AFTERTHOUGHTS (19)

It appears that the film adaptation of Justice League of America is really moving now. With the confluence of the impending strike and the delay of Bryan Singer’s Superman sequel, Warner Brothers moved faster than a speeding bullet on this one.
Since they needed a tentpole for 2009, and it was quickly becoming apparent that Singer—still busy on Valkyrie and with The Mayor of Castro Street waiting for him—wasn’t going to deliver it, the studio turned to the JLA script written by Kieran and Michele Mulroney.
Even with a script though, a film of the size and scale of Justice League of America (comprised of seven of the DC Universe’s biggest names, including Superman and Batman) is a daunting task, under normal circumstances. Having a pre-strike priority status is far from normal, of course, and could very well be a double-edged sword.
Still, director George Miller (who’s given us everything from Mad Max to Babe to Happy Feet) seems to be right on target.

Miller has reportedly recruited Oscar-winning cinematographer Dean Semler—who kicked a$$ on Russell Mulcahey’s big boar in the Outback thriller Razorback, shot Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, and collaborated with both Miller and Gibson on the second and third Mad Max films—and is currently in the US for a “marathon casting session” during which time he will see from 35 to 40 actors audition for the seven key roles.
Miller is looking at young actors so they can “grow into their roles over the course of several movies.” If all goes well, this could be a pivotal film that could turn semi-recognizable actors into household names. (Think The Fellowship of the Ring.)
Among those slated for JLA auditions: Michael Angarano (who played Jack’s son, Elliot, on Will & Grace, and already did the superhero thing in Disney’s Sky High); D.J. Cotrona (from the cancelled Windfall); a Friday Night Lights contingent comprised of Adrianne Palicki, Scott Porter, and Minka Kelly; Teresa Palmer from Wolf Creek and The Grudge 2; and Seth Cohen himself, Adam Brody.
The specific role each particular actor is auditioning for is unclear at this point, though I do see possibilities: Porter could be up for Superman, while Cotrona could be auditioning for Batman. And either Angarano or Brody could make for a good Flash (though Angarano seems more physically suited to play the Scarlet Speedster)*. Kelly, Palmer, and Palicki are of course, all tussling it out for the golden lasso and tiara of Wonder Woman.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Miller is supposed to run down his choices for the studio sometime in the middle of this week.

In addition, Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop is also reportedly on-board for costume design.
Awesome.
Check out the item at hollywoodreporter.com, for some more names mentioned as part of the audition roll call.

* I’m assuming, of course, that the Flash in question is Wally West (just as he is on the Justice League animated series) and not the more straight-laced Barry Allen.

Parting shot: Semler won the Best Cinematography Oscar for Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves. He also won a couple of Australian film awards for his work on Razorback, and was likewise recognized for Apocalypto (3 wins and 2 nominations).

(Images courtesy of kidactors.com [Michael Angarano]; allocine.fr [D.J. Cotrona]; yahoo.com, austin360.com, and about.com [Adrianne Palicki, Scott Porter, and Minka Kelly]; yahoo.com [Teresa Palmer]; and webwombat.com.au [Adam Brody].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (18)

18.1 The winners for the 40th Sitges Film Festival have been announced, and here are some of the awards that have me stoked:

Best Motion Picture
The Fall (directed by Tarsem Singh)

Best Director (Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza);
Best Actress (Manuela Velasco);
Audience Award El Periodico de Catalunya – Best Motion Picture;
Jose Luis Guarner Critic Award (unanimous);
and Special Mention, por cumplir con mano maestra nuestra fantasía de ver morir en directo a un irritante presentadora de televisión (for making possible our fantasy, by letting us watch dying live an upsetting TV presenter)*:
[Rec]

Best Actor (Sam Rockwell);
Special Mention, por la sutilidad con la que hace presente el miedo en la cotidianidad (for its subtle way of expressing the fear to today’s everyday life)*:
Joshua (directed by George Ratliff)

Best Script (Chong Seo-Kyung, Park Chan-Wook)
I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Ok (directed by Park Chan-Wook)

Best Cinematography (Toyomichi Kurita);
Best Production Design (Takashi Sasaki)
Sukiyaki Western Django (directed by Takashi Miike)

Best Make Up FX;
Best Motion Picture FANTASTIC;
Silver Méliès for Best European Motion Picture;
Citizen Kane Award to an up-and-coming director (Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo):
À L'Intérieur (Inside)

Best Special Effects;
Best Original Soundtrack (Kuniaki Haishima):
Mushishi (Bugmaster) (directed by Katsuhiro Otomo)

Though I haven’t seen any of these films yet, they’re all either done by directors I greatly admire, or, like Joshua and À L'Intérieur, movies I’ve heard some good things about. And the Balaguero co-directed [Rec] (already on its way to a Hollywood remake) was the big winner! For those of you who’ve been to the Iguana before, you all know I love me my Balaguero!
Congratulations to all involved with these films. You can check out the complete list of winners at the official English-language website of the Sitges Film Festival.

