Hostel Part II

Three American girls touring Europe (Lauren German, Bijou Phillips, Heather Matarazzo) are lured to that Slovakian club from the first Hostel, where wealthy thrill-seekers pay huge sums to torture and murder sexy young tourists. Writer-director Eli Roth’s parade of Grand Guignol effects assumes a certain level of sadistic bloodthirst in the viewer—the sound of a distant chainsaw is designed to draw giggles of anticipation from the audience—and by casting Roger Bart and Richard Burgi of TV’s Desperate Housewives as the two main male characters, Roth underlines a certain jokiness in his approach. For those of that humor, the movie may work. But Roth can’t really write; he blithely ignores character inconsistencies in the interest of making work for his makeup crew and spilling barrels of fake blood.