HOSTEL 2

[Dr Doran]

Has anyone except me seen Hostel 2?

Any thoughts?

I loved Hostel (1) and thought it was an instant classic. Fresh, new, original, nicely-acted, fine dialogue, appealing characters, fascinating points about human nature to ponder, beautiful location settings, and utterly disgusting violence, torture, and gore.

Hostel 2 cannot be as original since we already know what is going on; it was not quite as clever, either, and wasn't nearly as disgusting or gory as promised (they called it "torture porn" but I wouldn't say it was that at all!). There were at least two interesting points to ponder about human nature and we see more of the inner workings of the torture-club. Its owner. How the bidding works (a hilarious take on EBay). And we follow two American businessmen who travel all the way to Slovakia to have the opportunity to kill and torture, and we get inside their heads and see why they would want to do such a sickening thing. The main character, a girl named Beth, is wonderfully resourceful in getting out of the hell she finds herself in and the way she escapes with barely a scratch is pretty brilliant as well as a masterpiece of special effects gore.

Anyone see it? Impressed? Disgusted? Horrified?

 

[flat-top]

I really enjoyed it. Eli Roth went into a different direction with it, and it worked.

 

[Lady Day]

Its part of that genera of 'gore porn' that should not be a genera and sucks.
This one was no way near as gory as the first one.

*spoiler*
How could you kill the hero like that!? I know Im expecting a lot form gore porn. He comes all the way back to America, heals, and then gets the ax?
*spoiler end*

That just stuck in my craw.

This was more about the corporate part of what they do as opposed to just the kids. Lot more Americans killing Americans in other countries [huh]

I went to bed right after so...wasnt all that scary.

LD

 

[Dr Doran]

All in all I liked it. As for nightmares, I had an uneasy night. No bad dreams per se, just a hard night sleeping. Yeah, wasn't too shocking but I did love some scenes. They were beautiful in an artistic way: the "ritual sacrifice" scene with the candles and bloodbath. Very lovely; worthy of Dario Argento.

+++++SPOILER+++ As for P's death in the prologue, yes, that was sad, as I really loved that character. It was so very refreshing to have a character with resourcefulness and smarts and who, unlike your typical American, actually knew a foreign language, German in this case, and could thusly try to negotiate with his captors. One of my pet peeves in American writing and moviemaking is the dullard "average" character. Almost all of Steven King's characters are backwards baseball hat wearing dillholes devoid of any interesting features whatsoever. Horror movie victim/heroes are usually like this too. BORING. Just boring. I guess it works for some audiences. Not this one. I want characters who are interesting, different, who are scholars BUT NOT SINISTER FREAKS like all scholars in all movies are (cf. Hannibal Lecter). Or at least know things that Mr Average American Baseball Fan Dillhole does not know. (PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT RIDICULING BASEBALL HERE. I AM RIDICULING A TYPE OF CHARACTER IN AMERICAN FICTION AND MOVIES WHO IS VERY AVERAGE AND BORING AND WHOSE AVERAGENESS IS CONVEYED IN WORKS OF FICTION TYPICALLY BY HIS LOVE OF BASEBALL.)

The points worthy of pondering are these.

1. When the blonde girl is being "handled" by the tall thin muscular gung ho businessman, he suddenly becomes shocked and can't do it anymore. There was something very very interesting going on. I think it is because the saw slipped and heer face was no longer visible as it was covered with blood. At this point it stopped becoming "fun" for him. Now she was simply an injured person, an object of pity. The sadism could not continue now that her facial expression was no longer visible. Or that's my take. Any other thoughts? (And I love how THAT creep died. YUCK.)

2. A very sadomasochistic moment when Stuart and Beth are in the room. Well, Stuart's turnaround from reluctant to enthusiastic was quite interesting to begin with; but when he is saying tough guy talk to her and asks her if she is scared and she says "yes ... and I like it." In another (less disgusting) context this would be intriguing. As it was, she was clearly ACTING, to get him to trust her. Or was she? Any thoughts?

3. When the guy with the dorky teeth says to Beth "That's too bad. I could have helped you." the question is, did Eli Roth deliberately choose an actor with dorky teeth so that it would seem that Beth's reluctance to dance with him arose from his dorky appearance? If so, this is a statement of sorts.

4. How much did Beth end up paying to escape? The price to kill her was some 30-50 thousand, right? Is that all she paid? Or did she pay twice that? Or more?

5. How many clients does Elite Hunting in Slovakia service per month? It cannot be too many or Interpol would be on them; even if they had "friends" in Interpol, eventually something would catch up with them. This might make a fine plot for Hostel 3.

 

[Lady Day]

Well your naming tons of holes in the plot.

#5 if this hostel is renowned for 'loosing' patrons, (and you know how young kids gossip) you would think its reputation of being an abduction ground would have set it. Parents backtracking their children's locations! Credit card/travelers check use? Come on...

#4 I thin she paid what the 'contract' stated, or maybe a bit more. They were quite adamant about mentioning the 'contract'. *side note* Why her tattoo gotta be a 'tramp stamp' (on the lower part of she back)!? All the guys have their on their fore arm, why hers gotta be there!

#3 Ugly guy offering help is help less likely to be taken.

#2 She wanted to get away. Period.

#1 He got freaked out because he realized he had the power to end someone's life. All his talk was hype until then. He did not prepare himself for the magnitude of taking someone's life, even tho the injury happened a bit before he was ready and to his surprise.

Off to use my brain power for good now
LD

 

[Dr Doran]

Good points, LD. But:

Almost any American could cobble together $~40,000 if his life depended on it. OK, not almost any American, but MANY Americans, especially the ones with the dough to go on vay-cay in Europe. I think it has to be more. $100,000 is more like it. That would be hard to throw together for most folks.

DON'T USE YOUR BRAIN FOR GOOD. USE IT FOR EEEEVIL.