18.2 In related news, À L'Intérieur directors Maury and Bustillo are currently working on the script for the upcoming Hellraiser remake (though they’ve described it as more of an adaptation than anything else). They’ve apparently got Clive Barker’s blessing and supposedly have a new Pinhead waiting in the wings…

Parting shot: Reviews for Jaume Balaguero’s Los Sin Nombre, Darkness, and Fragiles, can be found in the Archive.

* All English translations are from the Sitges official website.

(The Fall image courtesy of outnow.ch; OS’s courtesy of cinemasitges.com/uk [40th Sitges Film Festival], dreadcentral.com [[Rec]], alinterieur.fr [À L'Intérieur], and truemovie.com [Mushishi].

DEXTER
Season 2 Episode 2
`Waiting to Exhale’
Written by: Clyde Phillips
Directed by: Marcos Siega
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Dex’s failure to dispatch Little Chino last episode results in the death of the mother who inadvertently asked Dexter to kill the hulking man-mountain in the first place, putting some more guilt on his plate, as if the guilt stemming from a) his murder of his brother, the Ice Truck Killer, and b) the effect of Paul’s death on Rita and the kids, wasn’t already enough.

Meanwhile, the discovery of Dex’s dumping ground last episode brings FBI Special Agent Lundy (Robert Carradine, undoubtedly familiar to the tween set as Lizzie McGuire’s dad) down to Miami. Lundy’s a “rock star,” responsible for corralling the Green River Killer, among others. And now, he’s here to track down the Bay Harbor Butcher, the tawdry monicker the newspapers have given Dexter, much to Dex’s annoyance.

Even as the salvaged bodies are being pieced together and the Bay Harbor Butcher’s body count rises, Deb is still unsuccessfully dealing with her rage and trauma. Those unresolved issues lead up to her putting a gun to the head of a teen-ager, who squeals on Little Chino’s gang to save his skin from the crazy gringa cop.
Little Chino (who is absent when the police round up his fellow gang members) soon tracks down the little snitch, only to fall right into Dexter’s hands.
Finally, Dex is ready to end his kill moratorium. And he’s found a new, safer way to dispose of his victims: use the Gulf Stream to drag the bodies far away from Miami. And Little Chino gets the honours of being the first to take the trip down the Stream.

Following the services and funeral for Paul, Rita confronts Dex, about the shoe, about the attack and set-up Paul claimed took place. After Dex admits to attacking Paul though, Rita comes to the wrong conclusion regarding where Dexter got the drugs for the set-up: she thinks Dex is an addict, and that this is where he sometimes disappears to like “Clark f*cking Kent.”
When Dex says—rather truthfully—that, yes, he has an addiction, Rita comforts him, and vows she’ll be with him every step of the way to beat this thing.

Once again, Dexter takes those strange riffs and makes for some of the most off-kilter primetime television viewing around today.
And the ensemble is having a grand time with these characters, notably Jennifer Carpenter, Julie Benz, and Michael C. Hall, of course.
Rita, in particular, is a fascinating character. Clearly, she is a stronger woman now than when we were first introduced to her at the top of Season 1. And yet, she still has a blind spot where the man she loves is concerned. First Paul, and now Dexter. And now this “Dex is an addict, I’ll help him through this” subplot is opening up, and that should be interesting to watch as it develops.

(Image courtesy of nymag.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 13
“Dream Cruise”
Teleplay by Naoya Takayama and Norio Tsuruta; based on the short story by Koji Suzuki; directed by Norio Tsuruta

As with Season 1, which had the Japanese contribution as its 13th episode (Takashi Miike’s “Imprint”), this season culminates in Norio Tsuruta’s “Dream Cruise,” based on Koji Suzuki’s short story.
Contained in the Dark Water collection (where the basis for Hideo Nakata’s Honogurai mizu no soko kara, “Floating Water,” can likewise be found), “Dream Cruise” has water as its central image. Not only that, but the story is actually set on the high seas.

