Hostel: Part II

HOSTEL: PART II (2007) - June 9, 2007
A worthy follow-up. Though there was nothing that had me on the edge of my seat quite like the whole sequence from the original where Jay Hernandez attempts his escape, there were still parts of this film what were really gripping, particularly in the latter half. Roth does spend a good amount of time setting everything up and establishing the characters, but that's a good thing; if he put the characters in peril too quickly, it wouldn't have been nearly as effective, because the audience wouldn't have much invested in their survival. It was also interesting to find out a bit more about how the hostel is run and the types of people who use its services (I also liked the little twist where the two torturers each turn out to be the opposite of what the audience expects). Roth's direction was quite good, and it was really well acted. And I saw it with a really bad audience, so who knows, maybe I'd like it even more without a bunch of no-good hooligans talking the whole time. ***1/2