After a very successful box office turnaround with Hostel, no time was wasted in crafting a Hostel: Part Two. The trailers came out very far in advance, the film promised to be bloodier, scarier, and more intense, and the audience waited. Generally, I have to say I was disappointednot because the film didn't live up to its promisesit did, but with this little niche in the market soon to become saturated, audiences are left feeling short changed. There are no genuine scares, and the film seems much like it is torture scenes pieced together by a flimsy plot. Eli Roth knows his gore, but proves his inability to successfully craft a scene of suspense.
The film is a reverse reworking of the first Hostel. The three male protagonists are replaced with female counterparts. As common horror movie knowledge goes, females are more well-liked than males, so that should scare us more as we will hopefully sympathize with the characters? This logic works to an extent, but ultimately alienates the audience from the intentions of Roth to bring us closer to the characters. We are disgusted by the first slaying, which only makes us feel bad. The subtleties make all the difference between the supporting characters. Josh (Derek Richardson) from the first Hostel had the right combination between nerd and nice guy to make him an extremely likable character. The audience would rather he and Paxton (Jay Hernandez) switch places. The character of Lorna played by Heather Matarazzo, who is already too recognizable to star in this kind of role, is too over the top, and difficult for the audience to take seriously. In Hostel: Part Two the heroine is exactly who you think it will be, and the audience is not left hung up on that dilemma.
The anonymity of the first Hostel added to the scare factor. We are not sure who these people are, what is going on, or how this business works. Unfortunately Hostel: Part Two flushes all these aspects out, and methodically desensitizes us to the procedures involved in this "business". It evens comes to be comical, for example, when businessmen around the world are bidding on victims to torture, it really takes the edge off that anonymous masked man scare. In the first Hostel, the brief awkward contact with Josh's soon to be torturer did not reveal too much about the businessman to make him less menacing later in the film. However, in Part Two, we don't really perceive Stewart (Roger Bart) to be that threatening or believe Todd (Richard Burgi) will carry out his plans, and with each minute more of screen time they receive they become more of a person, and less menacing.
The pacing and structure of the film lack in comparison to its predecessor. Paxton worries more about the whereabouts of his friends than does Beth (Lauren German). Little hints are also dropped like the jacket worn by an Oli look-alike, and the severed head text message. Part Two doesn't even give Beth time to digest the information before she too is swept up into the world of torture. There are no superfluous characters such as Kana (Jennifer Lim) from the original, and nothing to even sidestep from the very linear plot, and the 'us and them' feeling generate by Part Two.
I wasn't the world's biggest advocate of the first Hostel, but when sequels are made I either like them as a radical departure from the formula such as Aliens, or a film very adherent to the original such as The Bourne Supremacy. Hostel: Part Two seems to be undecided on what it wants to be. Like the Saw films, sequels will be easy to make and will profit well in the box office, but I'm sure the series will quickly erode without a strict adherence to formula. The deterioration in quality between these two films, the first not being so great to begin with, is proof that this series will probably run itself out of business and should perhaps quite while it's winning.
The film is a reverse reworking of the first Hostel. The three male protagonists are replaced with female counterparts. As common horror movie knowledge goes, females are more well-liked than males, so that should scare us more as we will hopefully sympathize with the characters? This logic works to an extent, but ultimately alienates the audience from the intentions of Roth to bring us closer to the characters. We are disgusted by the first slaying, which only makes us feel bad. The subtleties make all the difference between the supporting characters. Josh (Derek Richardson) from the first Hostel had the right combination between nerd and nice guy to make him an extremely likable character. The audience would rather he and Paxton (Jay Hernandez) switch places. The character of Lorna played by Heather Matarazzo, who is already too recognizable to star in this kind of role, is too over the top, and difficult for the audience to take seriously. In Hostel: Part Two the heroine is exactly who you think it will be, and the audience is not left hung up on that dilemma.
The anonymity of the first Hostel added to the scare factor. We are not sure who these people are, what is going on, or how this business works. Unfortunately Hostel: Part Two flushes all these aspects out, and methodically desensitizes us to the procedures involved in this "business". It evens comes to be comical, for example, when businessmen around the world are bidding on victims to torture, it really takes the edge off that anonymous masked man scare. In the first Hostel, the brief awkward contact with Josh's soon to be torturer did not reveal too much about the businessman to make him less menacing later in the film. However, in Part Two, we don't really perceive Stewart (Roger Bart) to be that threatening or believe Todd (Richard Burgi) will carry out his plans, and with each minute more of screen time they receive they become more of a person, and less menacing.
The pacing and structure of the film lack in comparison to its predecessor. Paxton worries more about the whereabouts of his friends than does Beth (Lauren German). Little hints are also dropped like the jacket worn by an Oli look-alike, and the severed head text message. Part Two doesn't even give Beth time to digest the information before she too is swept up into the world of torture. There are no superfluous characters such as Kana (Jennifer Lim) from the original, and nothing to even sidestep from the very linear plot, and the 'us and them' feeling generate by Part Two.
I wasn't the world's biggest advocate of the first Hostel, but when sequels are made I either like them as a radical departure from the formula such as Aliens, or a film very adherent to the original such as The Bourne Supremacy. Hostel: Part Two seems to be undecided on what it wants to be. Like the Saw films, sequels will be easy to make and will profit well in the box office, but I'm sure the series will quickly erode without a strict adherence to formula. The deterioration in quality between these two films, the first not being so great to begin with, is proof that this series will probably run itself out of business and should perhaps quite while it's winning.
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