Heather Matarazzo dangles upside down before the blood
spills, in Eli Roth's "Hostel Part II", opening in the U.S. on June 8.
(Photo: Rico Torres/LionsGate)
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A confession: before watching "Hostel Part II" this writer
drank several glasses of red wine, an appropriate color. For non-horror
fans, "Hostel Part II" is more easily digested when one or two drinks have
preceded the horror and the insanity of degradation, debasement, dismemberment,
death, humiliation and exploitation.
Happily the interview with the film's director Eli Roth was conducted without
indulging in any salubrious pleasures.
Before proceeding further, two questions must be asked:
Is "Hostel Part II" more easily digested with red wine or more easily
absorbed than the original film?
If one leaves his seat but stays in the theater during "Hostel Part II", does
it mean that the film's director Eli Roth has met his goals? (More on that
a little later.)
"Hostel Part II", which opens on June 8 in North America (June 7 in
Australia, Argentina and Slovenia) is a delight for horror
fans and for anyone who feels that the film sequels released so far this summer
have fallen far short of what they promised and advertised. By contrast,
Mr. Roth's new film delivers exactly what it sells. The director strongly
believes in giving the people what they want, and no horror fan will be
disappointed with Roth's latest effort. The new film leaves nothing to
the imagination -- in fact, practically anything and everything that you can think of
involving the human body and blood is seen in "Hostel Part II".
This extreme horror film isn't for one with a nervous
or weak disposition. It is a difficult film to watch at times, but then
again if you aren't a
horror fan you probably have no business watching it. Nevertheless, Mr. Roth hopes
that you throw your inhibitions and fears to the wolves (or in his new film's case, the
hounds) and go to your local movie theater and enjoy an experience that he guarantees you have never seen before on
the big screen -- or even in your own most twisted nightmares.
Two nights ago, Mr. Roth was at the film's World Premiere at the AMC Metreon movie
theater in San Francisco enjoying his finished product -- he literally just
finished the film, he said -- and could be heard laughing loudly during many of the scenes
in "Hostel Part II." Roth was having even
more fun than anyone else in the packed auditorium. For that matter, let
history record that on this night that the fans weren't
disappointed either, and Roth, who breathlessly curse-worded and riveted the
audience with some ultra-bizarre (by his own admission) ideas for future horror
films, fielded numerous questions from his enthralled audience after the
94-minute film concluded.
Roth-y Horror Picture Show: The director last
month signing a poster for his new film, and the director on the set of "Hostel
Part II", flanked by Lauren German (left) and Bijou Phillips. The white
t-shirt Eli Roth is wearing bears the title of the legendary horror film by
Italian cult horror veteran director Ruggero Deodado, who has a cameo in Mr.
Roth's new film, which opens on Friday, June 8 in the U.S. (and on June 7 in
Australia, Argentina and Slovakia.) (First photo: James Devaney/WireImage.
Second photo: Rico Torres/LionsGate)
Eli Roth has been in the film industry
or around it since he was eight (he was born in 1972.) A summa cum laude graduate of New
York University Film School in 1994 and a native of South Newton, Massachusetts, Roth
has unparalleled energy and enthusiasm. To hear him speak passionately
about his ideas to transform the horror film into something more artistic,
powerful and
imaginative is something to witness. He is to the American horror genre today what
Robin Williams has been to comedy and stand-up over the years: probably its most breathless advocate.
Like Mr. Williams' pacing for his comedy schtick, Mr. Roth can speak a mile-a-minute about horror films,
which judging from his passion and enthusiasm could be said to be his first love.
(Quentin Tarantino, who "presents" both of Roth's "Hostel" films, once dubbed
Mr. Roth "the future of horror.") He
rattles off a number of titles from around the world during an interview before five
roundtable online journalists at a suite in San Francisco's Clift Hotel.
With one of the posters for "Hostel
Part II" looming large behind and above him, the director begins by spending an
uninterrupted five minutes talking about his new film, the
sequel to last year's "Hostel", an ultra-violent horror shocker that scared,
scarred and sliced up over $200 million worldwide. (For the record,
several Internet sites report that more than 150 gallons of blood were used in
"Hostel".)
Roth revealed that the pressure and challenge of following his original
"Hostel", an unexpected hit, with an encore film was fueled by a desperate and
essential mission.
"I thought 'Hostel' was the one-off movie between movies for me. 'I said,
'while waiting for my studio film to get green-lit, I'll do this little $4
million or $3 million -- no one will pay attention -- maybe it'll come out into
a few theaters.' And then when it did what it did I was like, 'fuck, if
I'm gonna do a sequel, I gotta do it right now and I got to fucking -- I
got to make people feel the way I felt when I came out of "Aliens" and "Road
Warrior".
