Film Review: Hostel Part II

God, this is rubbish.

Let's face it: any movie which leaves you almost nostalgic for Eli Roth's original Hostel has got some serious issues. As turgid, juvenile and derivative as the first instalment was, this rushed-out follow up makes Part One look like it had Fellini on camera and David Mamet on scripting duties.

The story? Well, we'll cobble together what pieces we can find. Basically Hostel Part II is just a retread of the first film, in which a group of spoilt American students get tricked into staying at a resort which doubles up as a handy torture chamber - a place where rich people pay extortionate amounts of money for the pleasure of sticking power tools into screaming backpackers. The 'twist' this time around, however, is that our protagonists are exclusively female - meaning that Roth can play that all-important misogyny card to his heart's content.

And, boy, does he ever. God only knows how many cheerleaders rejected him at high school, but Hostel Part II makes one thing abundantly clear: Roth despises women. In his oddly-crafted world, the female species consists of either teeth-and-tits Euromodels (much like in the first film) or dimwit dolly-birds destined for horror central. Correction - there is one girl who likes reading books and being a bit clever and stuff, but then she gets her throat ripped open relatively early on, so that's okay.

Childish girl-hating aside, Hostel Part II basically does very little but amplify the worst aspects of the original. Yes - as the PR campaign no doubt proudly claims - there are moments of wince-inducing violence. What Roth fails to realise, though, is that unless you actually care about these characters (and we're using the term 'characters' in the loosest possible sense) then the audience might as well be watching a Barbie doll full of tomato puree getting chainsawed apart. And at least then there'd be some surrealist value.

There's one scene - hecklerspray thinks Roth might have been attempting tension, but we're not sure - in which a gun-toting evil-doer waves his weapon at a line-up of children, savouring the decision of choosing which one to shoot. Chances are you'll be screaming for him to turn around and put a bullet in your head, simply to avoid having to watch the remaining 45 minutes. 

The irony is - much heralded blood and gore included - that the most striking thing about Hostel Part II is how insanely boring it is. Badly-plotted, woefully put-together and appallingly acted, it stands not-so-proudly alongside the dismal Saw series as a kick in the balls for intelligent horror cinema.

It's hard to pinpoint the most depressing moment of all this, but a close contender comes when executive producer Quentin Tarantino squeezes in a self-reference - a background shot of a TV set playing Pulp Fiction. It's frankly jaw-dropping that a man responsible for such great, kaleidoscopic entertainment has reduced himself to peddling cack like this (not to mention the godawful Grindhouse). Seriously - what happened?

The only consolation to be taken from this? Hostel Part II was a relative flop in the United States, thus putting paid to any notions of a third helping. Let's just hope that British audiences follow that lead, eh? Christ - the last thing we need is Hostel 3: The Birmingham Incident dribbling over our cinema screens.

No more, please. 

Hostel Part II opens at cinemas nationwide in Britain this Friday (June 29th).