So I finally saw this last night. Obviously the movie needs no introduction but I will say that I'm in the minority who actually liked the first Hostel, even a little bit. The main appeal I found in that movie was realism (or at least more realism than your average horror movie) and the fact that it was something different for a change. With Part II, Eli Roth throws all that to the wind as the borderline "classic" status (at least amongst today's horror fans) of the original has apparently gone to his head (just as Pulp Fiction went to the head of his mentor, Tarantino).

Anyway, after a rather pointless "prologue" involving Jay Hernandez' character from the first Hostel, Part II kicks off. There are essentially two different stories going on here: the victims' story and the clients' story. The victims' story is probably the main one. Judging from his first two efforts and his interviews, I'd say Roth can probably get away with writing sex-crazed fratboy protagonists if only for the sake that that's more along the lines of his own personality. Women are another story. Just like in Cabin Fever, the female protagonists in Part II are either drug-abusing party girls or overly-virginal good girl types. Someone like Roth can't hit a middle ground, let alone come close to how real women actually behave. With that said, the victims in Part II aren't very fun to hang around with. Their part of the story consists basically of watered-down rehashes of scenes from the first Hostel and random chase scenes in exotic locations. Not great, to say the least.

The clients' story is the better half of Part II with a lot more potential that Roth is actually able to live up to a good chunk of the time. After winning a "bidding war" over two torture victims (of course, the two female leads), two American businessmen embark to Europe to claim their prizes. One of them seems rather gun-ho about offing a person while the other seems only luke warm and appears to be having second thoughts. Both of their encounters end with a twist. One ends up being the strongest moment in the movie IMO. It is unexpected but logical, realistic, and even tragic. The other, like the ultimate twist of Part II, is overblown and silly.

"Silly" leads me to what is probably my biggest problem with the movie. There is a lot more exploration into the inner works of the torture "organization." However realism, one of the few strong points of the original, is thrown to the wind in an effort to portray the organization as a mainstream corporation as opposed to a convincing part of the criminal underground. The leader of the "organization" is an Italian businessman who lives in a mansion with his bloodhounds (a motif which grows old quick) and his assistant daughter (a rehash of the female villains from the first movie). He comes off as more of an evil(er) version of Donald Trump rather than the leader of a criminal organization. Like I said, it's quite silly but not nearly as silly as the revamped torture factory. This one now has surveillence cameras, monitors, lockdown mechanisms, coded doors, and... dogs. As much dough as this thing is bringing in, I doubt they'd invest this much in renovations that leave the factory looking like a maximum security prison. Sorry. It's flat out stupid.

The gore in Hostel: Part II is A LOT more brutal than the original, even compared to other horror movies that have come out since. Seriously, some of it's really sick (then again, I saw the director's cut). Unfortunately, Roth seems to invest more in trying to be as sadistic as possible in order to shock rather than come up with anything that makes sense in the context of the story. As a result, you end up with some overly elaborate, wacked-out, bizarre torture scenes that are very hard to take seriously. Still, a scene involving an upside down girl, a giant bathtub, and a scythe was actually one of the more innovative and gross scenes I've seen in a horror movie in quite some time.

The best way I can describe Hostel: Part II is that it tries to be too much... way too much. As a result, it suffers a lot more than it should. Even if you don't like the first Hostel, whatever good you may have found in it will likely be gone in its sequel. If you've got low standards and nothing else to do, this MAY be worth renting but if you actually want to enjoy what you rent, avoid at all costs.

Too bad. I was lookling forward to this (okay, so Hostel isn't a classic, but I thought it worked for what Roth planned it to be).

It doesn't surprise me with the longish prologue. I found Hostel to have the same slow opening.

Still, I'll give this a lookover. I'm a sucker for a little gore.

Stew

My friends saw this and I didn't and described a torture sequence thats painful for men to even watch (not to spoil anything).

I really think Eli Roth should do something like Cabin Fever again - good ol' horror.

Quoted from -Ben- My friends saw this and I didn't and described a torture sequence thats painful for men to even watch (not to spoil anything).

That scene actually caught me off guard. I heard about it somewhere else online and figured I've seen worse but it was actually pretty bad. They showed EVERYTHING. Then again, I saw the unrated DVD. I know for a fact that scene wasn't shown in theaters as is but even for a Hollywood movie on DVD, I was surprised at how graphic it was.

Still, I've seen worse. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that scene was a homage to another movie (one Roth's actually mentioned in an interview).

As for Roth himself, I think the guy's kind of hit and miss in everything he does. His films seem to balance good ideas with inexcusable garbage. As a result, he's ended up with quite a mixed bag. Even in interviews, he seems like two different people. At times, he seems like a smart guy who knows what he's talking about. In others, he sounds like a moronic fratboy. One thing's for sure, he's not the future of horror. The genre's on life support now as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, this is a review board so I figured I'd rant a little. I'm done.

This movie made me mad.  Not only did most of it suck, but the parts that had great potential were botched.  I watched it with a group of friends as the first of three movies (horror movie marathon near Halloween) and none of us even felt like starting a second movie afterwards.  It almost ruined my entire night.

Oh I liked Hostel.  Didn't think it was great, but enjoyed it.  If that has any bearing on your opinion of my opinion.

