Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo, and Bijou Phillips are three American girls travelling around Europe, who make friends with the absolute worst person possible. Gorgeous model Vera Jordanova suggests they come to Slovakia with her to go to a supposedly amazing spa. Yeah, that sounds like fun. Not. Even Jordanova’s hotness isn’t enough to convince me. Nonetheless since these three girls are idiots of the highest order, they agree, and you guessed it, sign in to the hostel from hell. The hostel of course is in league with Elite Hunting, a haven for wealthy and soulless clients to carry out all kinds of sick torture on youngsters kidnapped from the hostel. Our three protagonists are to be preyed upon by the likes of gung-ho businessman Richard Burgi and his meek and more hesitant cohort Roger Bart. Exploitation notaries Ruggero Deodato (director of the infamous “Cannibal Holocaust”) and actress Edwige Fenech turn up as a cannibal (!) and art professor, respectively.
The first “Hostel” had a miniscule amount of promise but ultimately wasn’t any good, and certainly wasn’t interesting. I then skipped ahead to the third film, which was a bit better, mostly because it wasn’t set in some Eastern European hell hole. Now I’ve finally seen this 2007 first sequel from writer/director Eli Roth, and not only does it make me like “Hostel Part III” a bit less (it’s essentially the same film, but “III” had a more fun location), but this really is just a remake of the first film, only a bit better looking and with oestrogen.
The switch from male protagonists in the first film to female protagonists here is somewhat disappointing. Not only does the film wimp out on the lesbian content heavily implied by the most lying arse trailer of all time, but we also have Heather Matarazzo and Bijou Phillips playing the exact same characters they play in every single one of their films. Sure, you could argue that we’re at least getting three distinct characters on screen, but two of them are acts we’ve seen before, and in the case of Matarazzo, it’s taken to new levels of irritation here. It’s really gotta suck for Matarazzo that she only ever plays whiny ugly ducklings. Here she even gets spat on. Poor girl’s psyche must be a mess by now, but she’s absolutely awful here as basically the female version of that Shelley character from one of the “Friday the 13th” films (The annoying fat loser no one else in the film could stand). Even if she was aiming to be funny in this (I doubt it), it’s still a bad performance playing a seriously demeaning role. The connection to Elizabeth Bathory in one scene is cool, and Matarazzo has nice jugs (not that you can enjoy them in this literally bloody context), but it’s foul how she is treated in this film. Even a bad actress like her deserves better.
I like that the film opens with a logical extension of the first film by showing original survivor Jay Hernandez going through bouts of inner turmoil and paranoia. I also thought Roger Bart was quite good in his role, easily the highlight of the film, for whatever it’s worth. The low-light of the film is the ending, which is stupid for a whole variety of reasons not worth getting into. None of the three films are worth watching. They’re all basically the same, but with the third one being slightly better, and this one having slightly better cinematography and pacing than the other two. But it’s much of a muchness, at the end of the day.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Roth has a potentially interesting idea that he just hasn’t been able to turn into a movie worth watching. Perhaps he should find a different idea.