Utilizing the set up of films like Philip Noyce’s Dead Calm and Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water (both of which Tsuruta studied before filming began), “Dream Cruise” also follows the often-seen premise of many an entry in past horror anthologies, the cuckolded husband (Ryo Ishibashi, from Miike’s Odishon and the English-language Grudge films) exacting his revenge on his cheating wife (Yoshino Kimura) and her lover (Daniel Gillies).
Sadly though, “Dream Cruise” is nowhere near as effective as MoH’s previous Japanese entry, Miike’s “Imprint,” nor Nakata’s adaptations of Suzuki source material.
Most of the fault, I feel, lies in Tsuruta’s hands.

I’ve never really warmed to Tsuruta, who directed the Ringu prequel, Ringu 0: Basudei, and whose Kakashi left me feeling dissatisfied. In “Dream Cruise,” Tsuruta doesn’t show us anything we haven’t seen before in any number of Asian horror films of the past, and he isn’t helped any by performances that range from mediocre to poor.
The threadbare budget is also painfully obvious, and there is much here that is either dreadfully wince-worthy, or downright laughable.
And perhaps most telling of all is the fact that the claustrophobia of the situation—trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean—never really registers in any tangible manner. Tsuruta and his actors never seem to be able to mine the material for all its potential, apparently unable to convey the tension and suspense that by all rights should be there, given the premise. One would perhaps be better served by watching Dead Calm again. (I myself haven’t seen it in a long time, but I do recall thinking it a tense and effective thriller, with Nicole Kidman bringing to mind a young Sigourney Weaver.)

All in all, “Dream Cruise” is a sad—and ultimately predictable—note on which to end the second (and final) season of Showtime’s Masters of Horror.

Parting shot: It’s interesting to note though that there were plans to release an extended cut of “Dream Cruise” as a feature film in Japan, a move also done with Fruit Chan’s “Dumplings,” from Three… Extremes. (I’ve lost track of that bit of news though, so I’m unaware at the moment what came of that curious decision.)

Parting shot 2: Apparently, Masters of Horror is kaput, though will be resurrected next year by NBC as Fear Itself. The MoH crew is pretty much intact, and team up with Lionsgate on Fear Itself.
Now, how being on a regular network (as opposed to cable) will affect Fear Itself remains to be seen. How de-fanged and de-clawed will it get?
As early as now, an announcement has already been made that the eventual DVD releases of Fear Itself episodes will basically be extended, unrated versions of the broadcasts, presumably with all the gore that network television will be hesitant to air.

(Dream Cruise DVD cover art courtesy of cduniverse.com.)

ENTOURAGE

Season 4 Episode 9
“The Young and the Stoned”
Written by: Dusty Kay
Directed by: Mark Mylod

It’s one of those episodes that has nothing to do with the wheeling and dealing for Vinnie’s latest project, but it’s nonetheless a solid half-hour with two out of three subplots that get my vote.


Subplot 1: While trying to find his way to the gang’s new digs (courtesy of the Lost in the Clouds check), E’s Aston-Martin is rear-ended by Anna Faris, who happens to be in nothing but a towel (she’s just come from Pilates is just the start of a semi-long, involved story). Since Anna doesn’t have any of her insurance papers on her, she gives E her cell number.
E feels they had some kind of Moment, but he gives her a call only to find out she gave him the wrong number. Tracking her house down via Star Maps, E drives on over, and Anna claims she gave him the wrong number ‘cause her phone is new and she’s totally number dyslexic.
Since she ended up trashing her tires in the accident, Anna’s waiting for a cab that’s already late to take her to a meeting. E volunteers to drive her, and finds out that it’s a meeting for her new project, a romantic comedy trying to be something more called Brown-Eyed Girl, a script E remembers since Vince passed on it a while back.
When Anna pressures E into telling her what he really thought of the script, he says he didn’t like it and thought the third act just didn’t work.
Later on, Anna calls E and asks him out for dinner. It turns out that a) she wants to pick his brain for his thoughts on her career; and b) she’s got a boyfriend, who calls her during dinner.
Anna ends up asking E to be her manager.