The good stuff that was botched?  As James commented, the story of the torturers, and especially the twists once the actual torture begins, were great.  There's a single climactic point in the gung-ho torturer's story that I thought was absolutely wonderful.  Unfortunately, once the interesting twists are made, the rest of the movie just wallows in the same garbage that we've seen before.  Blah blah torture.  Who the hell cares?  The characters are shallow and stupid - an incredibly nerdy virgin, a party-happy slut, and the cool, competent, tough chick who becomes our heroine of sorts.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does, because these are the three archetypical female characters of horror that we know from every poorly-made horror film since the 70s.  I hadn't actually meant to discuss the characters at this point in the review but boy did that make me mad.  A little while into the movie, someone said, "Who are these people and why am I f***ing watching them?"  That's a review of the characters.  Hell, that's a review of the whole movie.

The plot?  The plot sucks.  After ten minutes of Jay Hernandez that are absolutely, unequivocably, 100% pointless, we settle in with our idiot heroines for a good fourty minutes of absolute bore-fest.  It plays like a moronic Hostel fan film, as we watch the same scenes and situations acted out by characters who are much less interesting to watch.  Since the suspense is non-existent, we're basically watching a teen comedy that's absolutely devoid of humour.

But of course, the gore is what Hostel's famous for.  Nicotero's work is brilliant as always, and everything looks great (realistic, that is).  However, I frankly didn't get to see anything I hadn't seen before, and of course the lack of empathy for characters totally removed my interest in the scene from any dramatic standpoint.  The climactic gore moment was mildly amusing, but even a passing horror fan like myself has seen that one before.

EDIT:  Looking over the Hostel II page on IMDb, I noticed that the director of Cannibal Holocaust has a cameo.  Roth being a huge fan of that movies makes sense, both in terms of the climactic gore moment and in terms of the fact that both movies are extraordinarily idiotic and pointless.

So, this actually sucked, like really sucked.  Absolutely sucked.  I seriously doubt there is anybody who has seen all the horror movies that deserve to be watched before this one.  I would actually recommend that people watch something they've already seen and liked again before paying money to see Hostel II.  Even if all you want is gore and some full frontal.  Rent Re-Animator.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, risking getting people thinking I'm weird!  

First off, you are not weird James. I liked the first one too. What might be weird is that I liked this one even better...

I liked that this one had women being the main carachters. In the first one I was apalled at the stupid depiction (meaning) of young American males. Like their all so naive and inexperienced compared to their European counterparts. "Show a 24yo American male a pair of nice tits and they lose all sense and sensibilities, because they've never seen anything like it before. I don't know about you guys, but I was offended and I'm not male or American!

Hostel 2 however had young American women as main carachters and they seemed to be more "with it" than the guys in the first one. I really liked that.

I also enjoyed the build-up better in this one. I can remember those train passes that let you go all over Europe. Except in my time it was a lot less "nice"! Each car/cabin would house 8 people so you had to share with people you'd never met before, but it was all part of the adventure...

Anyway, the part about "The Four Seasons" was funny to me...I guess I am getting old.

Heather Matarazzo basically played an older version of the same carachter she did in "Welcome to the dollhouse". No wonder she's not a big star yet if that's all she can do. I did find the torture scene with her in it to be the most disturbing.

The discussed scene that you guys felt was "squemish" ... I hate to tell you, but I thought that was amusing and I was laughing even. I love women with balls...even if they're just carrying them in their hands. Sorry!!

I thought the ending was deliciously cold and nice.....so sue me!

I liked this movie! Not in the great movie sense, but certainly kept me entertained.

Btw, why do Europeans always look like they need a bath? I like clean pople...

Quoted from tomson I like clean pople...

I like 'em dirty

I hated the first one and I hated this one, but this one had 2 scenes that I liked, an early scene where people bid on the girls and the castration scene, at least they had the BALLS to show it, other than that it was garbage, like the original it was boring, so boring, the characters were bland, the writing was horrible, and it moved at a snails pace.  One of the years worst.

Quoted from The boy who could fly One of the years worst.

True that, hehe. I'm already set on including it in my Top 5 Worst when it's 2008 and another Best/Worst of [enter year here] thread pops up.

And since we're naming spoilers, I only liked two scenes in the whole movie. The scene where the American businessman shreds the girl's face with the buzzsaw, realizes what he's done, and starts freaking out (the only realistic scene in the whole movie) and the bidding. The castration scene was brutal but by that time, I was so sick of the movie, nothing could save it. Besides, I Spit On Your Grave did it better and they didn't even show as much.

I forgot to mention the bidding. I thought that was really good. Even a nice friendly looking woman in Iceland getting in on the act.

And TJ, about looking dirty, it just seems to me that Europeans in movies often look "scuzzy" like they need a bath. Especially the further east you go.

Btw, I bought this dvd and after I had watched it I gave it to my son to watch...I haven't heard from him since.

Quoted from tomson And TJ, about looking dirty, it just seems to me that Europeans in movies often look "scuzzy" like they need a bath. Especially the further east you go.

huh?????????????  Has Drinking night started early?

Shhh! She's onto our sock-puppetry!

She must be removed.

Hostel II has a woman bathing in blood while the supplier is hanging above... that's hot.

What can you honestly say about an Eli Roth film? Especially after his comments about us Canadians.

They botched the tie in to the last film by killing the character Paxton. Either use him or just have the later reference when the girl finds the HEAD room. They wasted Jordan Ladd too. What was the point? Right, filler.

The only good death was the one I mentioned at the beginning and the rest of the film is just a cinematic "so what"

Also, given the situation I do not believe it possible to escape. These guys (In theory) have been doing this for a long time and well, escaping and or bargaining just doesn't seem like it would matter to them.

I liked how they went deeper into the lore of bidding and selling and show us the other side of things but it all gets wasted by a director who makes his name off of cheap tit shots and gore.

At the end of the day it's harmless fun but I enjoyed Paris Hilton's Pledge This much better and I thought that film was an utter waste of time, money and acting lessons.