|
Hostel II
Reviewed by Rich Drees
A young woman hangs upside down, naked and gagged, above an ornately
tiled tub surrounded by candles. An older woman enters, disrobes and
lies down in the tub. Reaching beside her, the older woman brings up
a long, sharp scythe and begins cutting into the younger woman’s
flesh. As the younger woman’s blood pours down, the older woman
writhes in ecstasy.
A strong and
disturbing scene which combines the two most basic and elemental of
human experiences- death and sex. Even though the French refer to
orgasm as “le petite mort,” or “the little death,” these are two
things that people usually risk combining in their entertainment.
While low in the outright gore factor, it probably rates as one of
the most disturbing sequences in Hostel II, a film that, like
its 2005 progenitor, has audiences squirming in their chairs and
some critics having self-righteous spasms over their computers.
Whereas the
first Hostel focused on a trio of males backpacking across
Europe who arrive at a Slovakian youth hostel only to discover that
it is a trap that supplies victims for a nearby facility where the
sadistic rich pay to torture and eventually kill innocents, this
second installment follows three young female art students, Lauren
German, Bijou Phillips and Heather Matarazzo, a very long way from
her Welcome To The Dollhouse feature debut, who accidentally
make their way into the hostel’s clutches.
Although this
new installment’s structure basically echoes the first film’s,
writer/director/franchise creator Eli Roth is canny enough to use
the audience’s knowledge of what is happening around his unknowing
characters in two ways- to build suspense and to illuminate how the
Slovakian hostel and torture factory work. This second objective is
accomplished through the eyes of Todd (Richard Burgi), who wins the
chance to kill one of the girls in an online auction (where one of
the bidders looks disturbingly like an older Dick Van Dyke) for his
friend Stuart (Roger Bart). Todd is of the opinion that people can
sense if someone is dangerous, so that if he actually kills someone,
his future business contacts will sense that he is a man to be
reckoned with. Stuart is a bit more reluctant about the whole
process. Surprisingly, the two men’s story becomes one of the most
interesting aspects of the sequel.
Still, despite
its strengths, there are a few nagging weak spots, but nothing
fatal, excuse the pun, to the storyline. While Roth does reveal some
of the workings of how the people behind the Hostel connect killers
with their victims, it doesn’t explain how new customers, as
personified by Burgi and Bart’s characters, come to hear about the
place to begin with. The film opens with the previous film’s only
survivor being silenced by the organization to keep him from telling
anyone what he knows. Obviously, they are very intent on keeping
their operation secret. How do they attract their clients then?
Even before
Hostel 2’s release, or even before it was screened for critics,
some entertainment commentators were already decrying the film,
dismissing it as “disgusting trash” that “glorifies violence” while
“degrading women.” But such criticisms, even if one had
bothered to see the film in question before uttering them, would
constitute only a bare surface reading of the film, with the
reviewers’ own prejudices towards genre material being revealed than
any real analysis of the material in question.
If one were to
argue that the slasher film cycle of the 70s and 80s as being a
cinematic manifestation of the remnants of Cold War paranoia – dark
forces made impersonal by visages hidden beneath hockey masks or
under battered fedoras who invade our lives to randomly destroy them
– than perhaps an argument could be made that Roth’s Hostel
films are a reaction to the 21st century’s geo-political
clime. In both installments, young Americans are out in a bigger
world, having a grand adventure blundering their way through another
country’s culture (one character in this new installment knowingly
refers to himself as an “Ugly American,” a literary reference that
will probably sail over the heads of most of the film’s primarily
teen to early 20s audience) that is interrupted by the randomness of
them being ensnared by the machinations of the films’ torture
factory, a fairly obvious though still workable metaphor for
terrorism. Of course, although Roth has stated he has no desire to
make a third Hostel, if this geo-political subtext were to be
pursued in a further installment, it would almost demand that some
survivor of the torture factory lead a group of soldiers or
mercenaries back to the place to destroy it, though things would not
go to plan. Think the difference in tone and style between Ridley
Scott’s Alien (1979) and the James Cameron helmed 1986 sequel
Aliens.
Admittedly,
Roth might not have such grand intentions here. He may just see
himself as someone who knows that there is a certain segment of the
movie-going public that enjoys the kind of thrills and scares that
he is offering. The box office figures for the first Hostel
and the fact that we now have a sequel would certainly backup that
claim. But much like in the aforementioned bathtub scene – in which
he seems to be challenging some critics’ ascertains that horror
films are often misogynistic for their depiction of women as victims
by showing that the sex of the tormentor and the tortured doesn’t
matter, all humans have the capacity to commit such horrors – Roth
confronts his critics while possibly in the act of absolving
himself, at least in his own eyes, through the management of the
torture factory itself. They know that any desire, no matter how
base and depraved, will need someone to cater to, and make a profit
from, it. As the film tells us, “It’s just business.” |