Which in Mr. Roth's case was scared, traumatized, uncomfortable -- and just
plain nauseous.
After the world premiere screening of "Hostel Part II" he recalled Ridley
Scott's "Alien" -- which was probably the film he really meant when he uttered
James Cameron's sequel by mistake during the interview the next day.
Roth was practically weaned on horror films from the womb, even though he was
scared stiff of them. He would routinely become physically ill during them
and would try to steel himself to brave the most graphic and scariest fare
around. During "Alien", Roth threw up several times (he was seven years
old at the time the hit sci-fi horror was released in 1979) and the following
year "Outland", the Sean Connery film with the exploding heads also sent the
director projectile-vomiting on some of the patrons as he rushed out of the
movie theater petrified and mortified -- with his father in hot pursuit --
rushing for cover from the graphic images that flickered menacingly before young
master Roth. Interestingly enough, trivia on the director reveals that he
cannot stand the sight of actual blood, while he is unaffected by movie blood.
("If I don't come home covered head to toe in fake blood, then I haven't done my
job as a horror director," Roth has been quoted as saying.)
And it turns out that Mr. Roth was referring to "Aliens" and other second
films in a series of big screen follow-ups to trend-setting original motion
pictures. He is on a roll right now as he continues: "And then I went,
'holy fuck - they took that shit to the next level. Not only did they top
it -- it is so much better, it stands on its own, it's a great companion piece
and it just fuckin' was exactly what I wanted but also totally new and totally
different' . . . it was so satisfying to hear everyone reacting the way I . . .
wanted people to react." Roth proceeds to recall the shrieks and gasps and
other noises that he observed while being amongst the world premiere audience
for his latest film. His pleasure at this knowledge of his audience and
its visceral reactions to some of the shocking and funny sequences in "Hostel
Part II" is not disguised at all.
For Beth (played by Lauren German), there's no
escape from a fate worse than death, in "Hostel Part II", directed by Eli Roth.
(Photo: Rico Torres/LionsGate)
"I really wanted to make ["Hostel Part II"] more oddly
subtle in many ways." The director recalls several scenes of such
subtlety, citing the selection of the tools used to carry out the grisly
executions and dissections, plus the bidding war montage among the businessmen
around the world who feverishly up the ante on the three young American college
women who have arrived at a hostel in Slovakia. Roth flashed back to the
first screening of the original "Hostel" and the litany of scenes in that film
where audiences were repulsed and thrilled by its violent content.
"How could I whip the crowd into that frenzy and give them that adrenaline rush
that they want and take them to that dark place of just like absolute horror and
then exhilaration at the end? You need to have that ending. Look, I
mean, my competition is fucking "Pirates 3", "Shrek 3", "Spidey 3" -- it's like,
how are you gonna compete with these other movies? It's like, I need the
fucking ending that's gonna [make] people go, 'I don't care who's in it, I don't
care how big a movie star is, I don't give a fuck what special effects
extravaganza you have, nothing will top the end of this movie. I
mean, "Spider-Man 3", people were just like -- that movie ended, and I just
heard people going, 'that sucked.' Their kids going, 'that sucked.'
And it's so depressing, because I love [Sam] Raimi, but you could smell that
they were like, 'we need more toys.' You could fucking sniff it out.
You could smell it."
Roth so desperately wanted the third "Spider-Man" to be on the level of the
third film of the "Lord Of The Rings" series, where "it just got better and
better and better -- it was awesome, and it was like, so fulfilling", but he
detected another agenda afoot for the film that as of this story's initial
publication has grossed over $700 million worldwide. "You could smell [in
"Spider-Man 3"] when they just wanna sell shit." So the director repeated
his missive for his own horror film sequel: "I've gotta do a sequel where people
come out and go, 'I don't care who's in this movie, nothing is gonna top the
ending of "Hostel Part II". It's gonna bring the fucking house down.'"
Eli Roth delivers on that promise. The ending of "Hostel Part II" does
bring the house down. It might be the ending of shock endings in horror
films. It isn't the very last scene one sees that brings the house down,
but a sequence shortly before it that will be sure to make audiences squirm in
horror and laugh with discomfort because its content is so outrageous. It
is amazing that this sequence and several others got past the Motion Picture
Association of America, a ratings board made up of between 12 and 16 people,
ordinary people living in the United States who convene as a panel, watch
several films a week and also discuss films with the directors who appeal the
rating given to their product. Roth speaks about the scene involving
Heather Matarazzo, who plays Lorna. ("The scene I will get the most flack
for," he acknowledges.) Naked, bound in chains around the wrists behind
her back, and around the ankles, Matarazzo's Lorna character dangles upside down
(see the picture at the top of this feature story.) And then the rest of
the scene plays itself out for what seems like an interminable, distressing and
uncomfortable three and a half bloody minutes. One thing is for sure: in
this particular scene in Mr. Roth's film, Miss Matarazzo is a long, long way
from the dollhouse (she was memorable in Todd Solondz' film "Welcome To The
Dollhouse".)
