One wonders how the quirky Cabin Fever ever saw the light of day. Every studio in town had rejected the script but Eli with his attaché of deep pocketed friends, financed the film and released it. From Romero to Jackson to Tarantino, everyone embraced the young auteur and branded him the next face of horror.
I truly thought the first Hostel was a fun & entertaining romp of blood, sex & gore. That is my disclaimer before digging into this review. I watched the sequel with an open mind and really wanted to enjoy it.
Hostel scored at the box office early on in 2006 thus cementing Roth as a horror filmmaker. Albeit, a presenter of the grotesque and macabre with very little story telling ability beyond the juvenile wanton desire of tits, ass, and bloody flesh. The film was not great by any standards of filmmaking but turned a pretty penny at the multiplexes. It was a given that a second trip to the absurdly misrepresented Slovakian hostel would happen.
Hostel: Part II picks up minutes after the first one ended and shows Jay Hernandez being picked up at the police station. Stealing a cue from James Cameron’s Aliens opening, we are forced to believe that Paxton is back home and having difficulty coping with the loss of his best friend. A cameo by Fever alum, Ladd, she grills Paxton and asks why he hasn’t told his friend’s mom that he’s dead? This is just the beginning of the ridiculously clunky dialogue. I don’t want to ruin the “shocking” *snicker-yawn yawn* demise of Paxton, but we are catapulted into the seedy underworld of the Hostel trade market. This time around, it focuses on three clichéd girls traveling for a weekend getaway to the beautiful hot springs of Slovakia where bad things happen. This time they happen and the audience won’t give a shit at all.
Where do I begin? This sequel is beyond disappointing. Roth’s intention this time was to explore the “female mystique” but nothing transcends from his poorly written screenplay to the screen. There simply is nothing there. The gore quotient is tame compared to the original and lacks any tension that the original possessed.
I remember squirming in my seat watching Hostel unravel and falling for the intoxicating Barbara Nedeljakova as she says “I get a lot of money for you and that makes you my bitch.” When I first saw this, I dreamed of following her to my demise. Looking back at the film this weekend, I clocked the beats and was surprised to see that the first 45 minutes was just Porky’s in a different country and the story didn’t truly begin until minute 46. With the sequel, I simply couldn’t get passed the terrible writing and poor direction. Some of the choices made left me scratching my head as to why this film was given a green light.
The sequel felt rushed even though he had a lot more time than the production team behind Bousman’s Saw II, III, IV (and they soar in creativity high above Roth’s films). Hostel is not Casablanca by any standards but what made that film such a treat was its mysteriousness. This place that Nedeljakova led Paxton and company before to scared the shit out of me. Roth seemed to make a decision that the audience would want to see who these people were in real life. Apparently, he did not read the appropriate film texts in college. This gross misjudgment is going to cause this film to fail.
Roth tries to add a bit of humanity to the denizens that pay a huge amount of money to torture and kill these pretty girls. Richard Burgi and Roger Bart are the Americans on holiday awaiting their precious future kills. Showing these two in their natural surroundings removes any and all scary elements of this franchise.
By the end of the film, the audience I was with was howling and groaning at how truly awful it was. All one can wonder is what was Roth thinking? My excitement to see Stephen King’s Cell which is to be directed by Roth has dwindled to the thought of please do NOT let him direct this!
I love this genre with all my heart and soul, but it’s films like Hostel: Part II that make the studios jittery in their horror spending. I am very disappointed with the direction Roth took this film.
You want torture porn? Skip Hostel: Part II and check out The Notebook again. It’s like having your teeth pulled!
-Jack Reher
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
