Hostel: Part II

3.5/10.

As someone who firmly believes that the original Hostel is the best straight-up horror picture in decades, it's pretty safe to say that I was massively disappointed by Part II. It's nothing more than a prime example of what I've deemed 'The Tarantino Effect'. I use this term to describe what happened to Quentin Tarantino back in the early 90s and it applies even better to what's happened to Eli Roth. A surprise hit takes on a cult following (QT's Reservoir Dogs, Roth's Hostel) and achieves massive success, so the director decides to make more money by creating the same exact thing again but they add more hip scenes/dialogue or more gore and outrageous situations thinking the fans will love it. But in doing so they lose their original zest, the element that created a big fan of their first work out of me (this applies only to Roth, since I'm not a fan of any of Tarantino's work). The term certainly has an extra sting when applied to Roth, though, since Quentin was the executive producer on both Hostel and Hostel: Part II.

Some call the original Hostel nothing more than 'torture porn', a phrase that the film itself originated and has been used constantly since then (or they just call it Eurotrip with gore). I however, felt it was much more than that. It's a film based in it's characters; Roth added a lot of depth and development to them (primarily Paxton) and gave a huge arch at the end. He made me care for these characters and actually grimace when the horrible tortures were being performed upon them. I wanted them to escape, I wanted them to get vengeance and when Paxton finally exacts his revenge I cheered my head off. For the first time in years I actually reacted strongly to a horror film and found myself completely involved in the story and journey that it's characters took. I heard a quote recently stating that 'Hostel did for backpacking what Jaws did for going to the beach.' Personally, I find that to be true and then some. The fact that I'm a child of the 90s and Jaws was already quite dated probably had a lot to do with it, but I could watch that film a dozen times and be perfectly fine taking a swim in the deep waters. Hostel chilled me to my core. From the creepiness of the citizens to the actualy torture/killing company, it ensured that I will never go backpacking in Europe as long as I live.

Hostel: Part II completely destroys any kind of love I held for the first one. Roth created exactly what everyone said he was good for; a mere piece of 'torture porn' though it doesn't even deserve that degrading title. It's a pile of utter filth in every sense of the word. I couldn't muster up any kind of concern or sympathy for these characters as I just sat idly by and watched them get tortured and placed in very dangerous situations that I had absolutely no interest in. It comes off as nothing more than a fetish picture of Roth getting his sick twist from seeing what kind of torture scenes he can create to gross out the audience the most and it's simply pathetic. It's an insult to all of those who fell in love with the first one. To those who knew it was more than just 'torture porn' and actually cared for Paxton and found so much satisfaction when he exacted the revenge that we so desperately needed at the end of the first film.

Part II's story actually starts off in a very interesting place. We see what has become of our triumphant escapee (the role reprised by Jay Hernandez) from the first feature and the result isn't so pleasant, as you could imagine from escaping a place like that. He's become a paranoid wreck who's constantly waking up screaming from horrific nightmares; we get to see one of these very graphic and haunting dreams as the film's opening scene. Soon it's made clear that he had good reason to be paranoid and with the only interesting segment of the film over, we fly across the globe to see three girls getting ready to take a vacation. I wonder where they'll end up. Quickly, I realized that the best part of Hostel: Part II had come and gone. The first ten minutes picked up the interesting character study of Paxton, but that is quickly ended. Then it's just the typical three girls getting hit on by gross guys, faux-suspense, being hot and flirty and then getting brutally tortured and mutilated. Great job, Roth. You sold out like the rest of them; and I thought what we had was special.

I can't say that it's all bad, though. In fact there is a massive amount of entertainment to be gained by the two main murderers in this one. Roth attempted to add some originality to this film by giving us the back-story on the people who pay to murder innocent girls for fun. Of course we can't see any kind of foreigners killing innocent girls, so the two men have to be rich Americans. It's alright though because these men provide the only entertaining parts of the film and huge amounts of comic relief. They are played admirably by Roger Bart and Richard Burgi and the two are the perfect match for one another. Burgi is wild, charismatic and frighteningly excited to go and torture some hot young girls while Bart gives the contrast; the shy, reserved guy who goes along with it but deep down believes it to not be such a good idea. Once they get their cute little play-things though, both of them have complete characters arches as Burgi gets disgusted when he chops up a girl's face and leaves here there, alive, and therefore is eaten by dogs. Bart, on the opposite side of the fence, initially tries to help the girl escape but then his resentment towards his wife kicks in so he tries to rape her before he murders her. Of course this turns out to be a bad idea. Overall the film is nothing special, but watching these two perform is certainly a blissfll treat. And the Ruggero Deodato (the director of one of my favorite films, Cannibal Holocaust) is a very nice touch.