Fresh off directing that scrumptious two-minute pseudo-movie trailer Thanksgiving which segued Planet Terror into Death Proof in Grindhouse, director Eli Roth again dips into the Hostel franchise-his “torture horror” genre-for the second part in a rumored trilogy.
After becoming the first film not only to top box office charts in 2006 but at the same time bludgeon revenue powerhouses King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia, a sequel seemed almost mandatory.
Hostel: Part II has an interesting (and simple) concept to digest: a group of wealthy sadists from around the world all congregate in one filthy warehouse to indulge their gruesome pursuits in a torture playground. A few unsuspecting twenty-somethings become the ants underneath the sick degenerate’s magnifying glass. Victims are strapped to a dentist’s chair-gagged and blindfolded-until the sociopath enters, brandishing a torture tool. He severs limbs, cackles madly, pays the kidnappers and leaves as swiftly as he arrives.
Roth’s pay-to-torture bloodfest was never heavily plotted; in fact, about the only adjustment Roth plants in his otherwise formulaic sequel is flipping the gender coin. Instead of three horny male backpackers traveling to Slovakia for sexy-time with European chicks, absinthe and, um, more sexy-time, Roth goes the feminist route and follows three female American travelers (Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo and Bijou Phillips) who travel to Slovakia to study abroad.
Yes, they get lured into a torture warehouse by a titillating member of the opposite sex. And yes, much blood-drenching and human dismemberment ensues.
Roth gushes on his Myspace, “I fully expect walkouts, vomiting and with any luck, more people fainting than last time.”
As reassuring as that sounds, Roth has curiously opted to curtail much of the nudity in Hostel II, since the three intelligent female leads are pretty headstrong, and nakedness would disgrace his characters.
“I think I kind of toned down in more of the ‘Porky’s’ elements of the first one because it didn’t really apply to the second one,” Roth said in an online interview. “Of course some of that’s there because it wouldn’t be Hostel II without it.”
Hostel: Part II should mirror Saw II’s success (another cousin to the “torture genre” family) for two reasons: Roth was lucky enough to nab a summer release, and he scored the always-coveted Quentin Tarantino stamp of approval.
Hostel: Part II opens June 8.
Hostel Trailer
