Hostel: Part II Information

Hostel: Part II is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Eli Roth, and the sequel to his 2005 horror film Hostel. The film was released on June 8, 2007 in the United States. Like its predecessor, the film is set in Slovakia and centers on a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill kidnapped victims. The film performed poorly at the box office totaling just $17 million by the end of its theatrical run whereas the original made $19 million in its opening weekend alone. Eli Roth shot scenes for the movie in the Prague online brothel Big Sister and at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.

Plot

Shortly after the events of Hostel, Paxton (Jay Hernandez) is suffering from nightmares and lives in seclusion with his girlfriend Stephanie (Jordan Ladd). The two get into an argument where Stephanie announces Paxton's paranoia as insufferable and exaggerated. She wakes up the next morning to find her boyfriend decapitated. An unmarked box (presumably containing Paxton's severed head) is then delivered to Elite Hunting boss Sasha (Milan K?a?ko), as he relaxes at an outdoor cafe with his Bloodhounds.

In Italy, three art students, wealthy Beth (Lauren German), tough Whitney (Bijou Phillips), and outcast Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) are convinced by Axelle (Vera Jordanova), a nude model they are sketching, to join her on a vacation to a luxurious spa. The four travel to a small Slovakian village and check into the local hostel, where the desk clerk uploads their passport photos to an auction website, and American businessman Todd (Richard Burgi) submits the winning bids on Whitney and Beth for himself and his passive best friend Stuart (Roger Bart).

Later that night, at the village's Harvest Festival, Lorna discovers that Beth has inherited a vast fortune from her mother. Stuart approaches Beth and the two share a friendly, albeit awkward, conversation. An intoxicated Lorna leaves to go on a boat ride with Roman, a charismatic local, who proceeds to kidnap Lorna with the help of two accomplices. A local walks up to Beth and asks her for a dance, however, she declines. He responds by telling her that he could have helped her. Beth and Whitney leave the party, while Axelle volunteers to stay behind and wait for Lorna. Whitney wants to sleep with local Miroslav (Stanislav Ianevski), but Beth convinces her otherwise.

The next morning Beth, Whitney, Axelle, and Miroslav head to the local spa to relax. Basking in the relaxing atmosphere of the hot springs, Beth is able to doze off. Meanwhile, the now naked and gagged Lorna is hung upside down, Her feet are chained tightly together above her and her wrists are chained tightly together behind her back. The men who kidnapped Lorna prepare the chamber with room with candles for a client named Mrs. Bathory (Monika Malacova) who enters the room, strips off her robe, and lies naked beneath Lorna. She then uses a long scythe to repeatedly slash the screaming Lorna's back and torso, and revels in bathing in Lorna's blood, before fatally slashing Lorna's throat with a sickle.

Beth wakes up only to find herself alone and her belongings stolen. As she looks for her friends, she notices several men approaching her. Fearing for her life, she climbs over the spa walls. While making her escape, she is ambushed by the "Bubblegum Gang", a gang of violent street children. Before they are able to descend upon her, however, Axelle and Sasha appear and ward them away from her. Axelle escorts a flustered but somewhat relieved Beth to their vehicle. With Axelle and Beth away, Sasha confronts the children. Angry that they attacked Beth, Sasha draws out his gun and has one of the children brought forward before him. He then kills the boy, and the rest of the gang flees.

After being taken to Sasha's mansion, Beth realizes that Sasha and Axelle are responsible for Whitney and Lorna's disappearances after seeing the men who tried to kidnap her at the spa coming up the stairs of Sasha's home. She tries to hide and discovers a room filled with severed heads, including Paxton's, before being captured and taken to the factory. At the factory, a sobbing Whitney is strapped to a chair in one of the cells while an old woman applies makeup to her face. Whitney severely bites the woman's nose and escapes, only to be captured by the guards.

Having been notified via pager, Todd and Stuart are chauffeured to the factory, where they joke around with some of the tools and uniforms. Stuart then enters his room where Beth is strapped to a chair with a sack covering her head. Stuart looks around the room at the tools with horror. He then takes the sack off Beth's head and explains about Elite Hunting. Stuart tells Beth that the group is a worldwide secret society where wealthy members come to Slovakia to kill people that the organization abducts as a twisted satisfaction for clients to kill people in various ways for the sole purpose to watch them die and to get the satisfaction of killing a human. He then unties her from the chair and almost decides to let her escape, but then knocks her out and reties her to the chair. The passive Stuart now suddenly becomes angry; ranting and raving at Beth as if he feels he's talking to his domineering wife.

Whitney is taken to Todd's cell and strapped to a chair, where he gleefully terrorizes her with a circular saw but loses his nerve after accidentally cutting through part of her skull. Horrified by what he has done, Todd tries to leave without killing Whitney but one of the guards reminds him that he is contractually obligated to kill her and cannot leave until he does so. Todd angrily refuses, prompting the other guards to turn some savage dogs loose and maul him to death. The Elite Hunting representatives try to find someone to finish off Whitney, inquiring whether an Italian man (Cannibal Holocaust director Ruggero Deodato) who is shown to be eating Miroslav alive and a man who has his victim chained to an electrified metal bed are interested.

