In "Hostel", a group of young men end up at a hostel in Slovakia that kidnaps people for its clients to torture and kill. Now, a group of American girls ends up at the same hostel. Will they meet the same fate, or perhaps they'll have more luck? And what ever became of the kids from the first film?

Full disclosure: I didn't like "Hostel" very much. I loved "Cabin Fever", but grew weary of Eli Roth after his second feature. So "Hostel 2" sat unreviewed for several month before I finally broke down and watched it. Guess what? We have a sequel that eclipses the original in every way -- this one is pretty amazing. Relying far less on torture and excessive nudity (although both are present here), we get an actual plot, likable characters and best of all a glimpse into the other side.

Torture clients aren't just faceless monsters in "Hostel 2", but real people with hopes, dreams and fears. There is a depth and complexity to them that allows us to almost sympathize with their angle, no matter how reprehensible they may be. (Some of them are still just ruthless killers, of course.) At one point, a potential murderer raises a philosophical point posed in the past by Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke: without laws, how is man naturally going to respond to others in a state of nature? To some degree, they attempt to answer this question. ("Battle Royale" also addressed this, though the characters in that film were in a more forced and less natural environment.)

Focusing on a female cast rather than male one really helps, I think. Let's assume the audience (mostly male) wants to see beautiful women, which I think is a safe assumption. In the first film, to accomplish this the boys had to come across numerous loose women with no character development. Visually appealing, sure -- but no substance. By having a female cast, the male audience gets to watch the young ladies the majority of the time while also developing a plot and character motivations. Nudity is less prevalent (but still present). Roth is fully capable of telling a story, as this movie shows, and I'm glad he chooses this over the shock value of sex and torture.

The cast is interesting. Rick Hoffman, who was "The American client" in the first film, returns as "the American businessman". He is something of an anti-hero. While we ought to be against him (he's after the protagonists), the film gives us the point of view that he's just being human, no matter how awful he comes across. Another great cameo is Ruggero Deodato, the maestro of Italian cannibal films ("Last Cannibal World" and "Cannibal Holocaust"). He appears, appropriately, as the Italian cannibal. His scene was not initially in the script (Roth showed up on Deodato's set personally to invite him to Prague) but I think it really clinches the deal of providing us a film that is both new and also giving homage to the classic.

Although you have to see "Hostel" to fully understand "Hostel 2", I think the punishment is worth the reward. For everything the first film lacked, the second makes up for it and then some. Romance, comedy, torture... a truly well-rounded horror film, which is a growing rarity in this age of shock cinema. Highly recommended.

For anyone with a real objective taste in movies, including those based on terror, would know after watching hostel part 2 that it is way better than the first installment. Hostel 2 not only a better ending than the typical horror (is it really over) ending of part 1 but it also has a more consistent story line, better acting, descent lead character development and interesting plot twist. I would highly recommend this film to any fans of the handful of truly good horror/thriller movies out there such as (Saw1 and the Ring). If you watched hostel 1 and thought it was an over rated farce of a movie like I did, then watch part 2, you wont be disappointed.

I absolutely adored the first HOSTEL film so when I heard about the sequel coming out, I knew I had to go and see it at the cinema. Sadly, HOSTEL: PART II is an essentially lacklustre follow up, a film that for the majority of the running time simply reprises the characters, locations, and storyline from the first film without adding much in the way of new stuff to the brew. The twist here is that the protagonists are all females, but sadly the central casting leaves something to be desired. Jay Hernandez, who played the hero, Paxton, in the first movie returns here for a short appearance – and I hate what they did with his character, considering how great he was in the original – and his performance reminds you just how sympathetic a character he was.

There aren't really any sympathetic characters here. Of the three main girls, two are stereotypes, with Bijou Phillips acting abominably as the bimbo type. Meanwhile, Heather Matarazzo is a stock nerdy girl, all big teeth and speaking intellectually, and her character quickly grates. Matarazzo goes way over the top and is only really convincing in her inevitable torture sequence. The final girl of the three is also the heroine, as played by Lauren German. German is very attractive but her character is far too tough and never really feels to be in much danger.

Here, director Eli Roth decides to blow the lid off the whole kidnap-and-torture plot, showing us how the business works through a plot strand which follows two American businessman from their initial bidding over their mobile phones to their turns as torturers. I was in two minds about this. The idea of following the torturers rather than the tortured allows for some fresh material, and certainly these two guys breathe some life into the production; it helps that both Roger Bart and Richard Burgi are very good actors here. But much of the suspense in the original film was derived from the mystery surrounding the shady goings-on and, of course, there's none of that here. Instead it's all very clinical and many scenes are played for a laugh, which lessens the impact of the horror, although there is one very good twist involving these guys.

At the end of the day this is a graphic horror film that revolves around the torture sequences. Here, they're bigger and gorier than before, mixing plenty of dark humour into the brew to keep things moving along (watch for the circular saw scene if you don't believe me). The first is undoubtedly the worst and hardest to watch, a lengthy bloodbath involving a scythe and sickle, in which a Countess Bathory-type character bathes in the blood of her victim. The torture scenes at the film's climax are pretty much lacking in excitement, especially the events surrounding Lauren German's character that are obvious in the extreme. Roth goes out of his way to target the sensitivities of his male viewers with one particular gore effect, but the result is laughable – with the inclusion of the dog – rather than wince-inducing, as the 'eye' scene was in the first. What's missing is the whole adrenaline-pumping climax that we had at the end of HOSTEL; the escape and subsequent punishment of the various baddies. Here, due to a plot twist, we get none of that, just an abrupt ending with black comedy that disappoints. Aside from one particular sequence involving Matarazzo's character, nudity is kept to a minimum this time around.

Roth can't resist throwing in plenty of in-jokes and appearances from old actors into the film. Watch out for Quentin Tarantino's head on a stick, a couple of girls from the first film appearing in a photo, and other minor recurring characters. There are also roles for Edwige Fenech, screaming heroine of many a '70s giallo flick, who still looks lovely to this day; '70s Italian action star Luc Merenda, greatly aged and pretty much unrecognisable, and finally Ruggero Deodato, director of the notorious CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, who cameos in one of the film's funniest scenes as – yep, you guessed it – a cannibal, eating Stanislav Ianevski, better known as Victor Krum in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE. Despite these fun references, HOSTEL: PART II already feels like the series has had it's time, coming across as both tired and repetitive, a real disappointment considering the freshness and power of the first film. Let's pray they don't make a third...