Eli Roth
Hostel 2

Usually, in my music and film reviews, I get carried away too much, and every time I find myself with six-page-long pieces; today, for once, I would like to be more brief and concise, also because when it comes to Hostel 2, there's not much to say.

I had already expressed my opinion in the comments of the first film and the Braindead commentary, sadly today the era of true splatter movies is dead! What Hostel presents is nothing more than a fake provocation, a fake extreme film, a fake scandal, a fake uncensored movie, but if you look at the contents without being carried away by the publicity around it... there is nothing scandalous or extreme! Eli Roth is a nerdy kid like us who loves horror b-movies and Italian splatter, just like his buddy Tarantino. These kids have had the luck to become famous and make a name for themselves... but deep down, they're still two kids playing at emulating films. Hostel 2 has nothing original! The story is identical to the first (but here there are women protagonists), the horror scenes are extreme rip-offs of 70s splatter cinema but in a lighter version: the scene of the woman taking a shower with the blood of the girl hanging upside down has already been done! The scene of the severed penis belongs to the medieval times and here the effect is not that gruesome; you can see a mile away that it's a rubber penis like those Tinto Brass used in his films! It's absolutely not true that this second chapter is more gruesome than the first one! Hostel is a film intended for the general public, and the products aimed at the masses have censorship that's frightening!!! Before including an extreme horror scene, you have to have it viewed by four hundred and fifty censors!!!! And let me say it once and for all: the warning sign they placed on the Hostel 1 poster with the inscription "warnings, contains disturbing scenes, brutal shots, it's a challenge to make it until the end" is a colossal bullshit!! And it's the way they're pulling your leg!

Hostel 2 is a piece of crap! The Fenech cameo was very short (it was just another horrible commercial stunt), I didn’t like Deodato’s cameo, the protagonists are mechanical in their acting, there is no real build-up of tension, the extreme scenes... are not extreme!

An immense bullshit!

The only positive note is the development of the story of this torture fraternity, in this second film, the world of these bored rich people who buy victims to torture for record sums is explored. But if I wanted information on this subject, I would go read the true story from which this film was adapted. If I want to watch a Horror movie... I can only rewatch the REAL 70s/80s films and not look at these poor imitations (except for Tarantino's Grindhouse, which is the only homage to the genre that I liked, even if it’s not splatter).

(well... I was about to go on too long this time as well!)