After seeing Cabin Fever I thought Eli Roth had a talent. A talent to make a movie both incredibly disgusting, chilling and funny (it wasn't flawless, though). Unfortunately, Hostel destroyed that vision for me. Hostel was just average, not scary or funny, just average. It was probably the hype that killed Hostel for me so when I rented this I made sure to have no expectations. I thought this would be a crappy cash-in sequel like most are nowadays and have little to no redeeming value. I was very wrong...
In this second outing we start where we left off in the first one. Paxton, a nervous wreck, is having recurring nightmares about his experience in Slovakia. Ten minutes in and his fears were not in vain, as his girlfriend sees his headless body at the kitchen table, a cat perched on top licking his blood. After this I thought, maybe Eli is improved. We are then introduced to three art students: Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo). They meet Axelle (Vera Jordanova), a beautiful model, who takes them to Slovakia and back to a familiar Hostel with familiar faces. We are also introduced to Todd (Richard Burgi) and Stuart (Roger Bart), two American businessmen who bid for the girls and become members of the underground torture club. When the girls start disappearing one by one it follows the same basic path of the first Hostel.
What saves this from being a meager cash-in, though? The addition of Todd and Stuart help create some interesting scenes of how the Elite Hunters work and what type of people actually bid. This addition was very good but lacked depth to make it outstanding. The characters were not exactly original (Beth; smart one, Whitney; slut and Lorna; nerd) but the actors were good enough to make me care about them.
Also, this one actually had scenes of sickening torture that made me cringe and look away. THIS IS WHAT I WANT! When Roth promised sick stuff in the first and I didn't get it I was annoyed. But thankfully he somewhat lived up to the promise. One scene in particular was very off and quite foul but hey, if you pay to see a movie about torture, what do you expect? Overall this was a surprisingly decent movie (much better than the first) and there still may be hope that Roth produces a perfect horror movie. As much as I like this movie, it isn't GREAT or GROUNDBREAKING, just a decent horror among hordes of crap.
3½/5
In this second outing we start where we left off in the first one. Paxton, a nervous wreck, is having recurring nightmares about his experience in Slovakia. Ten minutes in and his fears were not in vain, as his girlfriend sees his headless body at the kitchen table, a cat perched on top licking his blood. After this I thought, maybe Eli is improved. We are then introduced to three art students: Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo). They meet Axelle (Vera Jordanova), a beautiful model, who takes them to Slovakia and back to a familiar Hostel with familiar faces. We are also introduced to Todd (Richard Burgi) and Stuart (Roger Bart), two American businessmen who bid for the girls and become members of the underground torture club. When the girls start disappearing one by one it follows the same basic path of the first Hostel.
What saves this from being a meager cash-in, though? The addition of Todd and Stuart help create some interesting scenes of how the Elite Hunters work and what type of people actually bid. This addition was very good but lacked depth to make it outstanding. The characters were not exactly original (Beth; smart one, Whitney; slut and Lorna; nerd) but the actors were good enough to make me care about them.
Also, this one actually had scenes of sickening torture that made me cringe and look away. THIS IS WHAT I WANT! When Roth promised sick stuff in the first and I didn't get it I was annoyed. But thankfully he somewhat lived up to the promise. One scene in particular was very off and quite foul but hey, if you pay to see a movie about torture, what do you expect? Overall this was a surprisingly decent movie (much better than the first) and there still may be hope that Roth produces a perfect horror movie. As much as I like this movie, it isn't GREAT or GROUNDBREAKING, just a decent horror among hordes of crap.
3½/5