January 14th - Hostel: Part 2 (18)

Meh.

If anyone has seen Cruel intentions and it's sequel (which is actually it's prequel), you'll be seeing quite a few similarities here. Hostel 2 is basically the same as it's predecessor in a different place and with different characters.

Three college girls (Ugh. College kids again) are on a trip to prague when they hear about the beautiful relaxing spas of Slovakia. They decide to go and end up on the wrong end of the Elite Hunting Club. Not much can be said about this film that I haven't already said about its prequel, except that it isn't executed as well.

What is new however, is that we get to see the other side of the shady goings-on. Hostel 2 shows us how the 'doctors' are called in. Stuart and Todd are two brothers who bid on the girls and win Beth and Whitney, respectively. As first time clients, they are branded with the bloodhound tattoo as part of the contract and called in when the girls arrive. Todd sticks a circular saw in Whitney's head, but that doesn't quite kill her. He realises what he has done and decides he's 'out'. Unfortunately for him, the the part of the contract he didn't read is 'kill or be killed'. Stuart on the other hand, tried to to rape Beth before he does the deed, but she breaks loose and ties him up, threatening to cut off his 'old mister' unless the EHC let her go. She tries to buy her way out, but the club's boss lady tells her about the clause Todd breached. So Beth snips Stuart's kerjigger and feeds it to the dogs, letting him bleed to death. This initiates Beth as a member of the EHC, granting her a tattoo and she is set free. The bubblegum boys are back too, although with a smaller role, and are shown to be quite accustomed to death. In the first movie, we see then cave in a man's skull with a rock. In this instalment, they do not even flinch when one of their own is shot and seem far to happy playing football with a freshly severed head.

Another torture-porn flick with less torture then the first, and probably less porn too. I guess if you're on a horror marathon it would make sense to watch this straight after the first, especially as the fate of Paxton from Hostel 1 is revealed in the opening scene, but other than that, once again, meh.

Only really worth the watch if you're a completist and like sequels. - 3 wieners out of five

Trailer --- IMDB

January 13th - Hostel (18)

First off, let me recommend not watching this if you plan to go backpacking and are prone to paranoia/suspicious/a wimpy little baby.

Hostel is a gritty tale of how dangerous backpacking can be.

The film follows three friends, Paxton, Josh and Oli, on their travels backpacking around Europe. When they get locked out of their hostel in Amsterdam because they missed curfew they crash at a local dude's house who tells them of a hostel in Slovakia where the women are into American men. Maybe the men will be 'into' the women to, if you catch my drift, wink wink, nudge nudge. On the train there, they meet a creepy German businessman who is obviously part of the plot. When they get to the hotel and check-in, they are told they only have semi-private rooms and will have to share.

Enter dis-hearted looks all round.

This changes when they find out their room-mates are semi-clothed girls who invite them to the spa. After a night out with the girls, Oli disappears and Paxton and Josh are told he has already checked out. When the same thing happens to Josh, Paxton starts to get suspicious. When he finds out that they have been taken to an abandoned building where people pay to torture and kill travellers, he himself gets caught and 'put in the doctors chair' so to speak. He eventually escapes when his 'doctor' accidentally chops his own leg off with a chainsaw (who didn't see that coming?)

Once again this is another film that follows the horror/thriller line of 'friends go to a remote locale, start to disappear one by one and only one of them gets out alive'. I'm not really a fan when the same thing gets used over and over again, but this time, I quite enjoyed it. Instead of college kids going somewhere nobody their age would ever go (see Cabin in the Woods) and murdered by freaks, inbreds, zombies or whatever, being tortured by normal* people is a refreshing take on the subject. Refreshing may not be quite the right word to use here, but you know, whatever. Also the word normal. The fact that this could (and probably has) happen is the allure of the film. I always slight films on their reality and authenticity, and even though there are things that happen in Hostel that seem a little farfetched, I think that the idea behind it was extremely solid. From the cops being paid off to ignore what was happening to the gang of street kids, the whole flick seemed believable and scarily possible.

As I wasn't watching something that could blow me away in the action-packed way, I was close to being blown away by the realness. Again, when I say realness, I'm talking about the possibility of it happening opposed to the film itself being true to life. That said, I was drawn in and at points, watching with baited breath. The gore level was not up to Saw standards, but you do see things cut off, hanging out and caved in, so not one for the faint-hearted.

Oh yeah. Takashi Miike randomly appears in it too.

Not something to watch as a random film, but a fine addition to a horror library. - Three and a half fingers out of five

Trailer --- IMDB