If there’s one really nice thing to say about Eli Roth as a human being, it’s that he at the very least seems honest about what he’s trying to accomplish with his films. His genuine love of the genre, while not always giving way to fantastic films, gives him good marks in my book when it comes to him as a person. But enthusiasm doesn’t automatically mean a good product. I was enthusiastic every time the science fair rolled around in grade school, and all I have is a box of green participation ribbons. God damn, I hate those fucking ribbons.

I was initially fearful when throwing Hostel Part II into my DVD player. While I enjoyed Cabin Fever for all of its whacked-out sensibilities, I appreciate it more as an accomplishment in the realms of low-budget filmmaking. But then Hostel rolled along and I felt burned after watching it; characters that held absolutely no interest, rendering the bait-and-switch third act utterly meaningless, and the film just didn’t match the hype I was hearing.

Picking up right where we left off, we’re re-introduced to Paxton, the protagonist of the first film as he’s dispatched in the blink of an eye. Cut to Rome, as three young American art students, the survival-prone main character Beth (Lauren German), the freewheeling and sexual Whitney (Bijou Phillips as herself) and the mousy, journal-fixated Lorna (Heather Matarazzo, clearly back in Todd Solondz mode) find themselves sidetracked by the mysterious temptations of Slovakia.

This is where Hostel Part II differs from the original film – instead of hanging out and getting high with the boys at the local brothels that Hostel provided us, Part II is, of course, more female driven. Eli Roth knows what would draw women to the Eastern European death trap, and that’s promises of renfaires featuring puppet shows, golden masks, fiddle music and all sorts of other fruity, Neil Gaiman-esque set pieces.

But the film isn’t entirely a taco party (as opposed to a sausage festival). We’re soon introduced to our potential antagonists, the aggressive go-getter Todd and meek Stuart (Richard Burgi and Roger Bart, respectfully) – two Americans who have ponied up the cash in order to torture, dismember and probably kill our three art school heroes.

Now, if you’ve managed to see the first Hostel, or generally know your way around horror films in general, you can probably nail down what’s going to happen in the film. Each girl is hunted down one by one and strapped into the chair for their just desserts. The two bad guys switch roles, as hype man Todd gets cold feet at the sight of blood while the sympathetic Stuart turns into a cold-blooded sadist. The pleasure comes from Eli Roth’s new, expanded take on the same subject.

The only scene I felt really worked in the first Hostel was the scene where Paxton encounters the individual getting ready to go into the room for his kill. Simultaneously unnerving and hysterical (thanks to Rick Hoffman’s venomous performance), Hostel Part II correctly decides to spend much time on the other side of the torture chamber, and consistently hits that ugly/amusing tone without devolving into camp. Yes, even when cribbing its ending directly from John Waters’ Desperate Living, the film still has the ability to distress. That reminds me by the way, why do I own so many films where dismembered penises are fed to dogs?


Presentation
For my multiple viewings of Hostel Part II, I was able to watch the film on both my standard broke-ass portable DVD player and a bright, shiny and new HDTV LCD display. Guess what? The movie looks shitty no matter what you're watching it on.

That's not to say that the transfer is bad, no - when Hostel II cuts away to scenes less grimy, the image is surprisingly good, with a nice amount of detail and appropriate color balance - the issue is Eli Roth's choice of style; ugly, dark to the point of near-incomprehensibility, murky and with a layer of grain. Overall, this is a good transfer of a film that's just plain unpleasant to look at, and I mean that in a bad way. While Roth's technique has grown considerably since the previous entry in the series, the overall look of the film is not a pretty sight.

The 5.1 audio is a well balanced mix of gruel, from the string-heavy soundtrack to the actual horror itself, the overt screaming is just as well balanced as the small trickles of blood burbling out from the decapitated corpse. The tearing of flesh from bone sounds plain fantastic.

Most interest might come with the Producer's Commentary, as it features Quentin Tarantino and works as a makeshift Grindhouse commentary for both Death Proof and Roth's Thanksgiving trailer. If you can’t wait for the double-dip, you might want to check this commentary out.

Hotel Part II: The Next Level shows the film crew utterly laid back and dedicated to making the film. And thank Christ, this is a featurette that doesn't feature too many film clips - it focuses on the behind the scenes tidbits worth watching. Fun fact: the characters of Hostel II were named after teachers of Eli Roth's who were either accused or convicted of child molestation. I've changed my mind, Eli Roth is awesome.

The Art of KNB Effects is a feature for the kind of geeks who would fantasize about going to the special effects makeup schools featured in the back of Fangoria magazine. I can't be the only one who has wanted to cover his head in alginate and make a severed head bust of myself, right?

Production Design is a mere six minutes of behind the scenes footage focusing on the art design of the film, and, while it's not filler, there isn't much reason this footage couldn't have been integrated into the well-rounded Next Level feature.

And finally under the featurettes section, we have Hostel Part II: A Legacy of Torture is an Italian television special concentrating on the mechanics of horror, with input from not only Eli Roth, but his psychologist father and artist mother as well. The history of torture is depicted through art works, museum displays and, wouldn’t you know, horror films. While initially coming off as promotion for the film itself, it quickly evolves into an interesting history on torture devices. While it recycles some footage from the other features, this is probably my favorite documentary in the package.

But wait, there's more. How about ten little deleted scenes? They don't amount to much, but there's some great little bits that were shaved from the film (Rape Shower should please any veteran of after school specials) and they feature text introductions to boot. The Blood, Guts and Gag reel brings a few giggles and a lot of splatter in great looking anamorphic widescreen that rivals the film itself in terms of video quality (a rarity in such features), and finally The Treatment Radio Interview with Eli Roth pairs the director with ex-New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell. Roth's attempt to add a political agenda to the Hostel series is pretty silly, but overall, this audio-only interview is worth checking out.

Oh, and there's previews. Woo, previews!

The Bottom Line
Sequels – especially horror sequels – are rarely able to meet, let alone one-up their predecessors. I’m happy to report that Hostel Part II achieves this with great aplomb, and I’m not even going to backhand that compliment by finishing that sentiment with something like “but then again, considering the first film, it isn’t that much of an accomplishment.” Hostel Part II is awesome and the disc is worth picking up for fans, and maybe even a few detractors willing to give Roth another shot.