Public Servant Lifestyle

Keen to lose your lunch? The sequel to last year's Euro-set gore-fest Hostel may be just your thing.

Last January, writer/director Eli Roth terrified moviegoers with the blood-drenched Hostel, which catapulted to the top of the box office charts and became the first Number One film of 2006. One year later, Roth takes us back to where it all began, in another gore-drenched shocker that the filmmakers promises goes even deeper into the darkest recesses of the human mind...

With Hostel, Eli Roth cemented the cutting-edge credentials he earned with his debut feature Cabin Fever (2002). Now, with Hostel: Part II, Roth invites fans of the lunch-loosing genre to take another frightening trip to a frequently blood-stained place where suppressed urges ? once unleashed ? have chilling consequences.

Cabin Fever

The sequel ? rather unimaginatively titled simply Hostel: Part II, sees three young Americans travelling in the Italian capital set off from Rome for a weekend ?getaway? that turns out to be quite something other than the idyll they expect. Wooed there by a gorgeous, sophisticated European acquaintance - who invites the trio to join her at an exotic natural spa ? they are assured that they will be able to relax, rejuvenate and bond.

Will the girls find the oasis they are looking for? Or are they poised to become victims for auction, pawns in the fantasies of the sick and privileged from around the world that secretly travel there to savour more grisly pursuits? As this is the sequel to a film that saw exploitation, humiliation and torture ? both psychological and physical ? on a stomach-churning scale rarely seen before on British cinema screen it seems a fair bet that the answer to that will turn out to be the latter.

Here?s what some of the American critics have been saying about the new film:

Wesley Morris, writing in US newspaper the Boston Globe said: "Roth might have chutzpah, but, sadly he doesn't have any interest in actually scaring us. The moviemaking is driven only by contempt; he wants to nauseate us into submission."

Linda Cook, writing in US newspaper the Quad City Times wrote: "This isn't exactly a movie review. But Hostel: Part II isn't exactly a movie. It is pornography, shockingly violent, grotesque pornography...(the director) substitutes sadism for entertainment in this extreme entry into the 'horror porn' category that has been growing in number for the past few years."

She continues: "As this junk unfolded before my horrified eyes, I kept thinking: 'What can I do about this?' So this is what I am doing about it. You can do the rest by not paying to see this garbage."

'Horror Porn'

The film stars relative unknowns Lauren German (the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Walk To Remember), Roger Bart (the 2004 remake of The Producers and the 2005 remake of The Stepford Wives), Heather Matarazzo (Welcome To The Dollshouse, Scream 3 and the very frothy The Princess Diaries/The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement as well as TV's The L Word), Bijou Phillips (TV's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) and Richard Burgi (the straight to video sequel to Starship Troopers - Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation). Most bizarrely of all Roger Bart - an actor here portraying one of the most relentlessly sadistic figures seen in any modern film - is a versatile voice actor in children's film, best remembered for providing the sweet singing voice of 'Young Hercules' in the 1997 Ron Clements/John Musker feature film version of the Hercules legend!

After Hostel 2 it is expected that the film's Director will set to work on a big-screen adaptation of Stephen King's novel Cell.

Audiences should expect pretty people - principally women - getting sliced and diced in ever more disturbing, gruesome and absurd ways, set to a soundtrack of screaming and begging for mercy. If this sounds like your thing for those warm summer nights, then you can check out the trailer ? it?s far too hardcore and visceral for us to host or link to directly - so be warned. If that sounds like a recommendation to you, head over to the film?s official website: www.hostel2.co.uk

Hostel: Part II is out now on DVD rated (surprise surprise): 18.

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