Subplot 2: Mrs. Ari is asked to reprise her role as town slut Kendall Scott for the anniversary of The Young and the Restless. Ari, possessive and mindful of the fact that it’s a daytime soap, isn’t thrilled about the offer. When he finds out that part of what Mrs. Ari is supposed to do is to seduce Latin soap hunk Javier Gracho (whom Lloyd, solid fan of Y&R that he is—he hasn’t missed an episode in a dozen years—has as wallpaper), he freaks.
Ari visits the set and when he’s told by the missus in no uncertain terms to get lost, he pays Javier a visit. Prepared to lift Javier up from the wasteland of daytime TV, Ari dangles the promise of primetime and Ugly Betty, just so long as Javier doesn’t kiss Mrs. Ari.
Javier spoils a shot when he doesn’t liplock with Mrs. Ari, and points to Ari when he’s asked what’s wrong. Exasperated that Ari won’t let her be kissed, Mrs. Ari grabs Javier and kisses him herself, after which, they do the scene.
Later on, an argument in the Gold master bedroom. Ari’s just really jealous that some other man is kissing his wife, and Mrs. Ari is pissed that Ari suggested she’s aged and that she’d suffer from being shot in High Def. It turns out that Mrs. Ari was asked to return as a regular, but she’s happy and content with her life (she did walk away from acting for this), and she just wanted one day to have this little crazy on-camera “fling” to assure herself that she’s still quite the desirable hottie.
The Golds then have hot monkey love. (Ari’s such a lucky dog.)


The third subplot involves Turtle, three girls, a cop, and some weed.
Despite that less than stellar subplot, “The Young and the Stoned” is a great half-hour, with the introduction of Anna Faris (who’s always struck me as a really funny actress far too big for the Scary Movie franchise) playing herself. There’s always such promise whenever someone plays themselves on Entourage (or, more accurately, a version of themselves), and when it’s over a number of episodes (as Mandy Moore did in Season 2), the results can be truly excellent. I’m looking forward to more of Faris.
That, coupled with the Y&R subplot, take this episode through the roof.


(Images courtesy of hbo.com.)

THE INVASION
(Review)

So here’s my history with the pod people: I read Jack Finney’s novel, The Body Snatchers way back in grade school; and while Philip Kaufman’s 1978 adaptation, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is one of my all-time favourites, I thought Abel Ferrara’s Body Snatchers (1993) paled in comparison to Kaufman’s effort. Small wonder, as Kaufman presented audiences with a tight, tension-filled exercise in urban paranoia, and left them with some unforgettable cinematic moments, while Ferrara didn’t really seem to add anything new to the tale, other than making the main protagonists younger.
So it was with some trepidation that I received word that there was to be a fourth film adaptation of Finney’s landmark novel. And when the news trickled in about the re-shoots and the eleventh-hour Wachowski/McTeigue intervention, I got even more concerned.
In a gross oversimplification of events, Oliver Hirschbiegel—director of the Oscar-nominated Der Untergang (Downfall)—began work on what was then being called The Visiting, described as “part thriller, part political allegory.” But when Hirschbiegel’s original cut reportedly didn’t quite click with test audiences, producer Joel Silver brought in the Wachowskis for a re-write; some reports indicate 30% of the film was re-written, others, nearly 70%.
Wachowski protégé James McTeigue (V For Vendetta) then came on-board for 17 days of re-shoots, and all this additional activity caused the original release date of August 2006 to be moved a whole year. At the end of it all, Joel Silver was quoted as saying: “I wasn't intending to make a little art film. I tend to make commercial, mainstream movies. [The Invasion] just needed a little help.”
It was clear then that whatever The Invasion turned out to be, it would most certainly not be the original vision screenwriter David Kajganich had, nor what Hirschbiegel shot over 45 days in Baltimore. This would then be the fifth re-working of Finney’s novel, completely bypassing the Kajganich/Hirschbiegel effort.
Was this a Hollywood train wreck waiting to happen, with extra conductors and replacement drivers ultimately arsing up the works? Or could the Wachowskis have actually hit this one out of the park?

In this redux of a redux, Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) is a divorced mother and psychiatrist who suddenly finds her world transformed by the arrival of an extraterrestrial virus which turns its victims into soulless versions of themselves: all of the memories and logic and habits, none of the messy emotions.
This crisis coincides with Carol’s son Oliver (Jackson Bond) visiting with his father (The Tudors’ Jeremy Northam, whose character is named Tucker Kaufman, presumably a nod to director Philip Kaufman), who happens to work for the CDC, and is an early victim of the virus.
As the strangeness escalates around Carol, the only ones she can turn to for help are her close friend Ben Driscoll (double-oh-seven Daniel Craig), and his colleague Stephen Galeano (Jeffrey Wright, HBO’s Angels in America and M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water; Wright was also Craig’s co-star in Casino Royale). Not only do the trio need to comprehend the workings of this virus, but Carol must also retrieve her son before he is infected.

Clearly, The Invasion has something to say, about the inherent savagery of the human race, and the possible price for a completely conflict-free world. But there are a myriad things which serve to distract the audience and obscure what might have been a fascinating and provocative exploration of what it truly means to be human.
Most conspicuous are a number of curious and spastic editing choices which do little more than interrupt and confuse the narrative flow. Also evident is the lack of a real character in Carol Bennell.
I don’t really know much about her beyond the fact that she’s a shrink, she’s a self-professed “post-modern feminist,” and she’s a Concerned Mother. There is a distinct lack of tiny grace notes that tell me she’s actually a living, breathing individual. (And the little word game she plays with Oliver doesn’t count; that’s a quick “Oh, look, she must really be close with her son and really care for him a lot” tic more than anything else.)
And with a performance that doesn’t quite have the “oomph” of some of her past work, Kidman could very well have been a pod person from the get-go.

And while the choice of turning the threat’s nature into a virus—as opposed to Finney’s idea (which has been used in all of The Body Snatchers’ previous cinematic iterations), where alien pods actually produce an emotionless clone while the original human’s body disintegrates—is certainly interesting and timely in this virulent age of SARS and bird flu, it also leaves a back door open, saddling us with an ending that rings a bit hollow and somehow diminishes the catastrophe itself to just another outbreak.
At the end of it all, there just doesn’t seem to be much weight to what came before, no real, substantial repercussions of the disaster.

To be fair though, there are a few bright spots.
Just as Kaufman made a nod to Donald Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the first adaptation from 1956) by giving Kevin McCarthy a brief cameo, re-enacting his final lines from Siegel’s version*, The Invasion sees Veronica Cartwright (brilliant in Kaufman’s version) in a small role as Wendy Lenk, a patient of Carol’s, who twigs to what’s going down early on when her normally volatile husband becomes a cold and calm automaton overnight.
Cartwright’s scene with Kidman is awesome, and I’m just disappointed that we don’t see more of her, and that, ultimately, her character seems more plot device (to reveal to Carol and company some of the characteristics of the virus they face) than actual person.
Also, while some of the sequences where Carol meets other uninfected humans, who teach her to survive by showing no emotion and not falling asleep, are effective, there is one (which is actually shown in the trailer) whose dodgy effects mar and dislodge whatever emotional weight the scene could have had.
Undeniably though, the projectile vomiting as vector for the virus is disturbing and very unsettling; that census taker at Carol’s door, mouth agape, is one of the film’s creepiest moments.

For all its pros and cons though, it’s difficult at this point to try and determine where the responsibility lies for the mess that is The Invasion; which bits are Hirschbiegel’s and which are the Wachowskis. As Silver so wonderfully puts it, “… we added some stuff to it.” Okay, so which “stuff”?**
Even though this is a sad truth—that more and more, the responsibility for much of Hollywood’s big budget product these days must be shared by everyone from the director on down to the members of all those test audiences, with producers, studio heads, and agents thrown in for “good” measure—it only becomes glaringly evident in films like The Invasion, where art is so obviously b!tchslapped into submission by economics.
Was Hirschbiegel’s version so much of “a little art film” that it would not have found an audience? Is the “commercial, mainstream” Invasion any better? There really is no way to tell.
All I really do know is that a) while The Invasion isn’t a complete disaster, it is far from Kaufman’s version (it’s also quite distant from a completely satisfying viewing experience); and b) I really do wish the Hirschbiegel cut gets released somehow, so we can all see the original vision, before Silver oh-so-decisively struck with the weighty hammer of box-office hungry Hollywood.

* This ingenious little bit thus turned Kaufman’s version, on some sly level, into a sequel, rather than a remake, showing a certain amount of respect and gratitude to Siegel’s adaptation.

