Hostel II

Director: Eli Roth

Rated: Not Rated

Sony: October 23, 2007

95 Minutes

From Amazon: In Hostel 2, three girls from Rome, Beth (Laura German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips), and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo), are lured to Slovakia by a sultry, vampiric hottie (Vera Jordonova) who modeled for them in figure drawing class. Sidetracked and disoriented by some Pagan Slovakian festivals and luxurious hot springs, the girls slip away one by one, until the film moves inside the torture chambers.

I watched Hostel II the night after I watched the first Hostel and, I hate to admit, it was infinitely better! The only thing I didn't like about Hostel II was the character Lorna, she was super annoying! She was really whiny and stuff and even when she was crying it was annoying. The whole time I was thinking "OMG! Hurry up and kill this bitch, shit!" haha. I really couldn't stand her. Other than that, it was great. I think it was depicted fairly accurately with the way people would act and there were no more "Swing King" characters. The was a lot more blood, guts, and a lot less T&A in this one.

Hostel II is about Beth and her two friends Whitney and Lorna. They are going on a vacation from school somewhere but are talked into going to this other area by some lesbian model chick. So, they end up at the Hostel and the people slowly start to go missing from there. The same people from the first Hostel are in part II so I liked the consistency there. A lot of times when you go to different movie the same characters won't be in it or they'll leave out parts or something won't make sense. I feel like Eli Roth kept it very consistent and on track. Everything lined up and fit in place properly.

I think that Hostel II was SO much better than the first one. And I liked how Stuart died at the end because, like Beth, I can't stand the C word either...I refuse to even write it on the blog! haha. There was a lot of blood, guts and mayhem so definitely worth checking out. You don't even NEED to see part 1 to watch this one if you didn't want to.

My Rating: 5/5
Ginger

Hostel

Director: Eli Roth

Rated: Not Rated

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment: April 18, 2006

94 Minutes

From Amazon: Well-made for the genre--the excessive-skin-displayed-before-gruesome-bloody-torture-begins genre--Hostel follows two randy Americans (Jay Hernandez, Friday Night Lights, and Derek Richardson, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd) and an even randier Icelander (Eythor Gudjonsson) as they trek to Slovakia, where they're told beautiful girls will have sex with anyone with an American accent. Unfortunately, the girls will also sell young Americans to a company that offers victims to anyone who will pay to torture and murder. To his credit, writer/director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever) takes his time setting things up, laying a realistic foundation that makes the inevitable spilling of much blood all the more gruesome. The sardonic joke, of course, is that Americans are worth the most in this brothel of blood because everyone else in the world wants to take revenge upon them.

I'm sure by this point everyone has seen Hostel....well, everyone who would be reading this blog. I watched it a long time ago, probably around the time it first came out, and then again the other night. I'm trying to work my way through a staggering stack of horror movies that just keeps piling up! lol. Anyways, I picked this one the other night and it wasn't as good as I remembered it being. I thought there was a lot more...blood and gore and stuff in it. I was a little unhappy with it this time through. And, I totally ruined the beginning of Hostel II by telling the person I was watching it with that I thought it ended differently. Then I proceeded to tell them how I thought it ended with the guy in the hospital and the police show up there and BAM they have dog face tattoo. Then I watched the second Hostel last night with the same person and guess what the opening scene was? Yup, that's me.

So, the story is about these 2 guys from America who are "backpacking" across Europe. And along the way they end up picking up this guy who is a complete weirdo an constantly refers to himself as "The king of swing" or something. I have to point out, there is a lot more tits and ass in this movie then I remember there being as well....anyways so they end up in the Hostel and slowly start to disappear and end up in this factory thing where they are tortured and killed.

Hostel wasn't terrible but it definitely wasn't what I thought it was going to be...maybe it's just because I watched it in 2005 and it seemed better back then? Any-who, I would suggest seeing it if you haven't. It won't hurt but you aren't missing anything too exciting if you skip it.

My Rating: 3/5
Ginger

Ju-On 2

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Rated: Not Rated

Lions Gate: October 10, 2006

92 Minutes

From Amazon:
Takashi Shimizu's inexhaustible obsession with the Ju-on franchise finds a creepy outlet in Ju-on 2, which by most accounts is actually the fourth Japanese feature in the bunch. It returns to the style and structure that made Ju-on: The Grudge such an unnerving experience: the child demon with the blue face, the clicking/croaking that accompanies the appearances of the female ghost, the chockablock chronology that treats each haunting as a jigsaw piece to fit together into the whole. The plot follows an actress (Noriko Sakai), known as the "horror queen" of movies, as she deals with the repercussions of a car accident in which she loses her pregnancy. Or does she? Pregnant or not, the idea of going with a small film crew to the very haunted house where the unpleasantness of the original took place is probably not a healthy idea. Some of the scares still work just fine if you're watching this movie with the lights out, but the feeling of discovery, in the wake of the original Ju-on, the Ring films, and the Hollywood sequels, has definitely worn off by now. Thus the unshakable feeling that Shimizu is going through the paces with this one, rather than expanding on a pretty nifty original idea.

I have high, high expectations of J-Horror films so I was a little disappointed with Ju-On 2. I thought it was going to be so much more superior especially to it's American version. I can't remember much from The Grudge 2 but I'm fairly certain that I might have like it better. But, that's not to say that everything about Ju-On 2 was bad, it wasn't. It definitely had some good points but it had a lot of negatives as well.

I'm not going to explain what the movie is about like I normally would here. It's a Ju-On/Grudge movie and they are all relatively the same. I found myself thinking "I've seen this before" or "This is exactly like some other movie." Ju-On 2 is like a ripoff of The Eye/The Eye 2 and Shutter. Compared to the first Ju-On, this movie was pretty bad.

I don't really know what else to say about Ju-On 2. I had high hopes and they weren't met so I'm left wanting more, enough said. I'm happy it's part of my collection but if I didn't own it I probably wouldn't buy it. Well, I might just because I plan on owning as many J-Horrors (well, horror movies in general) as I can!

My Rating: 3/5
Ginger

Devil

Director: John Erick Dowdle

Rated: PG-13

Universal Pictures: December 21, 2010

80 Minutes

From Amazon:
Trapped in an elevator high above Philadelphia, five people discover that the Devil is among them – and no one can escape their fate. This chilling, supernatural thriller from M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) will keep you on the edge of your seat all the way to a heart-stopping ending with a truly wicked twist.

The first time I watched 'Devil' I was expecting it to be a lot more...scary? I was a little disappointed but I have to admit, it's really not that bad. For a movie that takes place almost entirely in an elevator, it's pretty good. And I think it's scary on a psychological lever more than a "make you jump" level. Just think about being one of the last two people on the elevator, knowing you aren't the killer and how scared you'd be! Crazy, right?

So, this movie is basically this random group of people who get trapped in an elevator and every time the lights go out, one of them dies....I don't think there's really that much else to say about it haha. There isn't anything scary that happens or a lot of gore or anything. It's just people in an elevator...and the police trying to figure out who they are and what happened.

I don't think Devil was a terrible movie but it wasn't one of my favorites. Considering what it was about, it was pretty good. But it is a little slow at times and I can see how people might get border watching it. I haven't purchased this one yet (I watched it on Show Time) but I probably will add it to my collection.

My Rating: 4/5
Ginger