An interesting piece of information is that the main audience for blood-and-guts horrors films is in fact young girls who drag their boyfriends to the show, maybe as a way of catharsis-on-demand with ample opportunities to clutch at the reassuring elbow of the disinterested companion.
Eli Roth, the director of Hostel: Part II, seems to have taken this research to heart: his movie is driven by a fairly sympathetic female trio of characters and there is plenty of frontal male nudity, including a penis in a losing battle with a pair of scissors. The latter is indicative of the movies highly specialised ambition - to outdo anything achieved in the genre and deliver a veritable jolt to the audiences whose tolerance for violence seems to be outstripping the filmmakers creative use of blades, blood and intestines.
Given the fairly graphic advertising and the reputation of the original Hostel, there will not be many viewers with no idea of what is in store. Most people in the cinema will know exactly what they will be getting and I would think they will get their moneys worth - there are plenty of arteries severed, blood spilled or otherwise used in bizarre rituals. The returns for those hoping for some semblance of storytelling are pretty minimal, though. There is a swift dispensing with the sole survivor from the original film (Jay Hernandez) then there follows a rather dull and lengthy set up for three cardboard characters before the ultra-gory 20-minute payoff, which is the essence of the entire operation.
The three characters in question are American girls on a budget trip through Europe: Beth (Lauren German) is ultra rich; Whitney (Bijou Phillips) is ready to flirt with anyone in sight while Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) is the nerd along for the ride. En route to Prague they end up spending a night at a reasonably priced hostel at the advice of Axelle (Vera Jordanova) who they meet along the way. This turns out to be the same sinister club where rich men bored into being psychopathic pay top dollar for the pleasure of killing. This time around we even get to get closer to two of them, the exuberant Todd (Richard Burgi) and the quiet Stuart (Roger Bart), and follow their murderous preparations.
The problem is that there is not enough plot to fill a feature-length running time, and this manifests itself in a rather uneven spreading of thrills, and this is not helped by the fact that the performances of the female trio are rather indifferent, apart from the times when they have to scream rather loudly. The core audience can easily walk out for the middle third, have a coffee, leaf through a magazine, and return for the finale; this would probably enhance their experience. Whereas storytelling and obtaining performances are not the not director Roths strong suits, the bigger budget allows him and the makeup artists to really run riot. He makes a serious challenge for the crown of the most shocking and offensive spectacle on the multiplex bill. Whether this is worthwhile entertainment, it is a matter of individual taste.
