eli roth's HOSTEL PART II (2007)

it's hard for me to decide just how i feel about Eli Roth, but one thought struck me while watching Hostel II: he's smarter than i am. smarter than me, smarter than his audience, smarter, certainly, than most of his peers in the world of cinematic horror. that's not to say that Hostel's sequel has quite as much going on upstairs as its predecessor's wry politics of exploitation; no, this time around we know the name of the game, if not all the rules, so Roth whittles his goals down to wit instead. it's been clear since Cabin Fever that much of Roth's dangerousness lays in a command of tone that doesn't find terror and laughter at odds with each other - it may be comic, but it's not relief. (i think an understandable misperception of "flippancy" is what sends so many film critics, who should at least acknowledge the man's craft, into indignant Culture Critic mode. c'est la vie.) here, of course, there isn't much room for overt textual humor, but Roth's ruthless talents still bring a giddiness to the proceedings, from his carefully ironic sense of montage to a narrative that consistently delights in subverting our lazy Horror Flick expectations on several levels, often at once.

oddly enough, it's these stymied conventions (in collaboration with Roth's stomach-turning fearlessness) that give Hostel II such an atmosphere of doom. our protagonists' fates aren't going to hinge on the stupid decisions that drive so many slasher films, nor will they escape by pure luck or panicked cunning; their doom is signed, sealed, and delivered the moment their passports cross the hostel's front desk. but within these confines, the audience, too, is cornered, subject to the film's cruel, largely unpredictable whims, from the harrowing, nauseating Bathory centerpiece (followed, true to form, by a sharp Eisensteinian gag) to the mercilessly nutty ending. Hostel II is in no uncertain terms unfit for general consumption, but it also reaffirms Eli Roth as horror's reigning enfant terrible, revitalizing the stagnant gere while beating its hacks at their own game.