Synopsis:

Hostel 2 retells the story of how wealthy people around the world will spend thousands of dollars to torture human beings, a concept loosely based on real events. There is a story that in Thailand and Cambodia, poverty-stricken families would sometimes sell their children to organized crime. American businessmen would pay up to $10,000 to walk into a room and shoot them in the head or torture them to death. It is a frightening concept...one that Eli Roth couldn't pass up making a film about. Who could blame him? It is interesting.

Hostel II follows three backpackers (Beth, Lorna and Whitney) traveling through Europe. The girls are convinced by an alluring woman to visit Slovakia for "the best spa treatment in Europe". They proceed to do so, only to be led to capture at the hands of Hostel operators who turn the girls over to a company that sells their lives to the highest bidder. One by one the girls are led to individual chambers to fulfill their "owner's" sick fantasy of gorish dismemberment, etc... I wish there was more of a plot to explain here, but that's pretty much it. You know they'll run, you know they'll scream, you know you'll be sick to your stomach with gore...blah blah blah.

The Freak's Rating: D : Similar to my review of Bug, Hostel 2 contains a plead to not see it for fans of a certain actress:

Wiener Dog (1996-2007)

Heather Matarazzo brought one of the strangest characters ever seen in Wiener Dog to the screen in the 1996 comedy/drama/strangestfilmoftheyear movie Welcome To The Dollhouse. If you had any love for that movie, PLEASE do not see Hostel 2. She plays one of the tortured backpackers and to me I was just thinking "don't hurt little Wiener Dog!".

On to the review...

"Presented by Quentin Tarantino" is a tagline that many films have used simply because they label him as an executive producer. For those unfamiliar with how Hollywood positions work, the executive producer is the guy who watches over those who are actually creating the film. He may watch daily shoots, but essentially he is just approving of the way it is made. This can sometimes lead to him interjecting creativity, but for the most part it is strictly approval of what has already been done with the film. The style of the Hostel movies has QT's approval, but not creativity.

I for one am nearly finished with torture horror. Hostel 2 merited a watch simply because I am a huge Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino fan. Their hand in the filmmaking is apparent. The torture chambers are actually filmed in an old psychiatric ward, the homage to Pulp Fiction is in there, Eli has a cameo, dialogue is somewhat snappy in parts, etc... It has the style you'd expect from them, but falls far short of being a great flick. I had trouble sleeping because of it, on a disturbing level more than anything. Even today at work I'm having a tough time getting some of the images out of my head. The film, like most torture horror, disturbs rather than frightens. This is the biggest failure of the filmmaker. I feel for this genre it succeeds, but I wouldn't encourage seeing it. The first film is MUCH better and this is basically watching a watered down version of it. I'd have given the first film a B-, if only for the last 15 minutes of it.

The audio was amazing on this disc, with screams and dripping sounding as clear as I've ever heard it. Blu Ray video rarely dissapoints, but fell short of crystal clear here. It is Halloween so I'm sure this will be seen flying off video store shelves. I'd recommend picking up the first one if you're in the mood for torture horror, otherwise go with something that will really scare you, a classic like the original Halloween. Just make sure your kids don't see this.

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