** The climactic car chase though, was part of the McTeigue re-shoots, apparently an attempt to punch up the film’s action quotient.

Parting shot: The lead characters in the Siegel and Kaufman versions have the last names Bennell (Miles and Matthew) and Driscoll (Becky and Elizabeth). Apparently, in The Invasion, the genders are reversed.
Additionally, in Siegel’s adaptation, there are also characters named Dan Kauffman and Wilma Lentz.

Parting shot 2: Now that I’ve seen The Invasion, the only cinematic iteration I’ve yet to watch is, ironically enough, the first adaptation, Donald Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. As far as the films go, it’s kind of like meeting all these different pod people without ever actually having met the original.
Incidentally, Siegel also directed Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.

(The Invasion OS courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com; image courtesy of collider.com.)

HOSTEL: PART II
(Review)

I think I’ve mentioned this ‘round these parts before: I loved Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever, then was slightly less enamoured of his follow-up, Hostel. I did, however, come to appreciate Hostel because it is, after all, a well-made, and skillfully (ahem) executed film.
So it was with some curiosity and trepidation that I received word of Roth’s decision to go down the sequel route, this time, with a trio of females as protagonists. Given the bad rep gorno has managed to rack up for itself, I was concerned that Hostel: Part II would be an ultimately pointless exercise in cinematic misogyny.
I am so glad to report that it is not.


After a brief opening section which serves to wrap up the events of Hostel (yes, Pax is back), we are introduced to Beth (Lauren German, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake), Whitney (Bijou Phillips, from Almost Famous) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo, from Scream 3 and Saved!), Hostel: Part II’s would-be victims, and in a separate subplot, Todd (Richard Burgi, TV’s The Sentinel) and Stuart (Roger Bart, who previously worked with Burgi on Desperate Housewives), the tale’s would-be torturers.
It is this subplot, which explores the world of those who indulge in this gruesome enterprise, and those who run it, that elevates Hostel: Part II above the rest of the gorno pack.
In fact, it seems a misnomer to refer to Hostel: Part II as “gorno”: it’s arguably less bloody than the original, and ultimately plays better. One of its most disturbing sequences has absolutely nothing to do with the disfigurement of human anatomy or on-screen gore, instead displaying the insidious reach of those who traffic in misery and murder.
Hostel: Part II is actually more thriller (an effective one, at that) than a catalogue of voyeuristic killshots and fake bloodletting.
I hereby officially cease to use the word “gorno” in this review.


Roth manages to keep things tight and engaging, as both groups on either side of the torturer’s chair, spiral deeper into the blood-caked labyrinth, and move inexorably towards the fateful meeting in the infamous factory.
Along the way, we catch glimpses of the psychology of torture and murder, the pitiless commodification of human life, and the cruel vagaries of business.
The principals are also effective, particularly German and Bart. Given that I’ve gotten used to having Bart make me laugh (in Frank Oz’s The Stepford Wives and Susan Stroman‘s The Producers), I’m suitably impressed by his performance here; considering Stuart’s character arc, Bart is a fantastic choice for the role.


I should note though that as much as Part II is less gory than the original, there are nonetheless a couple of “Oh, that is so wrong” moments that will cling to you even after the film has completely unspooled.
And for fans of the original, some favorites—the lovable Bubblegum Gang and the too-cool-for-school Desk Clerk Jedi—return for a second helping. And, just as the original sported a Takashi Miike cameo, Part II boasts Ruggero Deodato. (Cheekily enough, the director of the infamous Cannibal Holocaust appears as “The Italian Cannibal.”)


Clearly, Hostel: Part II is not the sort of thriller that’s to everyone’s tastes. If, however, you like your suspense with teeth and subtext, you should feel free to leave your passport at the desk, and check in once more.
Enjoy Slovakia.
I know I do.


Parting shot: Adult Harry Potter fans may be interested to note that Stanislav Ianevski (Viktor Krum from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) joins all the fun as Miroslav.
Also appearing in a small role is Cabin Fever’s Jordan Ladd, who also appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of Oz’s The Stepford Wives, Brian Dannelly's Saved! and Tarantino’s Death Proof can be found in the Archive, where the article “Revelations: Getting At The Truths of Apocalypse Cinema”—where Cabin Fever is discussed—can also be found.

(Hostel: Part II OS courtesy of horror-movies.ca; images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com; Eli Roth on-set image courtesy of twitchfilm.net.)