Strong Enough for a man, but pH balanced for a woman

Hostel: Part II (2007)
Directed by Eli Roth, Screenplay by Eli Roth

Think of the first Hostel as a really long introduction to this film, which is in every way a superior piece. There are parts of Hostel Part II that show the loving care of a really beautiful art film. There are real characters here with genuine plot twists and I feel there's a genuinely intelligent thought-provoking exercise here. In pretty much every way Hostel II surpasses the first part, which in retrospect feels like an elaborate setup for the second part. As Roth himself notes, this Hostel was his attempt to make a giallo film and just to underscore that he even brought in guest appearances by several renowned Italian actors and directors.
Part II isn't just a sequel or a variation on a theme, it is a counterpoint to the first part that really extends the ideas to new ground. They are two films that have to be considered together as one story. This is a film that explores gender and class in a way that does credit to the horror genre as a whole. A lot of what could be said about the first Hostel might have been a stretch, but anything you say about this part is right on the money. It's not cheap exploitation, even though it does use quite a bit of cheap exploitation.

Right off the bat this film undermines everything we got out of the first part. We start by getting a sequence of Paxton (Jay Hernandez) making his escape on the train only to find himself in an Italian hospital where he is stabbed to death by an evil policeman played by Italian actor Luc Merenda, who came out of retirement just to do this one scene. (His translator is played by another great Italian, Susanna Bequer.) This scene highlights the global reach of Elite Hunting and how those who have the hound tattoo are forever linked in a shadowy way. But, this whole scene turns out to have been a paranoid delusion of Paxton, who wakes up in bed with Jordan Ladd. Granted, he's still missing the fingers he lost to that guy with the chainsaw, but things can't be that bad if he's got Jordan Ladd with him. But he is so paranoid that his girlfriend (who apparently took him back out of pity for his missing fingers and exotic story) is having second thoughts about him. And nobody has told Josh's family what happened to him. They still think he's backpacking around Europe. Of course, Paxton has reason to be paranoid and the only surprise when we see him dead at the kitchen table is just how gruesome it is to see a cat licking the stump where someone's head used to be. And this time, it's not a dream sequence. I love how it pretty much makes all of that time invested in seeing Paxton escape in the first movie seem like so much time wasted. He never really had a chance. And what I really like about this whole sequence is that it's a rare occasion of a horror film dealing with the consequences of the mayhem that occurs. The survivors (even if they aren't hunted down and killed) are always going to lug around the baggage (that is, if they don't have trouble lugging around the baggage on account of the missing fingers.) People will have questions about the people who are missing. Anyhow, this bit of prelude was more of a coda to the last film which culminates in a sharply dressed tough guy who gets a box delivered to him. (The box has Paxton's head in it.) The man, we will find out later, is Sasha (Milan Knazko, who was Slovakia's Minister of Culture from 1998-2002) and he's the man behind Elite Hunting. And behind every Eastern European oligarch who makes his money from people who like to kill other people is an adorable pair of hunting hounds. Seriously, the dogs are so cute.

Anyhow, now we meet our new trio of victims-to-be: three American girls taking a life-drawing class in Rome--Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo). Beth seems a bit serious (and maybe bi-curious?), Whitney is the party girl best friend and Lorna is a bookworm loner girl who probably writes in her journal about horses and rainbows and elf-maidens. First we get a bit of full frontal male art model nudity and then we get a topless girl. (It's all about evening out some of the gender odds in this film.) I have to briefly digress to mention that the art professor is played by the legendary Edwige Fenech who is still a stunningly beautiful woman and whose film work (especially in Italian comedies) deserves a serious look. Anyhow, the question is what kind of bait will get these girls to Slovakia? The answer is Axelle (Vera Jordanova). Axelle is in some way related to Alex the mole-face guy who lured the guys to Slovakia in the first film. Axelle's methodology is interesting, because after the girls are scared by some druggie hooligans on the train out of Rome she shows up to suggest that they can go relax in the hot springs spa that she likes in Slovakia. When Whitney pipes up as the dumb American wondering about the war there, it's Beth who steps up and says that the wars were in Bosnia. Thank you, Beth, for proving that some Americans do actually read and comprehend the news and things like books. The girls are lured by the idea of spending a nice relaxing weekend at a spa.

