Women in Horror: Hostel II (2007)

* spoilers *

A group of college students travels across Europe for art and fun. Beth is sensible as only a final girl is. She acts as the voice of reason to her group and fights to protect them. Her wealth seems to embarrass her as she wants to experience Europe as a college student would. Her best friend is Whitney, a wild, free spirited woman who is looking for a good time whether it's drugs, men, or parties. Both temper each other's demeanor and they look out for each other. Lorna is the idealistic, childish woman who guilted Beth into letting her travel with them. She is extremely innocent and inexperienced, but sees the wonder in the world. Axelle joins them in Rome, where she modeled for their art class, and followed them on their train to Prague, where she recovered Lorna's stolen iPod and rerouted their course to Slovakia and their luxurious hot springs.

On the train and for their rest of the trip, the women experience harassment from men. On the train, flirty men lure them with promises of drugs and turn mean when rejected. These men harass them, grab Whitney to keep her from leaving, tell lewd and sinister jokes, call them a tease and a cunt, and then threaten to hurt them on the long ride to Prague. Beth yells and curses back, a rare instance of uncontrolled anger, and the men follow through by searching the cars for them. While they were gone, a man also steals Lorna's iPod and ransacks their car. It felt realistic, especially the guys going from flirty to insulting, and shows the difference of experience traveling between men and women. The incident also made Axelle's suggestion to pamper themselves instead of spend more time with disgusting guys seem much more appealing.

Once they arrive in Slovakia, they settle into their hostel and hang out while their passports are being scanned and sent to rich bidders. The juxtaposition of their relaxed conversations and while their lives are literally being sold to some rich person is chilling. It's more comparative to human trafficking and it's the first time we see the other side to Elite Hunting. The rich bidders look relatively normal and pause in their golf game, meeting, or lunch to buy someone to kill. Todd wins the bid for Whitney and Beth for himself and his friend Stuart. Todd is a brash man, full of himself and eager to do more and more extreme things to prove his manhood. Stuart is his reluctant friend who feels emasculated by his successful wife who seems to have no respect for him. Together, they do everything from taking drugs to hiring sex workers.

Once the women settle in, Beth, Lorna, Whitney, and Axelle attend a harvest festival where they drink, dance, and have fun. Beth is on guard the whole time, politely rejecting men, throwing out booze handed to her by someone she doesn't know, and making Lorna promise to run off with some guy she just met. Her goal is to have fun and stay safe by staying together and aware. Unfortunately, Lorna doesn't listen and goes off by herself anyway. This could be because she drank alcohol when Whitney told her it was safe. It's horrible to do this to a friend, especially one as inexperienced in a public place that is shown to be unsafe. It's unfortunately portrayed as a good way to get her to relax. A local man asks Beth to dance and when she politely says no, he says "I could have saved you." He basically refused to safe her from Elite Hunting because she wasn't interested in him. Later, he's painted as a victim because he was beaten, but he's just as much a villain to me to bargain her life like that.

Women are seen on all side of the Elite Hunting organization. Previously, they were only seductresses to lure men. Here, Axelle takes on that role, but has befriend the women, get to know them, and stay with them for days to lure them. A woman wins the bid for Lorna and enacts an Elizabeth Bathory type fantasy where she bathes in Lorna's blood in one of the most memorable kill scenes in recent history. The older woman is taking the life and beauty of the younger one to stave off aging and death, contrary to nature and the norms of society. A woman puts on Whitney's makeup to Todd's specifications as she probably prepares many other people for their deaths as well. Finally, women are the majority of the victims we see as Lorna, Whitney, and Beth are all restrained for their buyers to do whatever they like.

Todd is eager to murder someone with immature reasoning. He thinks others will sense that he's killed someone like teens can sense when a guy has had sex. Outwardly, he's completely into the whole situation and mocks Stuart for being reticent. Stuart seems to be ready to quit the whole thing. Both of their demeanors change when in that kill room. Todd starts out calling Whitney a slut and mocking her for screaming at a saw in her face. When that saw accidentally slices into her face, he sickens at the reality of the situation and refuses to continue, leading to his death. Stuart, on the other hand, unleashes all the repressed rage at his wife on Beth. He's frustrated at the lack of respect and sex. Although it was surprising the first time I watched it in the theater 11 years ago, it's not surprising anymore because of how many "nice guys" turn out to be skeevy creeps.

The ending of the film is satisfying to a degree. Beth slices Stuart's penis off for calling her a cunt and also kills Axelle in revenge. However, Beth only survives because of her extreme wealth. Any other person without it would have died. It makes sense within the world, but I wish she had outsmarted them instead. Hostel II is a bit of a rehash of the first film with key changes. I was always on the women's side in this film while the men in the first were the most insufferable people. I wanted them to die and watching them have sex with attractive women for the first half of the film wasn't entertaining. This film had friendship and genuine caring between the main characters. We get to know the characters much better and spend more time with them. While this film isn't perfect, I found it to be superior to the first in every way.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins