Hostel: Part II (2007)

Hostel: Part II is a 2007 American horror film, directed and written by Eli Roth and a sequel to Hostel. The main cast of three men was replaced by three women this time but with the same basic premise. The only difference this time is that the film also follows two American Businessmen and aspiring members of the EHC.

Plot
Having survived the horrors of the EHC, Paxton is still recovering from his wounds in a hospital near Austria. One day, he is visited by a man and his interpreter. While he speaks German, she translates it to English and they ask about what happened to his hand. He reveals what happened in Slovakia and what he discovered about the EHC before he could escape from the factory. The man reveals that they have found the corpse of the Dutch businessman in the toilet in Vienna, while the policeman nods and locks the door. Realizing that something is wrong, Paxton tries to get up while his interrogator comes closer and suddenly ask in English if the tattoo of the EHC members, looks anything like his. He strips up his sleeve and shows him the infamous bloodhound tattoo as two men push Paxton down. He takes a knife and cuts out an organ of Paxton.

Paxton awakes in America, revealing that the segment was, in fact, a dream. After a short discussion with his girlfriend Stephanie in which he tells her that he can't go to the police as the EHC has connections everywhere in the world. He goes downstairs to take his medication and eat something (he has to take his medicine with a bit of food). Stephanie falls asleep again, but in the morning, she discovers that Paxton isn't next to her in bed. When she goes to look for him, she finds his decapitated body in the kitchen with the cat licking the severed neck. Meanwhile in Slovakia, a motorcyclist chases through the streets to deliver a package to a mysterious businessman at a terrace. The man seemed pleased with the package and places the box on the ground, much to the curiosity of his two bloodhounds, he places his foot on the box while enjoying the rest of his coffee.

In Italy, three American women, Beth, Whitney, and Lorna are enjoying their vacation, following an art class. The first model they had to draw was a nude male model, the second was nude model Axelle. After complementing Axelle on her figure, she asks Beth to show her sketch and eventually asks if she can buy it. When asked how her skin is so soft, she explains to them that she mostly visits a spa in Slovakia and convinces them to come along to which they oblige. On the train they come across a problem with a group of Italians, who offends Beth in the process, calling her 'an American cunt', and another guy steals Lorna's MP3 player. While Lorna is freaking out about the incident, Axelle helps her out by finding the culprit and getting back the MP3 player, winning Lorna's trust. The rest of their train ride is rather uneventful and without any further problems, they arrive in the village that Axelle has brought them to.

As they check in the local hostel, the desk clerk uploads the pictures of their passports to the EHC auction site, allowing its clients to start bidding on the girls. We see clients from all over the world bidding on them, while they are unpacking, unaware of the horrible fates that await them. As more and more is bid on the girls, more and more clients decline and eventually both Whitney and Beth are bought by an American Businessman named Todd. As he's finishing playing golf, he informs his friend Stuart that he has bought them two girls at the EHC. Although Stuart is cautious, he agrees on joining Todd after a little persuasion. Later they arrive in Slovakia, under the cover of a business trip to their family. On the private airport, they are picked up by Inya, one of Sasha's handlers, who takes them to the hotel of the EHC. Todd tries to convince Stuart why they have to do this and how they are, in fact, the normal people and that people all over the world kill people. At the bar, she provides them with pagers that will call them when the girls are captured and prepared to their wishes. In the meantime, they can enjoy the luxuries of the hotel.

When the girls check out the village, they enjoy the beauty of the village, but they are quickly assaulted by the Bubblegum Gang who demands money of them. Lorna tries to give them candy, but they spit in her face. Axelle interferes and scares the children away. Meanwhile, Todd is still trying to convince Stuart while jogging. Back in the hostel, the clerk tries to promote the Harvest Festival to the girls, but at first, Whitney isn't interested. She quickly changes her mind when a local tourist, Miroslav, shows interest in both the Harvest Festival and her, a mutual feeling. At night, they enjoy the festivities, drinking homemade cider while they see for the first time the local patriarch, Sasha Rassimov, who is sprawling with his bloodhounds. It is on the Harvest Festival that Lorna learns about Beth's inheritance, a vast fortune given to her when her mother passed. While the girls have a great time, unbeknownst to them they are watched by Stuart and Todd, Stuart even using a binocular. When Whitney leaves with Miroslav and with Lorna nowhere near, Stuart decides to take a closer look. Beth has a strange conversation with a man, who warns her about the village before being sent away by the desk clerk of the hostel, who acted as enigmatic as the first guy. Feeling strange, Beth inattentively throws away her drink, spilling it on Stuart's trousers in the process. But this leads to an amused if not awkward conversation. As he returns to his hotel, Lorna joins Beth telling her that she met a great man, a local named Roman who offered her a boat trip. Despite Beth's warning not to do it, she later learns that Lorna ignored this warning and accepted Roman's offer. This turns out to be a bad idea as once he moors the boat, two of his friends put a sack over her head and knock her out. When Beth and Whitney want to return to the hostel but have to wait for Lorna, Axelle offers to stay and wait for Lorna as they can go back to the hostel. They agree on this proposal and return. In the hostel, Beth talks Whitney out of sleeping with Miroslav and instead go to their room.

The next morning, Axelle offers them to go to the local spa to which they happily accept and are joined by Miroslav. They wonder for a little while about how Lorna is doing, but they quickly laugh it off, stopping to worry. Meanwhile, Lorna wakes up crying, nude and hanging upside down in chains. She is transported to a huge dungeon with a marble bath, where goons are lighting candles with a blowtorch. While she begged for her life, Roman kisses her on the forehead before leaving her at the mercy of the woman who bought her. The woman, Mrs. Bathory, enters the room, wearing only a bathrobe. She removes her robe and lays down naked under the girl. Lorna begs for her life in several different languages, Mrs. Bathory taunts Lorna by caring the skin of her back with a scythe. Without any form of warning, she suddenly lashes out and slashes Lorna's back, multiple times. She bathes in the blood of her squirming victim and she makes more and more cuts till the point that Lorna is almost unable to bear anymore pain. The woman, having enjoyed her bath, finishes with a blood shower and uses a sickle to cut her throat, squirm of pleasure in the blood while smearing it all across her body.

Beth enjoys a massage in the spa, given to her by Axelle and after a while, she dozes off. Once she wakes up, she finds herself alone and while investigating the spa, she finds that her locker has been broken into and her belongings have been stolen. While trying to uncover what has happened and where her friends are, she notices a group of men, dressed in black closing in on her. Based on their body language, she fears the worst and tries to get away. She climbs over the spa wall and is almost run over by a truck. When she tries to get in the car, the driver turns out to be the man who warned her at the Harvest Festival. Based on his appearance and his fear, he has been beaten up and barely got away alive. Refusing to help her now, as she turned him down when she had the chance, he drives off as she flees into the forest. Scared that her chasers might be closing in on her, she doesn't see a trip wire strung between two trees. She trips and falls onto the ground, and is ambushed by the Bubblegum Gang, who beat her with sticks and kick her. They quickly stop after a gunshot is heard, fired by Sasha and his protégé, Axelle. Axelle pushes the children away and helps Beth to her feet, dragging her to Sasha's car while Sasha stays behind. The children are rounded up and forced to stand in one line and Sasha cares their faces with the barrel of his gun, looking them all in the face. When he is ready, he says one in Slovak, raising one finger to make sure they understand what he demands. As he screws a silencer on his gun, he paces while looking at children. After a while, one of the children steals the cap of a friend and pushes him towards Sasha, while the rest closes the ranks and push him away. As he looks up, Sasha is standing next to him, looking him in the eyes while pressing silencer to his forehead, before pulling the trigger, ending the kid. He tells the others they can go as their debt has been repaid.

In the factory, Whitney is chained and gagged among other victims of the EHC and is grabbed by two guards who bring her to another room. She is put on a chair and an old woman comes in who tries to clean her face, and cover up some of the bruises inflicted by her captors. She explains to Whitney that she is going 'to make her beautiful for client'. To calm her, she unlocks one of her handcuffs but quickly comes to regret this as Whitney bites off a piece her nose. Whitney manages to escape the room, but she is watched by the guards with the use of cameras. The guards decided to play with her for a bit, blocking her way with lattice doors each time she is almost able to get away. Eventually, she is closed in by guards with dogs.

Meanwhile, Beth is in Sasha's house and while she is talking to Axelle, Sasha calls the 'cops'. Beth asks if Sasha and Axelle have a relationship, at which Axelle laughs at the idea as Sasha could easily be her father. She escorts Beth to a room upstairs where she can wait for the cops. But from the window of her room, Beth sees that Sasha hasn't called the cops at all, he has called the men who were chasing her in the first place. As she tries to get away, she sees them entering the mansion and realizes that Axelle knew that this was going to happen all along and that she tricked her and her friends. She barricades the door. When she tries to hide, she discovers a secret department in Sasha's closet with heads on poles, heads belonging to previous victims of the EHC, among them is Paxton. She is quickly grabbed as the guards rush into the room.

In the hotel, while fooling around with some prostitutes, Todd and Stuart are notified with the aid of their pagers. Todd is more than eager to do so, and is very enthusiastic when they enter the factory, when a man tattooed them, during the selection of their torture tools, and while dressing up. Stuart is more timid, trying to skip the tattooing, asks for a standard selection of tools and is rather scared of what he is about to do. When they are brought to the dungeon, Todd and Stuart are separated. Todd is the first to enter his cell as Stuart is lead to a cell further down the hall. In his cell, Beth is chained in a chair, with a sack over her head. As he looks around, he is horrified when he sees the tools. He goes to Beth and removes the sack and slowly, he starts to explain what is going on and how he didn't want to be there. Beth manages to convince him to free her and just as they are ready to go, he knocks her down.

Meanwhile, Todd gleefully taunts Whitney, stating that she likely got much done with her pretty face. He threatens her with a power saw but to his annoyance, the electric cable was a bit too short, causing the blade to fail constantly. His joy quickly turned into horror when he accidentally hit her in the face, tearing off a part of her scalp. Realizing that he doesn't have stomach for killing people, he tries to leave. When a guard comes to take him back to surface, the man realizes that Whitney is still alive. He explains to Todd that the EHC contract states that he has to kill her. When he refused again and uses the elevator, the guard considers this as a breach of contract and calls other guards to take care of this problem. They oblige and release specially trained dogs to maim Todd before he can step out the elevator.

After a doctor has looked at Whitney, it was noted that she wouldn't have long to live with such a wound and fixed her to be a bit more presentable. Inya and her compatriots go to check if any of the other members are interested in buying her for a reduced price. Among these members is a man who tortures his victim with electricity but declines interest, and an Italian who appears to be interested but due to her state, he turns down the offer. As he returns to his cell, he continues with his own victim, Miroslav who is tied to a stretcher. While he squirms, the man takes a meat fork and kitchen knife, cuts a piece out of Miroslav's leg, places the piece of meat on a plate and eats it with wine, while opera music is blaring in the background. The Italian has already eaten Miroslav's complete left lower leg and skinned his right.

In the meantime, Stuart is reveals mentally perturbated and psychotic is verbally threatening Beth, projecting his anger and displeasure with his wife on her as they look similar. While he boasts his prowess and ventilated his frustrations, she, in a desperate attempt to stay alive, complements him. Shortly after, Inya arrives at his cell, presenting their 'special offer'. Stuart immediately recognizes the offer as Todd's victim. Asking what has happened to him, one of the guards tells him that they had 'problems with friend', while the butcher passes with what it is left of Todd. Infuriated by this, believing that Whitney has done this to his friend, he asks Inya if he can borrow the PDA and think about her offer for a minute, to which she obliges. He shows Beth the disfigured face, to which Beth starts to freak out. He enjoys her grief before claiming that what happened with her is nothing in comparison to what happened to his friend before telling her that he is going to finish what Stuart has started. In the control room, the guards are reading a motorcycle magazine, but on the screens behind their heads, we see how Stuart kills Whitney by beheading her with a machete.

As he returns to his cell, he is seduced by Beth who convinces him to try and rape her. As he tries to rape her, she is able to catch him off guard and fights him off. She chains him up and demands the password to open the door. At first, he is unwilling to cooperate, but she pushes a syringe into his ear until he finally gives her the code. After trying the code, she accidentally alerts the guards who discover that a camera is out. As they storm into the cell to find out what's going on, Beth tells the guards to get Sasha. To make it clear that she isn't joking around, she threatens to cut off Stuart's genitals. When Sasha arrives, he smiles and tells his guards to kill both of them. Beth tells Sasha that she is willing to pay for her freedom and after the latter learns that she has inherited a fortune, and can pay him immediately, he is more than interested in listening. Stuart protests as he is the client, but this is quickly dismissed as he is no longer credible and tells Beth that money isn't the only issue as the second requirement is committing murder. She obliged to this after Stuart called her a 'stupid cunt' for believing he will actually let her live, by castrating him with scissors. As she orders the guards to leave him to bleed to death, the second requirement is fulfilled. Under the watchful eyes of Sasha and Inya, she receives her tattoo, placed on her back.

Sometime later, at a new Harvest Festival, Axelle is having a good time with some new victims, but things change when a boy steals her purse. Angered by this, she chases the boy into the forest, but in the dark, she doesn't see their trip wire and trips over it. As she crawls up, she is met by a hooded figure wielding a medieval axe. Beth is back for revenge. After murmuring the ironic phrase, 'Na Zdrowie', a reference to a phrase used by Axelle, back when they thought they could trust her, before decapitating her and allowing the Bubblegum gang to play with her head.

List of Deaths
List of deaths in the film, Hostel: Part II

Marketing
Hostel: Part II was marketed with a variety of teasers and trailers. The first was a stylish teaser, spoken in German and subtitled in English, the man who does the voice over, telling the viewer how many Americans are shot dead, accompanied with the image of a variety of firearms. It continues with the amount of stab victims each year, this time a series of knives are shown. The trailer goes back before the voice mocks Americans for their lack of imagination, zooming out, showing that the previous of images are part of the same picture, a wall covered in every type of weapon and tools, with the screams of torture victims on the background. Later trailers referred to the previous film, by claiming that different nationalities have different prices, before telling that an American girl will cost a lot. Other trailers referred to the promotional taglines of The Last House on the Left, directed by Wes Craven, using the same phrase, namely that it was only a movie.

For the select screening of the film Bug, on May 25, 2007; Lionsgate started the screening by showing the first five minutes of the film. Director Eli Roth, as well as actress Bijou Phillips, would attend UFC 71, as they were promoting the film. On June 8, 2007, Hostel: Part II premiered and as a promotional action, Eli Roth released a series of interviews at Big Sister.

Box Office
Unlike the previous installment, Hostel: Part II was a box office bomb, making only $8.2 million when it opened and eventually made $17.6 million in total during its theatrical run, $2 million less than Hostel did during its opening only. In total, it made $30 million less than the original did during its run. Eli Roth blamed the lack of success on piracy.

Critical reception
The critics were overall, less positive about Hostel: Part II, than they were about Hostel, ranging from mixed reviews to downright negative. The meta-reviews site Rotten Tomatoes' overall rating clocked at 44%, describing it as "Offering up more of the familiar sadism and gore, Hostel: Part II will surely thrill horror fans."

Controversy
The film also dealt with certain controversies: In most countries, it has been restricted to adults but several countries like Germany, Malaysia and Singapore, went a bit further and censored the film by cutting certain scenes. A special "German Extended Version" was released (in which Lorna's torture and death were cut short), was subsequently banned, and a ruling of a court in Munch decided that releasing the movie in it uncut or this new version, is to be punished. The only version of Hostel: Part II allowed for release was a heavily edited "not under 18" version. Other countries, like New Zealand, banned the film altogether after the distributor refused to cut the "Lorna's torture" scene in order to receive an R18 certificate. Later, the film was released but with the scene edited out, on DVD on April 30, 2008.

Shortly after the release, on October 8, 2007, the film was cited in the House of Commons as certain stills from the film were debated to be considered as "extreme pornography" and it should be illegal to possess them under the existing laws against such imagery. MP Charles Walker claimed that based on "trusted sources"; as he never saw the film himself, the film was "From beginning to end it depicts obscene, misogynistic acts of brutality against women."

But not everyone was opposed to the film, an example of this was an essay written by writer and attorney Julie Hilden, "Why are critics so hostile to Hostel: Part II?", in which she defended the film both critically as artistically. Former Slovak Minister of Culture and actor Milan Kňažko who defended the first film, played Sasha Rassimov in this film, as a sign of support for the director and film, as after all, it's only fiction.

Home media
This has released on DVD and Blu-ray by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in October 23, 2007. It's was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Mill Creek Entertainment in 2011 from double feature (  Hostel") double sided disc DVD. This was released on Blu-ray by Shout Factory's (Scream Factory) in May 16, 2021 from double feature (  Hostel").

Awards
Golden Raspberry Awards:  Scream 2007 
 * Nominated: Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie
 * Nominated: Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel
 * Nominated: Best Horror Movie
 * Nominated: Most Memorable Mutilation (Eaten Alive by Cannibal)
 * Nominated: Breakout Performance (Lauren German as Beth Salinger)