It’s always kind of facinating to watch a filmmaker mature as their experiences helps them get a better grasp of their craft, and believe it or not, a good example of this is the progression made by Eli Roth between Hostel and Hostel Part II.
Now, you may be thinking that I’ve gone and lost my noggin (possibly in a Slovakian cell at the hands of a rich sadist) to possibly hold up two examples of torture porn to prove a point about someone getting better at their craft, but when you hold both films up side by side, undeniable progress has been made. The tone, the plot, the characters, the way the entire scenario is presented; it’s all vastly superior to the movie Roth made in 2005 and the main reason for this is pretty simple – change the victims from male to female. Yes, pointing this out maybe rather a trite explanation, but the shift in chromosomes means that Roth actually has to think about how he’s presenting things rather than fall back on jocular humour. Call me crazy if you want, but I genuinely believe that Hostel Part II is a fascinating insight into horror filmmaking that been criminally overlooked.
After his escape from the secret organisation known as the Elite Hunting Club, a PTSD suffering Paxton is in hiding with his semi-sceptical girlfriend as he expects that he’s in great danger after what he experienced in Slovakia. For those new to the world of Hostel, what he endured is becoming a victim of a club that kidnap tourists so that rich business people can get their kicks by torturing and killing them for a hefty fee. However, Paxton’s paranoia is ultimately proved right and the threat he potentially poses to soon removed at the neck – so to speak – at the behest of the club’s gangster-like owner, Sasha Romanov.
From here, we move to Rome in order to spend some time with a new batch of potential victims in the form of American art students Beth, Whitney and the painfully naive Lorna as they are convinced to take a side trip to Slovakia by nude art model, Axelle. Of course, we all know what’s eventually going to happen next as Axelke is a plant and they all go through the usual, Hostel, notions; but as they have their passport details zapped out to potential bidders, they soak up the local ambience and try not to get brutalised by that roving gang of feral children, blissfully unaware that their lives are literally part of a bidding war.
It’s here that we switch focus to the guys who have won that bid. Meet American Businessmen Todd and his best buddy Stuart, who hope going through with the act of brutalising and killing another human being will aid them in their day to day lives. Todd hopes that the steely change people will perceive in him will garner him respect, while Stuart wants to take back some of his masculinity taken by his demanding wife. But as the girls are harvested for their violent end, it turns out that Beth has a few tricks up her sleeve that could turn some tables.
While I totally get that I may have lost a fair few of you by suggesting that a Hostel movie deserves praise for its maturity, when I make a few comparisons, you might just see what it is I’m getting at, because while the first instalment took the form of a particularly vicious holiday-gone-tits-up movie, it’s very straight forward in its execution (pun intended). Playing mainly to a 2000s audience of young males, Eli Roth tailored his movie accordingly, adding lots of casual nudity, a wealth of homophobic remarks, a dollop of misogyny and a plain, cautionary message that simply read: “thinking with your dick will get you straight up fucking killed, bro”. It wasn’t rocket science, but for what it was, it worked and certainly enough to warrant a sequel. This big change is that now instead of watching a group of young men get groomed, captured and maimed for entertainment, the twist is that we’re now following a trio of young women, and Roth had approached it with the same, gung-ho nature he applied to the first film, things might have been a little problematic for a wide release American movie. However, while more adolescent thinking might have mistakenly gone down that road, Roth wisely figures to play with the tone a bit and add some storytelling and directional flourishes to tell a more complex story while not losing the nastiness inherent in the franchise.
Dropping the frat boy shit from the original means that his female characters are much more likable while still sticking to the recognised stereotypes of the genre.
Lauren German’s Beth is a lesbian with a sizable inheritance behind her and yet is made completely relatable as a final girl, Bijou Phillips is the fun, party girl who never veers into the realms of annoying and Heather Matarazzo’s innocent Lorna is obviously the weak one of the heard, but you still feel pretty bad for her. But while changing the gender of the main protagonists may seem like an easy way to garner cheap scares, Roth recognises that to be a woman abroad is something of a risky business even without the threat of secret murder club posting your passport photo out over the Internet. Empathy isn’t really a term that’s applied to a genre like torture porn, especially when the main feeling you have is “I fucking glad that isn’t me”, but Roth shows an admirable sense of restraint not to take easy routes or low blows and realises that he can now use his franchise to do a bit more than just fuck teens up.
Similarly, as we are already familiar with the basic scenario, the movie also opens up the world of the Elite Hunting Club more to not only show us how it works and the rules they live by, but we have a parallel story that follows the two men who have signed up to kill them as we see their mindset. As a result, the film is far richer for it as its something of a takedown of misogynistic mindsets as Todd is a jacked, respect junkie and Stuart is something of a cuckold husband who you think may be on the fence due to the fact that he’s a self proclaimed “nice guy”. However, while Todd discovers that you should be careful about what you wish for, it’s Stuart who ultimately proves to be the more odious of the two as his true colours eventually show through.
It’s in its final act where Hostel Part II truly comes into its own and both parties collide with unpredictable results and while a Hostel film tend to be movie that don’t come with a whole lot of uplifting endings, the denouement proves to be incredibly satisfying. Of course, it helps that it also includes a frankly spectacular castration that not only sees the pork fully snipped, but sees the beans removed as well that might actually prove to be the crowning achievement of Eli Roth’s entire career.
In fact, I know that Roth doesn’t tend to get a lot of love, but I have to say that Hostel Part II may actually be his best film precisely because he approaches his horror sequel not as a horror fanboy, but as a genuine filmmaker who has actual points to make between stretching his cinematic skills to create moments that are more haunting than just gross. Roll your eyes if you must, but a flamboyant murder that sees a woman showering in blood like Elizabeth Bathory and a sombre moment that’s sees Todd and Stuart arrive for their appointment set to the strains of a beautifully mournful folk song means that Hostel Part II has a lot more going for it than just misery and suffering just for the sake of it.
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