). Wow. And that's that. The rest is some sloppy gore hacks that aren't even as good as in the first one. Mix into that the two ridiculous "clients" (the torturers), the ridiculous "twists" of the story, and a ridiculous ending, and you've got yourself a sorry-ass ridiculous wanna-be hardcore flop. But still not ridiculous enough to be actually funny, just lame.

You want some good fun, avoid this one and watch Planet Terror another time...

3* out of 10

For me, someone who thought the first installment of hostel was great, I had to check out the second.

I consider myself a fairly strong-stomached moviegoer, but I'm not ashamed to say this movie had me squirming in my seat.. Yet again! I would be hard pushed to argue this movie is anything but an excuse to once again try and push the boundaries of explicit violence and depravity, something that seems to be a bit of a trend these days. The narrative is fairly primitive, and in many aspects it is a replica of the first. American backpackers lured to a hostel in Slovakia where they are kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder to be tortured and killed. Only its girls this time.

However this movie does take the viewer a little further behind the scenes of the 'business', and follows two rich 'clients' through the process of purchasing a subject right through to the torture chamber sequences. Something that was quite interesting if you enjoyed the first film.

The first film I found fairly believable, and could actually imagine such a place in some remote part of Europe - which is party what added to my enjoyment of it. This installment not quite as well thought out and I did find the twist at the end totally impossible to accept. The shrouded secrecy of the business 'Elite Hunting' that was prevalent in the first film seemed to be totally thrown out of the window.

But If you want to see more of the same you will enjoy this film - its great for what it is, but don't expect anything original!

In "Hostel", a group of young men end up at a hostel in Slovakia that kidnaps people for its clients to torture and kill. Now, a group of American girls ends up at the same hostel. Will they meet the same fate, or perhaps they'll have more luck? And what ever became of the kids from the first film?

Full disclosure: I didn't like "Hostel" very much. I loved "Cabin Fever", but grew weary of Eli Roth after his second feature. So "Hostel 2" sat unreviewed for several month before I finally broke down and watched it. Guess what? We have a sequel that eclipses the original in every way -- this one is pretty amazing. Relying far less on torture and excessive nudity (although both are present here), we get an actual plot, likable characters and best of all a glimpse into the other side.

Torture clients aren't just faceless monsters in "Hostel 2", but real people with hopes, dreams and fears. There is a depth and complexity to them that allows us to almost sympathize with their angle, no matter how reprehensible they may be. (Some of them are still just ruthless killers, of course.) At one point, a potential murderer raises a philosophical point posed in the past by Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke: without laws, how is man naturally going to respond to others in a state of nature? To some degree, they attempt to answer this question. ("Battle Royale" also addressed this, though the characters in that film were in a more forced and less natural environment.)

Focusing on a female cast rather than male one really helps, I think. Let's assume the audience (mostly male) wants to see beautiful women, which I think is a safe assumption. In the first film, to accomplish this the boys had to come across numerous loose women with no character development. Visually appealing, sure -- but no substance. By having a female cast, the male audience gets to watch the young ladies the majority of the time while also developing a plot and character motivations. Nudity is less prevalent (but still present). Roth is fully capable of telling a story, as this movie shows, and I'm glad he chooses this over the shock value of sex and torture.

The cast is interesting. Rick Hoffman, who was "The American client" in the first film, returns as "the American businessman". He is something of an anti-hero. While we ought to be against him (he's after the protagonists), the film gives us the point of view that he's just being human, no matter how awful he comes across. Another great cameo is Ruggero Deodato, the maestro of Italian cannibal films ("Last Cannibal World" and "Cannibal Holocaust"). He appears, appropriately, as the Italian cannibal. His scene was not initially in the script (Roth showed up on Deodato's set personally to invite him to Prague) but I think it really clinches the deal of providing us a film that is both new and also giving homage to the classic.

Although you have to see "Hostel" to fully understand "Hostel 2", I think the punishment is worth the reward. For everything the first film lacked, the second makes up for it and then some. Romance, comedy, torture... a truly well-rounded horror film, which is a growing rarity in this age of shock cinema. Highly recommended.

In Rome, the wealthy Beth (Lauren German) and her college friends Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) decide to travel to Prague to spend a couple of spare days. In the train, they meet the model Axelle (Vera Jordanova) after an incident with rude natives of Prague and their acquaintance convinces them to take a detour to the beautiful Slovakia and lodge in a hostel. While partying in the village, they are lured and offered in an international auction to sadistic members of the Elite Hunting under a contract that does not allow leaving the torture chamber in a hidden facility alive.

"Hostel – Part II" is a good sequel of "Hostel", disclosing the fate of backpacker Paxton that escaped alive from the facility in Bratislava, Slovakia, of the first movie and then following the tragic tour of three American friends. The story is quite similar to the first one, except the great twist in the last five minutes with the action and revenge of the clever and rich Beth. This violent and gore movie is recommended only for fans of the genre, and those that liked the first "Hostel" will certainly appreciate this sequel. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Albergue – Parte 2" ("The Hostel – Part 2")