Says Roth, "the Lorna scene was tough. I mean, the ratings board -- look,
the truth of the matter is, the ratings board are a lot cooler than people
think. And I thought that that documentary ["This Film Is Not Yet Rated",
directed by Kirby Dick] was really terrible and it completely did not show my
experience with them. And I said to them, 'look guys, it's "Hostel Part
II", it's not "Happy Feet 2". No one is gonna accidentally walk into this
film, and the people that are there are specifically going back for more of what
they liked about the first one.' And they go, 'well Eli, we got the most
complaints from any movie in years from "Hostel".' And here's my question:
what else are people gonna complain about? 'I am the movie to
complain about because no other movie is gonna do the stuff that I'm doing and
that's why people like my films.' And they said, 'well, that's true.'
And I go, 'it's not like they're gonna complain about "Happy Feet"!' And
they go, "actually we did get complaints about "Happy Feet".' Which
goes to show that people will complain about anything. I go, 'guys, let's
face it, of course they're gonna complain about "Hostel". They're gonna
complain about "Hostel 2" by the very nature of what it is. But that
shouldn't stop us from -- the fans should not be punished for that. People
are going to be warned about what they're coming into. I'm not making a
secret of what this is. I'm not pretending it's something else."
And if "rated R for sadistic scenes of torture and bloody violence, terror,
nudity, sexual content, language and some drug content" doesn't warn people
about the contents of "Hostel Part II", then nothing will.
There's no escaping here: a scene from "Hostel
Part II", which opens this coming Friday (June 8) in North America.
(Photo: Rico Torres/LionsGate)
"If the scene isn't emotional," Roth says, "then it's just a stupid kill scene, then it is gratuitous. Then it is just bloody." As Mr. Roth explained to the ratings board, "'. . . the scene with Heather Matarazzo, what makes that scene horrifying is the look on her face and the way she's screaming. And that's not graphic violence. That is a performance. Don't punish Heather. Heather did this movie for that scene. She wanted -- she said, 'I'm gonna show everybody what I'm capable of.' And she went from being that character, that's the nerdy character (Lorna) to -- there she is, vulnerable, upside down, naked, screaming, begging for -- Heather took the movie because of that scene. Because she wanted to do it.'"
The director's pitch to the board worked, as (indicated
above) the R-rating for "Hostel Part II" was preserved.
To hear Mr. Roth tell it, Matarazzo was ready, willing and able to do the
controversial scene. She dangled upside down in character for eight
minutes at a time, with her hands shackled behind her back, over two nights of
filming. The director admired Matarazzo's courage and endurance. She
was definitely up for the challenge. "Heather's like, 'I'm so excited you
want to see me naked!' I'm like, 'Heather I love you! I've got a
crush on you!' And she's like, 'you mean you're gonna cast me as a
straight girl and give me a romance with a guy . . . ?' And I'm like,
'yeah?' And she goes, 'no one's done that!' I'm like, 'Heather,
you're an amazing actor. I don't think anyone really cares whether you're
gay or straight. They love you and they want to see you do a great
performance. People aren't thinking about that when you're in the
character. It's irrelevant.' And she's like, 'no director, since
I've come out [as a lesbian] has ever cast me as a straight person!' I
said, 'Heather, I'm casting you because you're a great actor, not because of who
you are or any of that.' And I said to the ratings board, 'please . . .
this is not worse than [Mel Gibson's] "Apocalypto" . . . look at [Gibson's]
"Passion Of The Christ" has a lengthy torture scene. "City Of God", I mean
there's intense movies out there, and the audience -- we need something that's
not gonna be safe. There's an audience for this, and let's protect it.
And they [the MPAA ratings board] did."
Despite the criticism of the MPAA -- due largely to its historical inconsistency
in the way it rates films with violent content as opposed to sexual context
-- and in "Hostel Part II" violence and sex clash in a very intense way -- there
was a contrast in other countries when dealing with "Hostel Part II", according
to Roth.
"Whereas in Germany, they [the country's ratings board] were like, 'take that
out, take that out.' In Japan, with "Hostel 1", they were, 'this isn't
going in theaters. You have an American blow-torching a Japanese girl's
face with a blow-torch. Sorry.' No argument. No discussion.
No appeal. No nothing. Not going in theaters. Ukraine.