Stuart, now torturing Beth, is approached by The Elite Hunting representatives. They offer Whitney to Stuart. After discovering that Todd has been killed, the now deranged and sadistic Stuart accepts the offer and kills Whitney. He comes back to Beth, blaming her for his friend's death. As he resumes torturing her, she seduces him into releasing her from the chair, then fights him off as he lies on her and chains him to the chair. Beth demands that Stuart tell her the code to the cell door, then sticks a needle in his ear when he refuses to tell her. Stuart tells Beth the code (which is Beth's birthday, December 12), but she still needs to be buzzed through the door, which inadvertently summons Sasha and the guards to the room. Beth offers to buy her freedom with part of her inheritance. When Sasha explains to her that she must kill somebody to leave, Beth cuts off Stuart's genitals and tosses them to one of the guard dogs, leaving him screaming in pain. Per the standard contract, Beth is given an Elite Hunting tattoo and is made a member.

In the closing sequence, Axelle is lured from the village festival into the woods by the Bubblegum Gang, where the revenge-seeking Beth surprises and beheads her for leading her friends to their deaths. The Bubblegum Gang then take and play soccer with Axelle's head.

Cast

• Lauren German as Beth
• Roger Bart as Stuart
• Heather Matarazzo as Lorna
• Bijou Phillips as Whitney
• Richard Burgi as Todd
• Vera Jordanova as Axelle
• Jay Hernandez as Paxton
• Jordan Ladd as Stephanie
• Milan K?a?ko as Sasha
• Monika Malacova as Mrs. Bathory
• Stanislav Ianevski as Miroslav
• Zuzana Geislerová as Inya
• Edwige Fenech as Art Class Professor
• Patrik Zigo as Bubblegum Gang Leader
• Ivan Furak as Big Guard
• Ruggero Deodato as The Italian Cannibal

Director Eli Roth, his brother Gabriel, and co-producer Dan Fisner make cameo appearances as heads on sticks. Eyþór Guðjónsson, Rick Hoffman, Jana Kaderabkova, and Barbara Nedeljáková make flashback cameos at the beginning of the film as their original roles in the first film.

Marketing

Lionsgate showed the first five minutes of Hostel: Part II before select screenings of Bug, which opened on May 25, 2007.

In one of the trailers, the narrator says "It's only a movie," which was the tagline to the controversial horror film The Last House on the Left directed by Wes Craven. It was promoted in commercials on TV as having "the most shocking ending in horror movie history".

Director Eli Roth and cast member Bijou Phillips attended UFC 71 during which the film was promoted.

At the date of the U.S. premiere on June 8, 2007, interviews with the Hostel: Part II director Eli Roth were released at Big Sister.

Response

Box office

The film was a box office bomb. It opened in 6th place with only $8.2 million and went on to total $17.6 million by the end of its theatrical run. Comparatively, the original opened at #1 with $19 million ($2 million more than Hostel: Part IIs final gross) and went on to make over $47 million.

Director Roth blamed piracy for the film's box office results.

Critical reception

Critical reaction to Hostel: Part II was mixed to negative, with Metareviews site Rotten Tomatoes showed a 44% overall rating. The sites consensus states "Offering up more of the familiar sadism and gore, Hostel: Part II will surely thrill horror fans." The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards in the fields of Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.

Controversy

The film has been restricted to adults in most countries. However, it has been cut in Germany, Malaysia, and Singapore, and the "German Extended Version" (in which Lorna's torture and death scene is still not shown completely)has subsequently been banned in Germany. The court in Munich decided that releasing the movie in this or the uncut version is to be punished. Only a heavily edited "not under 18" version is still available. It was banned in New Zealand, after the distributor refused to cut the scene showing the torture of Lorna to receive an R18 certificate. The film, with the scene in question edited out, was later released on DVD on April 30, 2008.

On October 8, 2007, the film was cited in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as an example where stills from the film could be illegal to possess under the proposed law to criminalise possession of "extreme pornography". MP Charles Walker claimed that although he had never seen the film, he was "assured by trusted sources" that "From beginning to end it depicts obscene, misogynistic acts of brutality against women".

Writer and attorney Julie Hilden defended Hostel: Part II critically and artistically in her essay "Why are critics so hostile to Hostel: Part II?".

Former Slovak Minister of Culture and actor Milan K?a?ko played Sasha, the head of the torture ring. He also defended the first film.

Sequel

In June 2008, it was announced that Scott Spiegel, one of the producers of Hostel and Hostel: Part II, was in talks to write and direct a third film in the series. In July 2009, Eli Roth confirmed that he would not be directing Hostel: Part III. Total Film later reported that Roth would be involved, albeit as producer only, and that the film will abandon the European locations of the previous films in favor of an American setting. A trailer for Hostel: Part III was released in October 2011 confirming the film's Las Vegas setting.

A direct-to-DVD release, Hostel: Part III was released on December 27, 2011 (U.S.) and January 18, 2012 (Europe).