They show up at the old hostel and are greeted by the smiling goofy-ass desk clerk (Milda Havlas) who turns their attention to the harvest festival. Meanwhile he takes their passports and scans their pictures where they are immediately put up in an online auction. And this is where we get the other structural innovation of this film which is that it not only gives us a further glimpse into the operations of Elite Hunting but it also introduces us to a pair of Americans who show up to do some killing, so we get to watch the hunters and the hunted. It's seriously disconcerting to watch people going about their day while other people are getting on their blackberries to bid on a chance to murder someone. And it's also more than a bit upsetting to see how extremely normal (if obviously wealthy) the people doing the bidding are. These aren't supernatural stalkers or psychopaths with elaborate plans of revenge, they are ordinary people looking for an exotic travel experience--and that is infinitely scarier and more horrifying than a ghost story. (The fact that the villains we follow are also American pretty much overturns most of the expectations of xenophobia that were left from the first Hostel. Though, to be fair, even in the first film we got to see an American participant in the killing side.)

Todd (Richard Burgi) is treating his friend Stuart (Roger Bart) to a vacation in Slovakia complete with the opportunity to walk into a torture chamber and kill an attractive American girl. What are friends for? I think this is the logical conclusion to the fad of extreme sports, extreme vacations, extreme Thai hooker rafting expeditions etc.
Todd is a blustering coke-snorting ass who just can't find enough excitement to keep going and Stuart is a whipped man in a business suit who gets dragged along for all the rides that end in gonorrhea. The fact that both of these actors were on Desperate Housewives really adds a lot to their characters--a certain desperation to get the hell out of the cul-de-sac and do something else with their lives.

Meanwhile, the girls are having quite a time walking around the old town, getting spit on by the street urchins, and generally enjoying all the sights and sounds of central Europe. At the festival Whitney hooks up with a dubious looking guy named Miroslav (Stanislav Ianevski). You might recognize this guy as Victor Krum from the Harry Potter films. The degree of suspicion we are expected to have for this character is an interesting play on the xenophobic paranoia we got from the first film.
We also learn at the festival the important fact that Beth is a rich heiress. She is so rich, that she gives her father an allowance instead of the other way around. Beth has a creepy time at the festival as she is approached by a local who asks her to dance and when she refuses he says he "could have helped" her. Then the desk clerk shows up to ask Beth what the guy said to her and it's a credit to Beth that she is alert enough to lie to the desk clerk. Also, Stuart (who has arrived in town) shows up to get a closer look at the girl he's going to kill. Apparently Beth is a dead ringer for Stuart's emasculating wife.
Meanwhile, Whitney decides to get Lorna drunk because she thinks that Lorna is a stick in the mud. It turns out that Lorna is on some serious meds that react rather poorly to alchohol. While this doesn't lead to any medical consequences it does lead to Lorna making the bad decision to take a boat ride with a local guy.
Next thing she knows she's stark naked and hanging upside down from a chain in a torture chamber/bath. This is not exactly the spa treatment she was expecting.
Lorna's killing is the nastiest, most sexualized part of this film. Lorna's killer Mrs. Bathory (Monika Malacova) strips off and takes a scythe to Lorna so she can bathe in the girls fresh blood. Yes, this is a nasty piece of business but it is also a reference to the infamous "Blood Countess" Elizabeth Bathory who allegedly murdered young girls and bathed in virgins' blood to stay forever young. So, at least it's a literate reference, even if it's quite disturbing. The aesthetics of the blood bath, though, are quite good. There are some excellent scenic, lighting and effects choices here and because we are invested in Lorna the whole thing is quite disturbing.

The next morning Whitney gets snatched from the spa and Beth tries to make a run for it. Beth makes it all the way into the forest where she is confronted by the street kids. She is then rescued by Axelle, who shows up with Sasha. Sasha then makes the kids choose one from among them to die and the kids all gang up and push one of their own forward as a sacrifice for Sasha to shoot. Sasha is not to be screwed with.
Beth winds up at Sasha's villa, which has a pair of stone hunting hounds in front of the door and a full length portrait of Axelle on the staircase. Beth later spies a set of pictures including Axelle and a creepy guy from the train (as well as a group shot of Axelle, Alex, Natalya and Svetlana). Beth tries to make a second break for it when she realizes what Axelle and Sasha are up to, but she doesn't get anywhere.

Then there's the scene that is truly a work of art. It's a lengthy scene from the moment Stuart and Todd get the call that their girls are ready and follows them as they walk through the process and choose their implements of killing and torture and then enter the chamber. The sequence has no dialogue, is scored with a magnificent piece of music and has some of the most artful cinematography I've seen in a while. It really is a gem hidden in this film and is worth seeing on its own for those too squeamish to deal with the rest of the film.

