HOSTEL: PART TWO
I’m expecting something of a firestorm to hit back at me here, but frankly, I don’t care. I love this movie, and I’m prepared to defend it. I fully understand why so many disliked this film as intensely as they did (of the latest batch of mainstream splatter films, this was easily put to the harshest scrutiny), but I also think that a great many people misinterpreted it. So, in the spirit of charity and good will, won’t we all give another look at Hostel: Part Two?
First, I do believe the film, even more than the original (which was pretty spotty), to be a pretty fantastic satire of the Bush era, perhaps more than any other film released during the same period. In one deft swoop of a gimmick, Roth manages to combine our culture’s commercialization of violence, our idolization of youth and beauty, and our approach to foreign policy. Moreover, he does it as exactly that: a satire, which I think was lost in a lot of the movie’s marketing. If you watch it as such, you might find yourself laughing out loud more than you’d expect.
Second, this is as close to a feminist horror film as you’re going to see come out of this horror phase. They may not be as developed as they possibly could be, but they’re respected more than they are in anything else that the genre has produced lately (certainly any of the recent spat of remakes). They’re not exploited sexually (really no gratuitous nudity), they’re not stupid, and they have the ability to talk about more than just men that they’d do. Moreover, when violence inevitably comes, you feel their pain. They’re not disposable.
Third, I love the ending. I won’t give it away, but it does something that very few films have the guts to do: implicate the viewer. By the end of most horror movies (or movies in general) some pat ending has been tacked on, in which we are able to convince ourselves that we really were rooting for truth and justice all along (something that I’ll never really buy). No such comfort here. Hostel 2 sticks to its guns all the way to the bloody end, and it never looks back.
I’d love to have some feedback here, especially from people who think I’m wrong. Let’s get this engine running!
