Hostel: Part II

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Hostel: Part II

Final U.S. movie poster for the film
Directed by Eli Roth
Produced by Scott Spiegel
Boaz Yakin
Quentin Tarantino
Written by Eli Roth
Starring Lauren German
Bijou Phillips
Heather Matarazzo
Jay Hernandez
Jordan Ladd
Roger Bart
Vera Jordanova
Richard Burgi
Music by Nathan Barr
Cinematography Milan Chadima
Editing by George Folsey Jr.
Brad E. Wilhite
Distributed by Lionsgate
Screen Gems
Release date(s) June 8, 2007
Country United States Flag of the United States
Language English
Budget $10.2 million[1]
Gross revenue $35,619,521
Preceded by Hostel
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Hostel: Part II is the sequel to Eli Roth's 2005 horror film Hostel. The film was released on June 8, 2007 in the United States.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Beginning where Hostel ended, Paxton (Jay Hernandez), now in seclusion with his girlfriend Stephanie (Jordan Ladd), disregards her pleas to report his friends' deaths. In the morning, Stephanie discovers Paxton's decapitated body in the kitchen. In Slovakia, a mysterious package is delivered to Sasha (Milan Kňažko). In Italy, art students Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) are convinced by Axelle (Vera Jordanova) to join her on a spa vacation. The party travels to a small Slovak village and checks into the local hostel and retires to their rooms, allowing the desk clerk time to upload their passport photos to an online auction website, where American businessman Todd (Richard Burgi) bids on and wins Whitney and Beth, for himself and his best friend Stuart (Roger Bart).

Later that night at the village's "Harvest Festival," as the girls socialize with the locals, Lorna discovers that Beth previously inherited a vast fortune from her mother. As Todd and Stuart observe the girls from across the river, Stuart approaches Beth and the two share a friendly if awkward conversation before separating. An intoxicated Lorna leaves with Roman, a charismatic local, on a boat ride to a secluded shore, where Lorna is kidnapped by Roman and two accomplices. Beth and Whitney leave the party, while Axelle volunteers to wait for Lorna. The next morning the three girls, assuming Lorna is enjoying Roman's company, travel to the local spa. Meanwhile, a naked Lorna is shackled upside-down in a large room, where a woman (Monika Malacova) enters, named Ms. Bathory in reference to the infamous Hungarian serial killer. She undresses and lies beneath Lorna in a candlelit recess. After ripping into Lorna's body with a scythe and bathing in her blood, she slits Lorna's throat with a sickle. At the spa, Beth awakes to find herself alone and her belongings stolen. As she looks for her friends, she notices two men approaching her, and escapes into the forest, where she is ambushed by the "Bubblegum Gang" before being rescued by Axelle and Sasha. As Beth is taken to Sasha's mansion, she realizes that Sasha and Axelle are responsible for Whitney and Lorna's disappearances and tries to hide, uncovering a room filled with severed heads, including Paxton's, before being kidnapped.

Deep inside the factory, a sobbing Whitney is strapped to a chair in a cell and teased by Todd with a circular saw. Overwhelmed with excitement, Todd accidentally maims her face, which sufficiently disturbs him such that he no longer wants to kill her. As he leaves the room, the guard explains that he must kill her if he wants to leave; when he refuses and continues to make his way out, the guards set dogs on him to kill him for violating his contract. The guards bandage Whitney and show her photograph to other clients in adjoining cells, offering her at a discount. Stuart, now torturing Beth, accepts the offer and kills Whitney. As he returns to Beth, she tricks him into releasing her and traps him in the chair. After inadvertently activating the alarm, summoning both the security guards and Sasha to the cell, Beth offers to buy her freedom with part of her inheritance. When Sasha explains to her that she must kill somebody to leave, Beth cuts Stuart's genitalia off and tosses it to the guard dogs who eat them, and then she leaves him to bleed to death. Per the standard contract, Beth is given an Elite Hunting tattoo. In the closing sequence, Axelle is lured from the village festival into the woods by the Bubblegum Gang, where Beth surprises and beheads her, allowing the gang to play soccer with her head.

[edit] Cast

Eli Roth, his brother Gabriel, and co-producer Dan Frisch make cameo appearances as heads on sticks.

[edit] Locations

An initial movie poster for the film.
An initial movie poster for the film.

In October 2006, Eli Roth shot scenes for the movie in the Prague online brothel Big Sister and in Iceland, Bláa Lónið.[2]

[edit] Marketing

Lions Gate showed the first 5 minutes of Hostel 2 before select screenings of Bug, which opened on May 25th, 2007.[3] In one of the trailers the narrator says "It's only a movie," which was the tagline to the controversial horror film The Last House on the Left directed by Wes Craven. It was promoted in commercials on TV as having "the most shocking ending in horror movie history".

Director Eli Roth and cast member Bijou Phillips attended UFC 71 during which the movie was promoted.

At the date of the U.S. premiere of the movie on June 8, 2007, interviews with the Hostel 2 director Eli Roth were released at Big Sister[4]. Whilst at these locations, it has been said that Roth had an accident which prevented filming for 2 days.

[edit] Reaction

[edit] Box office

In terms of box office, Hostel: Part II did not perform as well as the first film, but still turned a profit due to its low production cost. The film opened in 6th place in the US and in 3rd place in the UK and took in an estimated $8,203,391[5] its opening weekend. The film cost $10.2 million to produce. With foreign box office the film earned $35,606,943 dollars, triple its production cost.

[edit] Critical reception

Critical reaction to Hostel: Part II, like the first film, was mixed, with Metareviews site Rotten Tomatoes showed a 44% overall (rotten) rating, with the "Cream of the Crop" scoring it at a 47% overall. [6]

[edit] Restriction

The film has been restricted to adults in most countries. However, it has been cut in Germany and Singapore. It was banned in New Zealand, after the distributor refused to cut the scene showing the torture of Lorna to receive an R18 certificate. The film, with the scene in question edited out, was later released on DVD on 30 April 2008.

On October 8 2007, the film was cited in the UK House of Commons as an example where stills from the film could be illegal to possess under the proposed law to criminalise possession of "extreme pornography". MP Charles Walker described it as "From beginning to end, it depicts obscene, misogynistic acts of brutality against women — an hour and a half of brutality".[7]

Writer and Attorney Julie Hilden defended Hostel Part II as a matter of free speech.[8]

Former Slovak minister of culture Milan Kňažko played Sasha, the head of the torture ring. He defended the first film, saying that it was simply fiction, and this was just a movie and people should not take the portrayal of Slovakia so seriously.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hostel @ BoxOfficeMojo.com
  2. ^ Big Sister blog, 15 October 2006; Big Sister blog, 17 October 2006
  3. ^ joblo.com/5-minutes-of-hostel-2
  4. ^ Big Sister Pressroom
  5. ^ Hostel Part II (2007)
  6. ^ Hostel: Part II. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-11-17.
  7. ^ Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill: 8 Oct 2007: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com)
  8. ^ Julie Hilden, "Free Speech and the Concept of Torture Porn: Why Are Critics so Hostile to Hostel II?".

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Films directed by Eli Roth

Cabin Fever • Hostel • Hostel: Part II • Grindhouse (Segment Thanksgiving) • Trailer Trash • Cell