Anyhow, the rest of the film is about how Todd and Stuart invert their characters. Todd is having a hilarious time threatening Whitney with a circular saw while Stuart is scared and almost weepy with Beth. Stuart and Beth decide to escape, but when Beth says something emasculating to Stuart that reminds him of his wife, he clocks her and ties her back up again. Todd has a funny sequence where the cord on the saw is too short and then when the cord is finally long enough he's playing around when he accidently puts the saw into Whitney's head and it gets caught on her hair and cuts her up nastily but doesn't kill her. This actually sickens Todd. (Turns out he wasn't as tough as he thought he was.) He tries to leave but the place has strict rules (and even stricter security in the wake of Paxton's escape--again, it's all about consequences). The staff unleash the dogs on Todd and he is cut to pieces. This prompts the staff to try to make lemonade by having a special limited-time offer to the customers for finishing off Whitney. This is where we get a cameo from Ruggero Deodato, the director of the infamous Cannibal Holocaust as...a cannibal who is enjoying a meal made of strips of flesh taken off of the still somewhat living Miroslav. When Stuart is shown the picture it cements his new attitude and he goes off to kill Whitney. We never see what he does and how he does it (again, this film is more restrained than its reputation) and when he comes back he looks like a different person, a harder, colder man.
But Beth won't give up. She lures Stuart with sex (trying to get him to sympathize with her because she's not his wife and can maybe make up for what his wife has done to him.) Stuart (like a lot of men) falls for it and Beth gets the drop on him. She proceeds to beat the crap out of him to get the code to the door. But the security system for the facility is now pretty airtight and they come through the door to find her holding a pistol in the direction of the door and a pair of shears to Stuart's genitals. It looks like it's curtains for the girl and Stuart says so. But, Beth is rich and Stuart has a mortgage and kids in expensive schools and this film is not so much about gender roles as it is about class and fiscal power. Stuart can't buy his way out of this situation, but Beth can and she does. All she has to do is to obey the rules of the facility--she has to kill someone and she has to get a tattoo. So, she cuts off Stuart's junk and tosses it to the dogs and walks over to get her tattoo and make the financial arrangements. Money is power. That's the ultimate lesson of this film. If you have the money then you can hold someone's life in your hands. Sure, there is coercive power and institutional power (like Elite Hunting's rules) but in the end what really empowers Beth and saves her compared to her friends is not so much a mystical character trait or a value (virginity, intelligence, humanity or anything of the sort) it is raw financial power and the intelligence to know that she can use it to bargain.

And once Beth is able to reassert he power she makes one final gesture by paying off the street kids to lure Axelle out into the forest where Beth decapitates her. The film ends with some happy European folk music while the little urchins play soccer with Axelle's head. It's the simple pleasures that are sometimes the best ones.

As gruesome as this film gets (and it is gruesome all along the way) it is also a great story with a real hard-edged cynical message at its core which is gratifyingly realistic. This film has a lot going for it and it is certainly better than the films it regularly gets lopped together with in the torture-porn subgenre. This film deserves better than that and I have to say that it made me respect Eli Roth as a storyteller.

On the other hand, it's kind of depressing to think that money can in fact buy your way out of all kinds of trouble. Them's that have it can even survive a horror movie torture chamber. Them's that don't--well, we've seen plenty of what happens to them's that don't.

On a sidenote, I have to mention that Inya, the woman who runs the operations at Elite Hunting in this film is played by Zuzana Geislerova who played the Reverend Mother in the film adaptation of Children of Dune.

Special Features

Previews
1. Coming to Blu-Ray
Look, it's Will Ferrell in high definition. Just what you've always wanted. Sure, floating cars would have been nice, but Will Ferrell in hi-def right in your own home? That's so much better.
2. 30 Days of Night
This is a pretty good trailer with very nice pacing and tone. And it's nice to go back and see uncharming vampires in action.
3. Boogeyman 2
Boogeyman 2: Electric Boogeymanaloo seems to be a cross between Nightmare on Elm Street and The Haunting.
4. Rise: Blood Hunter
Lucy Liu wants revenge for being turned into a vampire. In the sequel she gets revenge on her agent for getting her this role.
5. Resident Evil: Extinction
I'm beginning to get as annoyed by the Title-Colon-Subtitle style of titles as I am of numbered titles. Those Clint Eastwood orangutan movies didn't need numbers or colons and whatnot to get the point across that they were related.
6. Kaw
That's the sound that the evil birds make just before they pluck your eyes out for being tempted to see this movie.
7. Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud
I am so far out of the loop that I never even knew there was a first Pumpkinhead, much less that the whole thing had devolved into a retelling of the Hatfield/McCoy feud.
8. Fearnet.Com
For those people who want to take a break from playing Farmville.

