Movie Review: Hostel Part II

FILM REVIEW: HOSTEL PART II

By Michael Phillips

Chicago Tribune Movie Critic

Zero stars

When you live in a free country, you put up with crud like "Hostel Part II." It truly is crud, though. The film is the definition of torture porn, and regarding the Motion Picture Association of America's business-friendly, brain-free decision to give it an R rating: If this film gets by with an R, then what is left to warrant an NC-17?

Many fans of "Hostel" the first, which was a hugely profitable international success, have been yakking up a storm on sites such as RottenTomatoes.com about how writer-director Eli Roth's sequel isn't nearly as much "fun." (Note: Spoilers run rampant in the rest of this review.) Most of the chatter has focused on the climax of "Hostel Part II" wherein the heroine, played by Lauren German, turns the tables on her twisted adversary, a seemingly ordinary family man played by Roger Bart. A typical forum comment from RottenTomatoes.com: "... may turn away many potential fans with that penis snipping scene." Who are they kidding? It's the reason the film exists.

In the first "Hostel," a group of young male backpackers took the train from Amsterdam to Slovakia, where they ran afoul of a charnel house charging customers up to $50,000 to mutilate, torture and murder innocent young things. From kids-in-mind.com, a useful and admirably non-judgmental movie ratings site, here's a description of one of many torture scenes from "Hostel": "A young man goes into a room where a young woman is screaming and a man leaning over her is using a torch to burn her face; the young man shoots the man, and we see the young woman with her eye hanging out of her head and a badly burned patch of skin around it - the young man cuts the piece off and light colored goo oozes from the wound."

"Hostel Part II" turns most of its showcase sadism against women (there's a switch, misogynist torture porn!) and boasts two scenes that are far more artlessly vicious than the one described above. One involves the lingering death of the character played by Heather Matarazzo, who spends several minutes of screen time hanging upside down, naked. The other involves the protracted and narratively pointless taunting of a group of pre-teen boys. In that instance, the killing remains off-screen, but Roth - whose horror sensibility is strictly that of an organ grinder - must know that leaving one lousy murder to our benumbed imaginations doesn't count for a damn thing.

"Hostel Part II"

Written and directed by Eli Roth; photographed by Milan Chadima; edited by George Folsey; music by Nathan Barr; production design by Robb Wilson King; produced by Mike Fleiss, Eli Roth and Chris Biggs. A Lionsgate release. Running time: 1:34. MPAA rating: R (sadistic scenes of torture and bloody violence, terror, nudity, sexual content, language and some drug content).

Beth - Lauren German

Stuart - Roger Bart

Lorna - Heather Matarazzo

Whitney - Bijou Phillips