Hostel: Part II (2007)
2007
R
93 Minutes
4 beautiful college students are tricked into entering a hostel where the 'hosts' like to torture, rape and murder. Following a geographical tour of Slovakia, three women are lured into a hostel by...
User Review
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Hostel Part II butchers its way through another franchise. Roth's original Hostel wasn't a masterpiece by any means, only really being a tame horror of the "torture-porn" variety. But it had a underlying sense of morality whilst presenting a hyperbolic commentary of human trafficking, even if the execution was mediocre. Roth's sequel however essentially removes all the wholesome family goodness from its predecessor and instead creates a mundane feeling of déjà vu. Why? Because it's the exact same bloody film. Beat for beat. Talk about no imagination Eli! A group of girls travelling Europe venture into the cursed realm of Slovakia where all the creepy men are creepy and rich businessmen everywhere want to torture and kill innocent civilians.
Like I said, identical to its predecessor but adding slight more depth to the technicalities of this underground ring of contract obsessed morons. Essentially we witness how the bidding process works. That and the infrequent schlocky gore are probably the only positives. Roth famously stated that he wanted to include three female protagonists to "up the ante", however he inadvertently produced a layer of misogyny as a consequence. Every man in Slovakia apparently treat women as disposable objects, and unsurprisingly elicits a distasteful outlook. Perhaps if these characters were somewhat intelligent, then maybe they could've had some sort of backbone. Nope. Alas, just as dumb as the frat men from the first film.
Not sure where Roth got the cast from. Maybe strolling through the majestic Slovak villages whilst pointing his finger at random strangers shouting "You! You're gonna be in my next film!", because sweet throat-slicing scythes the acting was terrible. The appalling dialogue probably didn't help either. For a "torture-porn" film, there really wasn't much torture. Maybe one or two minutes worth? And don't get me started on the ending. What even was that!? Neither thrilling enough to be scary, or sadistic enough to be a valid torture experience. Although to be honest, more torturous than the original, and that's not a good outcome.0 member like this review.
