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Bookmark this pageHostel: Part II (2007)
Director: Eli Roth
Synopsis
In this violent horror sequel, three teenage American girls embark on the holiday of a lifetime backpacking around Europe. Their dream trip turns into a nightmare however, when they find themselves becoming the victims of rich and powerful men who enjoy administering pain and torture.
Movie review
From Time Out London
For all its jokey, fanboy indulgences, Eli Roth’s original slaughterhouse satire did achieve a bleak, visceral intensity. In this boring, blood-drenched sequel, three female American backpackers – party girl Whitney (Bijou Phillips), naive nerd Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) and sensible heiress Beth (Lauren German) – are lured to the same Slovakian torture factory, where flesh-ripping power-tools and Countess Báthory-style blood-baths await them. Meanwhile, a mobile phone auction, complete with photos of the potential victims, attracts wealthy clients who are jaded thrill-seeking sadists with an appetite for human flesh – literally so in the case of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ director Ruggero Deodato’s lip-smacking cameo.Once again, Roth is torn between two conflicting impulses: a sly subversion of our worst expectations and an adolescent delight in taboo-breaking. So, on the one hand we have an ‘equal opportunities’ policy that admits women-torturers, and on the other we have the callous killing of children. The female victims are less convincingly drawn than their fleshed-out male abusers – boorish braggart Todd (Richard Burgi) and wimpy wife-hater Stuart (Roger Bart) – although neither man conforms to type. Roth constantly emphasises the Elite Club members’ abuse of money and power, and indeed we identify masochistically with the victims’ suffering rather than the torturers’ sadistic pleasure. Yet there is nothing here that intelligently explores, still less justifies, the writer-director’s dubious assertion that ‘everybody has some side of them that wants to control or abuse another person.’ Although this slow, opportunistic sequel is better written and directed than its predecessor, Roth still talks a better film than he makes. He needs to jettison the geeky in-jokes, grow up and move on.
Author: Nigel Floyd
Time Out London Issue 1923: June 27-July July 3 2007
User reviews of this film
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- Mark C said...
- Posted on Jul 04 2007 18:08 This film is rubbish. A poor sequel to the first one
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- kelly swansea said...
- Posted on Jul 03 2007 15:05 eeeerrrrgggghhh!!! if u love blood guts and all that messy stuff go for it!!! my boyfriend loved it i wanted to curl up under my quilt!!!
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- ELLZ said...
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Posted on Jul 03 2007 14:12
O MY GGGGOOOOOODDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FRIGHTFULLY SCARY ND GRUSOME IN 1 GO WACTH IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!XX - Report as inappropriate
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- imogen said...
- Posted on Jul 03 2007 10:18 very gruesome wicked
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- Rikesh said...
- Posted on Jul 02 2007 11:18 i love it!!
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- Bobby John said...
- Posted on Jul 02 2007 11:17 Ohh MY GGOODDD!!!
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- Fletch said...
- Posted on Jul 01 2007 14:29 OMG
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Cast & crew
Director: Eli Roth
Producer: Mike Fleiss, Eli Roth, Chris Briggs
Cast: Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips, Roger Bart, Jay Hernandez, Richard Burgi, Vera Jordanova, Milan Knazko, Stanislav Ianevski full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Rated: 18
Duration: 94 mins
UK Release: Jun 29 2007
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