Horror Fest II Day One: Hostel Part II

After talking to the power company (and a promise they'd be here to check on the problem in the morning), things more or less settled down to the point I'm only using the UPS as a surge protector (it's old and the battery may be dead).

Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to watch Hostel Part II, mostly because I couldn't think of anyone else who would watch it with me. Aside from Adam, I think I'm pretty alone in having liked Hostel (although I think we're pretty much in the minority of people I know who saw Hostel). Unfortunately, I guess I'm in the even further minority, since Adam hated Part II, and I liked it.

Here's what separates Hostel from Saw, and it's an important distinction because the two get lumped together frequently under the nickname I'm so fucking sick of so I won't say, but it rhymes with "Scorcher Corn". And yeah, I'd say that Saw and Saw II definitely have that going for them. I never gave two shits about any character in either of the Saw movies I watched (sorry, but I'm sitting out three, four, five, six, and however many more they make).

What Hostel did was present you with three characters, two of which you didn't give a shit about, and one who kinda sorta seemed like he'd be the hero. Sure enough, one of the guys is dead before the halway mark, but then Eli Roth did something different: he killed the good guy, and instead of rooting for the other guy you don't know to die, you follow him as shit unravels to the point that by the end you kind of want him to live, or at least get out.

Aside from the opening, which dispatches the surviving character in a Friday the 13th manner (or like in Nightmare on Elm Street 4 or 5), Hostel Part II is more like a funhouse mirror of the first movie. The structure isn't different, per se, but all of the beats go in different directions. And yes, the torture scenes are still fucked up; not in that "hell yeah!" way, but in that "jesus just get it over with" way. (to compare, every torture sequence in Saw is structured in such a way that you can't wait to see how these asshole characters kill themselves with Jigsaw's trap)

What I was really worried about was that Roth was going to demystify the organization that puts all of this together, the one we learn just a little bit about in the last part of the third movie, but that's not what he's after. Yes, we see a little bit more of how people are lured to the hostel, and it's implied that after the first movie security stepped up, but other than a disturbingly amusing bidding war sequence for the girls in the film, we still don't know that much about this killing club.

But since I brought up the girls, it's probably fair to dispel one myth about Hostel Part II: this is not the first movie on estrogen. From the first frame Roth knows the audience is already aware of what direction things are going, so instead of drag us into a slow reveal again, he gives us another side concurrent to the "girls in peril" plot, that of the kind of people that would pay to kill someone. Just, not in the way I assumed they would, or I suspect the way you assumes he would based on the previous sentence. It's more like expanding the story of the german who pays to kill Paxton in Hostel, but not in the stupid, obvious way you'd think. In fact, their story isn't so different from the guys story in the first movie, just with a much, MUCH more graphic payoff. (Think Last House on the Left, and then imagine seeing it with crystal clarity).

I understand where Adam's coming from with the very ending, and were it not for the fact that the films are structured the same way, I'd agree. It's a little bit more blunt than "killing the car", but there's a scene earlier in the movie that warrants the ending. At least I think it does.

Honestly, since I don't expect many of you will ever see Hostel, let alone Hostel Part II, it's unlikely this review did anything but reinforce you not being intersted in ever seeing them, so more power to you. I'm not trying to change your minds, just giving you some idea of how I read the film.