Hostel: Part II (2007)★★★☆☆

It’s almost summer and it’s been hot outside, which means I frequently find myself not wanting to think about anything, much less which movie to watch that day. So I decided on this one. In fact, I started watching it only a few hours after watching last night’s movie, so the events from the first were fresh in my mind. I’m glad it worked out that way this time because I caught a few more details than I did the first time (with a couple years in between seeing the first and the second movies).

I haven’t seen the third installment of the franchise yet, and I’m not sure I want to. It’s not written or directed by Eli Roth, so I’m not holding high hopes that it’ll be fantastic. This one was written and directed by Eli Roth and it already wasn’t fantastic. It was okay, but it kind of felt like it was just a mix of scenes Eli Roth had to leave out of the first one. There’s little new in this one except for the characters. And they’re not all new, either.

I’ll admit that I was a bit excited that Heather Matarazzo was in this. She’s not bad, but it seems she’s not a particularly versatile actress. No matter what movie she’s in, she’s always Dawn Wiener (from Welcome to the Dollhouse). There’s nothing wrong with that, really – some movies need a Dawn Wiener. I don’t think this movie is one of them, though the scene depicted in the poster image for this post is probably my favorite of the movie and wouldn’t be quite the same without her.

I did like that there were more details revealed about how the club is run and what the tattoo means, but I don’t think Eli Roth needed an entire movie just to do that. I also appreciated that this one was about girls getting duped instead of boys – it’s good to have some gender balance, even when it comes to torture porn, I guess? Overall you can probably skip this one unless you really, really liked the first one.