RUTHERFORD ON FILM: 'Hostel II': Two-Thirds Suspenseful Set up; One-Third Buckets of Sadistic Blood, Graphic Imagery
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) - Call it an ultimate ‘good ole’ boys’ hunting club. The highest bidders come to Slovakia for a “one of a kind experience.” And, since we’re writing about the “Hostel” sequel, I do not have to fill in the blank on the nature of their safari.
You’ll find yourself guessing which of the American females will be the first to succumb in the Nazi era torture chamber hidden inside a decaying factory. In fact, the maneuvers, movements, and style of “Hostel II” closely resemble the teen slasher formula: Three young American women do Europe, but in Rome they accept an invitation to a therapeutic hot springs that naturally leads them to the fateful inn.
Considering the ‘buzz’ and prior entry, I entered the auditorium with a strong prejudice against exceedingly graphic and drawn out splashing and spurting of the production. After shock and awe grinding innards excess of last year’s flick, director Eli (“Cabin Fever”) Roth resisted temptations and thankfully made a reasonably workable choice to not turn the sequel into 90 minutes of surgery.
Thankfully, two-thirds of “Hostel II” did not require Red Cross reinforcements, as the toys with the audience inserting a trace of subtlety and a trace of suspense.
Shifting perspective from the victims, he places more screen time to the psychological make up of the ‘sick’ rich dudes who pay to kill and torture, including one man who’s on the teeter totter regarding this new rite of manhood passage.
Roth begins softening up the audience by an extended tying up unfinished business during a “how did you survive” sequence. By foreshadowing the fates of the likable, lovely (ok, one’s geeky) women (Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo, and Bijou Phillips) , meaningless conversations about ‘yes, we have a chaperone,’ ‘don’t go for a ride in the stream,’ and ‘I’ll teach you how to walk in heels on cobblestone’ have sinister, even ironic, psychological pay dirt, particularly since musical maestros accommodate too.
“II” does not spend as much screen time on gory gruesome red splashing as its predecessor (remember the eye scene?) , but specifically during the last third, the sadistic sequel reverts into a relax, separate, capture, torture, sever formula, meaning a few less body parts flying but stomachs do cringe at a couple grisly twists.
I’m a firm believer in restrained terror, which Roth handles compellingly before each of the ladies fall into captivity. Still, we don’t need to visit a slaughterhouse to up blood pressure, otherwise a surgical resident sneaking his camera phone into an operating room might become the next low budget slicer blockbuster?
** out of ****