Friday, February 29, 2008

HOSTEL PART 2 (2007)

HOSTEL PART 2
*
Rating: R
Length: 93 minutes
Director: Eli Roth (Hostel; Cabin Fever)
Writer: Eli Roth (Hostel; Cabin Fever)
Starring: Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips, Richard Burgi, Vera Jordanova, Jay Hernandez, Jordan Ladd, Derek Richardson

There’s so much not to like about “Hostel Part 2” that’s it hard to find a place to start. It is an ugly and pointless film. I liked the first film. I had been a vocal critic of Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever”, but forgave him after I saw “Hostel”. I liked the way he built up his suspense and the violence, although graphic, was almost earned by his patience. The second “Hostel” has none of that patience. It is just Roth trying to out do himself with gratuitous gore and violence. Remember the scene in the first “Hostel” where the Paxton (Jay Hernandez) character has a run in with the pro-violence American? That character basically gets divided into two and we follow two corporate meatheads who have too much money for their own good. Todd (Richard Burgi) has purchased Beth (Lauren German) for his best friend, Stuart (Roger Bart)’s birthday. He gets to kill her. Beth and her also “purchased” two friends- the slutty Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and the nerdy Lorna (Welcome to the Dollhouse’s Heather Matarazzo) - meanwhile are lured to the hostel by a pretty model (Vera Jordanova). The movie opens where the first one ended, but quickly puts Paxton out of the way and forgets about the first movie (save for the same location and a brief Paxton “cameo” later). Roth has nothing new to add here that he didn’t address or film in “Hostel”. It’s the same story as the first movie, but duller- despite upping the gore level (still nothing was as disturbing to me as the eye bit in the original). There’s some kind of odd unwritten rule in the horror genre that if you have even a semi-successful movie you have to make a sequel (or sequels) to it. Some of these movies don’t need any further examination. “Hostel” was definitely one of them.

Download Soundtrack MP3s:
Habanera (from the opera “Carmen”)

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3 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

I'm all about gore fests. I'm a true fan of the final destination movies solely because they have weak plots and make no apologies for being anything other than blood and guts films. Hostel 2 just couldn't pull it off. There were so many unrealistic parts. I mean - seriously - if you're auctioning off people to murder...don't you think the bidding would go a little higher than $80,000? If that's the going price, why would someone have to be super rich to participate?
This movie was completely predictable, and even though it tried to be a gore fest there really wasn't that much gore compared to others that have come out in the past couple of years. I say boooo to this movie. Pass it up -- you'll never get that hour and a half of your life back.

Karl Hungus said...

You know, I really enjoyed the film.

I found that it resolved itself in a way I wasn't expecting. The main character buying herself out of it came as a refreshing surprise to me.