Not going in theaters. Singapore. Not going in theaters. Not
even coming out on video. So there are other countries -- like my point of
view is -- you know, there are other countries where there's not even a
negotiation, there's not even a discussion. It is a government censor
board, and that's the decision, and that's it. Whereas, here [in the U.S.]
it's like they'll talk to you. You go back and forth and back and forth
and it's a great system. I mean, the alternative is the fucking -- we get
Jesse Helms deciding what goes in and out of movies. And I'd rather
have a board of people that do this everyday that work with filmmakers than some
lawmaker that wants to look like that they're protecting the community and says,
'take that out'." Roth's voice has been rising in pitch as he speaks the
words uttered in that last sentence. It is an issue that he is obviously
passionate about. He cited the fact that "the stuff we did in "Hostel" is
now in [the television series] "24". And for good measure Roth mentioned
the furor over Janet Jackson's exposed nipple while onstage with Justin
Timberlake at the Super Bowl half time show of four years ago.
"They [parents and politicians] are reflecting America, and people go crazy when
there's sexual stuff," said the director.
Bijou Phillips (as Whitney) runs for
her life in Eli Roth's new film. (Photo: Rico Torres/LionsGate)
Part of the strategy for the director when dialoguing with the MPAA for "Hostel
Part II" was degrees and aspects of violence. "You know, I talked about
the difference between sadistic violence and revenge violence. I talked
about realistic violence . . . and stylized violence . . . ".
Roth returns to the scene . . . the Lorna scene. "We went fucking
full operatic theatrical with that. Cause I know that if I had shot that
the way I shot the Derek Richardson torture [in the first "Hostel" movie], no
one would enjoy it. It's too painful -- I was like, 'in order for this
[Lorna] scene to work it's got to be . . . this is going to be the most stylized
-- we're going for fucking opera. This is operatic. We are
fully going for the style.' And it's horrifying but I purposely didn't do
that and photograph it [and] do it as a realistic scene like the kids in the
woods, which feels like . . . I wanted to go for something that sounded like
truthfully an Italian neo-realist film from the late 1940's, early 1950's.
That's the mood I wanted in that scene."
Whatever kind of violence is depicted in "Hostel Part
II", one is almost compelled to ask Mr. Roth, "what goes on in his head when he
is filming such graphic violence?", and, "doesn't it take a warped mind to
conjure up some of the intensely violent sequences on display in your films?"
("Cabin Fever" was the director's first movie, released in 2002.)
Questions, especially about the way women are portrayed in the new film (see the
black and white alternate movie poster for "Hostel Part II" at the end of this
story -- posters which some may find distressing) -- are also on the mind, just
begging to be asked.
But among the five male journalists any temptation to ask such questions are put
on hold.
Though Heather Matarazzo was game for anything, for
Bijou Phillips (who plays Lorna's friend Whitney), it was an ordeal. In
the film's press notes, Phillips says: "I don't think I could do something like
this again. I'm glad that I had the experience, and I love my job, but we
went into places that I didn't know existed, and I don't need to do that again."
For Phillips, whose torture session was the last one filmed, one scene required
some forty-five set-ups.
Women who do see "Hostel Part II" will be pleased to know that there is male
full frontal nudity, which the director made a point to include after receiving
complaints from women who said that there was too much female nudity in
"Hostel".
The director, who confesses that he didn't belong in South Newton, Massachusetts
and was a fish out of water there, doesn't plan on making a third "Hostel" film.
In fact, he is dead set against it, citing his utter disdain for third movies.
He mentions "Spider-Man 3", "The Godfather 3" and "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome"
among the list of cinematic horribles. Roth speaks more zealously though
about "Trailer Trash", a future film he will direct, composed entirely of horror
trailers he will create. If audiences have seen "Grindhouse" in the U.S.
(it is playing elsewhere in the world over the next few months) they would have
seen the fake horror trailer "Thanksgiving", which ends with a cheerleader --
with legs wide apart splits-style -- landing right on top of and over a sharp
knife blade, whose edge is sticking upwards -- and straight into her vagina.
This shot ended the trailer, and howls of anguish and laughs of incredulity were
cacophonous in the theater at this gruesome, grotesque moment of shock and
impossibility.
Guess who directed the "Thanksgiving" trailer?
"Hostel Part II", which was shot on location in Monaco, Iceland, the Czech
Republic, and Slovakia, opens in the United States and Canada on Friday, June 8,
and in Argentina, Australia and Slovakia on Thursday, June 7.
Read The Popcorn Reel Movie Review of
"Hostel Part II"
Beyond controversial: below on the left
is the film's main poster, of one of the executioners in the new film.
The grisly middle poster is the original teaser poster, while the provocative
black and white poster is designed by Art Machine Digital, not by the
distributor LionsGate.
