Cinema review
Directed by Eli Roth
Starring Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips, Richard Burgi
Release date 29 June 2007

Three female American backpackers wind up in the same small Slovakian town where the terrifying torture of the original movie took place….

When shameless self-publicist Eli Roth boasted about how the original Hostel was going to be the most extreme movie ever made, it was inevitable that the movie itself would never live up to this claim – and it didn’t. But looking back, especially in the wave of inferior efforts like Paradise Lost, Hostel was actually an effective and even witty combination of terrifying ideas and crowd-pleasing gore.

King of spin that he is, Roth is at it again, asserting that this sequel takes horror to a whole new level. Once again it's a claim probably best taken with a pinch of salt; Hostel Part II (the ‘Part’ apparently inserted in homage to The Godfather Part II) is almost an exact re-run of the original, with much less of a surprise factor this time round. Yet Roth displays such an instinctive grasp of what makes a good horror movie that the film does manage to shock despite the inevitability of the plot.

Following an unsettling dungeon-set opening sequence that’s almost a carbon copy of the original (dripping water, sharpening knives, whistling slaughterer), Roth devotes time to building up three interesting, not-annoying protagonists that we can genuinely care about. German, Matarazzo and Phillips all give subtle, sympathetic performances that you too rarely find in horror films; they’re so good, in fact, that you half hope that Hostel Part II will develop into a knockabout romantic comedy where nobody will have to die horribly (don’t worry, it doesn’t).

The sequel expands on the mythology of the hostel and fleshes out the type of person who would pay to dish out torture, with 24’s Richard Burgi playing the pumped-up exec who acts like he’s about to embark on a glorified game of paintball, and Roger Bart as his more reluctant pal. OK, so it’s not exactly a Robert Altman-style character study, but these are more than just the etch-a-sketch stereotypes of Paradise Lost or Captivity. The fact that the bad guys appear to be regular, almost sympathetic City types only serves to make the plot all the more chilling.

Events are played out with a heightened, nightmarish atmosphere, even in the first half, which is relatively violence-free (give or take the odd severed head). An implied threat hangs over the protagonists as they make their way to the dreaded hostel. You’re never entirely sure who to trust, particularly when there are so many grotesque-looking locals lurking about (full marks to the casting director!). The scares don’t all come from the big set-pieces either; the film is full of throwaway, unsettling moments like the hostel henchmen kicking shut a door to the previous tenants’ bedroom or a creepy bearded character hovering in the background on a train.

Then, finally, we arrive at the torture dungeons - and this sequel confirms it as one of the most terrifyingly-realised horror locations in years. From the unassuming hole-in-the-wall entrance to the victims strung up like cattle to the slaughter, it’s a grim, grimy, slimy place, that is all the more scary for taking so long to get there.

Yes, once again, Slovakians are likely to be unimpressed with the portrayal of their country as a brutal backwater. But then this was never supposed to be a neo-realist picture. The featured town simply represents somewhere vague and out of mind to many Americans, while the plot’s onslaught of kidnap, secret prisons and torture are clearly borne out of daily bloody news coverage from Iraq. Yet, aside from a glimpse of an e-Bay style bidding site, there is also something old-fashioned about Hostel Part II; it’s nice to see a film that doesn’t get bogged down in internet snuff movies or high-tech traps for its shocks.

There was perhaps a worry that, with female leads as the target of the torture, the sequel might make a misjudged step into the over-the-top misogynist violence that plagued many 1970s movies (such as I Spit on your Grave) that Roth is influenced by. But while it would perhaps be wrong to use the phrase “tastefully handled” (one character does get power-sawed through the head after all), Roth doesn’t take it too far. The hostel clearly complies with all equal opportunities legislation, with both male and female victims and torturers. The movie even emerges with its own strong, quick-thinking heroine.

That’s not to say that this is a bloodless horror. The gory scenes may be limited, but they’re very nasty indeed. The sequence in which the first victim is offed and another where the kiddie gang are made to line up are masterclasses in build up and pay-off; they’re almost enough to have you fleeing from the cinema drenched in cold sweat. Not all of the violence is quite so intense though, with Roth playing much of the remaining gore for sick laughs, even managing to end the film on a high note of sorts!

Hostel Part II has no pretensions of high art. There’s no quotable dialogue, the conclusion is too convenient and it occasionally borders on the ridiculous. But it’s exceptionally well-edited and well-directed disgusting fun, and hints that Roth has the capability of one day delivering a real horror masterpiece. Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 7/10
Effective and superior re-working of the original.