Commentaries
1. Commentary with Eli Roth
Another pretty decent lesson in filmmaking with Eli Roth. Again he comes across as an intelligent filmmaker whose ideas are worth a listen.
2. Commentary with Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino and Gabriel Roth
It's sometimes a bit tiring to listen to Quentin Tarantino watch a film but he does get the conversation rolling pretty well and Eli Roth and his brother Gabriel have a lot of good anecdotes to share and it's a good insight into the process and ideas behind this film.
3. Commentary with Eli Roth, Lauren German, Vera Jordanova and Richard Burgi
This track is still somewhat along the lines of the talk show format that was on Hostel I, but at least whenever someone is added to the commentary they stay on and converse with the next group. Richard Burgi and Lauren German are really great commentators and worth a chuckle or two.

Deleted Scenes
1. The Trash Man
This is a continuation of the scene after Jordan Ladd discovers Paxton's head and she is caught in the kitchen by a guy with a chainsaw. It does answer the question of what happens to Paxton's girlfriend.
2. Whitney's Sketch
"One of the main complaints I heard from female Hostel fans was that there was too much female nudity, which I never really saw as a problem. So I figured I'd start off the sequel with a lingering cock shot just to balance things out. Happy now?"
Jeez, Eli, you don't have to sound so angry and defensive about throwing in a lingering cock shot. I'm angry just having to know that the phrase "lingering cock shot" exists. Lingering cock shot. It's an addictive set of words. At any rate, Whitney's sketch is a closeup of the aforementioned cock (and, let's not forget the nutsack accessory that goes with it.) You have to admire Whitney's concentration of efforts.
3. Whitney's Rant
Whitney ranting about Lorna.
Her idea of a good time is like going to the museum or like taking a hot bath and masturbating to the Brothers Karamazov while listening to sadcore.
Replace the Dostoyevsky with Tolstory and I'd call that a great way to spend a Thursday night.
4. The Plants
Evil girls in the hostel watching Pulp Fiction. Gives away a little too much about just how big the evil operation is.
5. The Van
You should never take a ride from a bunch of Eastern Europeans in a van. Even these girls know better than that. Best line goes to Whitney: "My barf tastes cidery."
6. Rape Shower
Drunk girls making fun of the After School Special where a girl is in a shower and crying. A bit tacky. It does have an element of horror karma to it when the girls are put through something a lot worse. Rape Shower is probably the worst title for anything I've ever seen (and I'm including Lingering Cock Shot in this equation.)
7. The Tool Checkout Room
I like the shopping spree aspect of this scene and how it develops the characters of the would-be killers in their browsing of the instruments of torture, but the montage scene is such great cinema that I can't argue with the choice to cut this fun dialogue out.
8. The Changing Room
Nervous jokes as the guys get ready to get changed into the killing outfits.
9. "This Is It"
Another nervous moment before the guys go into their killing chambers. Again, the montage is so much better.
10. Nozdrovia
Beth has a drink with Sasha at the conclusion of their business. This is where Beth discovers that Sasha is related to Axelle. It ends with Beth being forced to get the tattoo, but the manhandling undercuts the monetary exchange which guarantees her safety and her release after she kills Stuart and we really don't need to know the precise relationship between Sasha and Axelle to know that it's close and the way the film stands you get a sense that once she's paid and killed Sasha and the rest of the Elite Hunting crew are downright friendly, and this scene sort of continues to give them menace when it's more interesting that they aren't menacing anymore when she's getting the tattoo without this scene.

Hostel Part II: The Next Level
A friendly behind the scenes look at the complete process of making the film. Again, I think these are useful not just as a means of learning about filmmaking but also as a way of demystifying the images of the film itself. There's something reassuring about watching actors in a make-up chair getting gore put on them.
The end of this piece does raise the question of the relationship of the behind the scenes documentary crew and the film crew itself given the number of angry glares tossed toward the camera.
The Art of KNB EFX
This feels almost like an extended advertisement/testimonial for KNB. They obviously do good work. They win bonus points for guiding you through the peocess of making the dog food/gelatin genitals that get tossed to the dog at the end of the film.
Production Design
This is a brief look at the construction of the sets for the train, the look of the village festival masks and the chamber of horrors, which is a more extensive facility this time around.
Hostel Part II: A Legacy of Torture
"Plato said it best when he said that the good dream about what the bad do." Dr. Sheldon Roth
This is an interesting beginning of a discussion about the ideas and social commentary in this film (including comments by Eli Roth's parents) and then it goes into a history of torture and representations of torture as well as an introduction to the Italian giallo legends involved in this film.
Blood & Guts Gag Reel
All horror films should include a blooper reel. It really helps take the edge off. And those dogs are just so cute.
"The Treatment" Radio Interview with Eli Roth and Elvis Mitchell
I like discussions of film, but Elvis Mitchell is no Terry Gross, He starts off by saying that this film is more personal and less social commentary than the first Hostel. Really? Still, it's nice to hear someone who can talk about film in a more thoughtful way than Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight.