User Reviews

Eli Roth has learnt a lot of things from his mate Quentin Tarantino, but without a shadow of a doubt, how to talk was the one he learnt best. If you believed everything that came out of the Hostel: Part 2 director's mouth, you'd be under the impression that this was a new lesson in extreme cinema, pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable on screen to new and previously unheard of levels. Gore-hounds though will most likely walk out the multiplexes with the same aftertaste that the first Hostel left; it's violent sure, but it's not the harshest, most disturbing film ever made by a long shot. In fact, the only reason you should approach with kid gloves is because this time, it is girls that suffer. Young, nice and pretty girls with much to offer the world and whether or not dismembering them is more shocking than torturing and killing a horny male jock is a matter for feminist academics to debate.

The story this time focuses on a trio of art students studying abroad who decide to do some travelling during their holidays. Convinced by a local of the attractions to be had in a Slovakian spa (uh-oh!), tough girl Whitney (Bijou Philips), rich, confident lesbian Beth (Lauren German) and nerdish, murderer-magnet Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) set off for a few relaxing days in the former Soviet block, only to find themselves being splattered all over the walls instead. It's grim and it's nihilistic, but not without a vein of dark humour running throughout (the hell-spawn local brats play football with a severed head), but unlike the first film's bewildered hero Paxton (Jay Hernandez), it's difficult to cheer the protagonists on. Thankfully, we're spared the gratuitous, borderline-pornography of the last film, but the girls are so two-dimensional it's hard to care when their holiday starts to go wrong, Lorna for instance being so sweet, naive and childish that she might as well be a parody.

That said though, if you're after more of the same arcing blood sprays and annihilated bodies, Hostel 2 delivers. However, it neither matches nor surpasses the original. Claret still flies of course but in a bit more subdued way and surprisingly, the final act doesn't even come close to matching the frantic, battle for survival that Paxton went through two years ago. Much of the violence takes place off camera, where the audience imagination is set to run wild to the screams of the mutilated but only one scene towards the end is liable to make you wince. Considering the shock-value of the original lay in tendon slicing, fingers being severed, a girl exploding as a train hit her and the eyeball scene, it seems like a step backwards as far as gore is concerned. Instead, Roth goes for a dark psychological approach but woefully mishandles it. The shocking about turns of the plot are more predictable than the director seems to think and what should have been a tense, nail-biting conflict of wits misfires, giving us nothing but loads of shouting and a dramatic, but unbelievable personality shift. Roth may know how to do gore, but characterisations? Forget about it.

As a result, Hostel Part 2 is evidence of how far you can go if your self-belief is spectacularly high, but that is all. All talk of this being a doom-laden, intestine shredding nerve-jangler can do nothing to disguise the fact that it apes the masters but doesn't outdo them. Consider how good this would have been if Neil Marshal had directed it for example? Unfortunately, Roth and Tarantino were presumably too busy head-banging to men being torn apart by dogs, girls getting buzz-saws in the face and the gruesome 'Bathory' scene to notice. The Tarantino connection however is rather apt and had this not been a sequel, it could just as easily have gone under a different name and been attached to the Grindhouse project. Don't be surprised if future installments wind up going straight to DVD.

Oh, Eli. What happened? Cabin Fever was a fun horror flick and the first Hostel had its moments, but this? My excitement over a Roth helmed Cell has just dropped dramatically.

Opening where the first film left off, things get off to a bad start as we meet back up with Paxton, with Jay Hernandez phoning in a curiously wooden performance. The first "scares" are very poorly handled and obvious.

After the pointless prologue, we meet our new gender swapped protagonists. Bijou Phillips's is the obnoxious, one-dimensional slut who just wants to sleep with Viktor Krum. Heather Matarazzo's Lorna should have been a good character. Matarazzo is a talented actress, but here she hams it up too much and Roth piles on the "she's an introverted nerd!" touches far too heavily. She's sorta the Josh of Hostel II, only Lorna is a cartoon where as Josh actually seemed like a guy you could meet in a college algebra class. Lauren Graham turns in a pretty good performance and Beth is the only one of these females who actually feels somewhat like a real person.

The new twist on the formula lies in Roger Bart and Richard Burgi's prospective killers. Here's where Roth could have gotten really dark and interesting. Everyone who saw the first Hostetl remembers Rick Hoffman's whacked out, creepy performance as the American Client. Bart and Burgi's characters could have been used to expand on that creepiness as well as bring in some genuine interest in Bart's character's reluctance, amping up the suspense. But no! Instead these characters are shallow, barely explored personalities and Roth uses them for some cheap plot contrivances in the third act.

For a horror flick, the movie has surprisingly little scares. Scratch that, it has no scares. There was not a moment in this movie where I didn't see the jumps coming and there is little in the way of suspense. The first Hostel had some genuinely suspenseful moments and Cabin Fever even had a few "don't do that!" moments. This film has gruesome moments for sure (that this movie got an R rating is the final nail in the coffin for the MPAA's credibility. If Shakespeare in Love and Hostel II share the same rating, something is seriously wrong). The first kill is undeniably effective in being unnerving, but it lacks suspense, which is the secret when a film is toeing the line of bad taste. This was simply inescapable murder on display.

Interestingly, the rest of the gruesomeness that ensues is much different in tone. Much of the third act has an almost slapstick vibe, but Roth lacks the grace and timing of splatstick alumni like Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson to truly pull it off. There is also a completely superfluous scene involving a man with a gun and some children that literally served no purpose. Roth was trying so hard to be shocking in that scene that it had the opposite affect on me: I just stared blankly at the screen. I couldn't care less about this completely pointless detour featuring Roth going "look! Aren't I shocking!"

One last complaint and boy is it a big one: Nathan Barr's score. This movie had one of the worst scores I've heard in years. Barr's music sounds like something someone would write if they were making fun of all the clichés of the horror score. That worked for the campy tone of Cabin Fever, but it completely destroys any opportunity for suspense in this film.

I know Eli Roth has a really good film in him. After Hostel II, I fear the wait for that movie will be longer than I was expecting. I hope he's finally scratched that itch for paying homage to his favorite horror flicks and his shock for shock's sake fetish. If that makes its way into his adaption of Stephen King's Cell, we'll have lost a great story ripe for screen translation to a promising young filmmaker whose head got too big too fast.

Hostel Part II (2007)

Hostel Part II is an even more morally repugnant,more intellectually empty and more misogynistic film.

Sadistic violence, very strong language, torture, drugs, nudity and the shooting of a young child, Eli Roth tried everything in this sad and empty film.

I thought to myself, if Mel Gibson was accused of Anti-Semitism for stereotyping Jews in 'The Passion Of The Christ', then Roth should be massacred with criticism for his portrayal of Slovaks and Eastern European people. He portrays them as sick, sadistic, backward, ugly, scruffy, perverted; this film is mostly aimed at audiences who can't point Europe on a map of Europe.

The funny thing with Hostel Part II, is that the writers actually tried to craft a script with a deeper storyline, dark humour and moral choices and the essence of man and his behaviour. The attempt made this film even more laughable, because it was a ridiculous script that failed on every level.

Hostel Part II is boring at times, it tries to develop a story but fails miserably. But this is a darker more perverse and even more sadistic sequel. In some ways it scores as a hardcore horror movie, but as a whole is extremely bad.

What modern filmmakers lack, such as Eli Roth, is the ability to absolutely terrify audiences through tension and psychological terrorisation. Look at Kubrick's Shining, Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and even Friedkin's Exorcist; the ultimate masterpieces of terror, the stay in your mind after the film... the old 'less is more' does actually work in horror. Hostel Part II is in no way terrifying or haunting, just a sick perversion made for a narrow minded audience.

Writer / director Eli Roth follows up his grim and gory horror pic "Hostel" with this even more outrageous sequel, which does a great job at slowly building up to typically intense, grisly torture scenes that make the wait worth it.

After an opening in which we get to find out the fate of previous survivor Paxton (Jay Hernandez), we're introduced to three college girls, studying abroad, who are very much your standard issue horror movie characters, as what they're most interested in, really, is having a good time. They get wind of an idyllic sounding hot springs resort in Slovakia, only to end up becoming more victims of the international torture-and-kill-for-pleasure business, which we get to see in action, as the information on potential victims is gathered and sent to clients worldwide who bid on the chance to do some serious damage. Among the clients are jerk American Todd (Richard Burgi) and his meeker brother Stuart (Roger Bart), and among the gals are Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips), and the sweet Lorna (Heather Matarazzo).

What this viewer feels that Roth doesn't get enough credit for is building up the tension and establishing character on his way to delivering all of the money shots. He milks the locations and the locals for all the atmosphere that they can provide. There's more than just torture going on in these films; if they really were just wall to wall sadism, it would ultimately be numbing.

But the violent scenes in "Hostel Part II" prove to one up those in the original in terms of depravity. The Elisabeth Bathory inspired scene is particularly effective. And the finale, despite a seemingly sudden shift in attitude from one of the characters, is more intriguing than one might expect.

And Roth is able to temper things somewhat with a gleefully dark humour, such as the impromptu game of "soccer" that breaks out at the end. The victims, commendably, are not unsympathetic, although it's worth noting that the girl whom viewers may like the most gets it the worst, showing Roth's willingness to throw certain expectations out the window. He also creates some vivid and frightening scenes that have nothing to do with gore, such as Beth suddenly finding herself alone at the hot springs, or the sequence (one that some viewers could understandably not be able to stomach) involving a thug with a gun and a gang of children. The look that production designer Robb Wilson King and cinematographer Milan Chadima give other scenes is appropriately grimy.

The cast gets an A for effort, with Barts' casting coming off as rather interesting. Cameos by Giallo superstar Edwige Fenech, actor Luc Merenda ("Torso"), and "Cannibal Holocaust" director Ruggero Deodato make this especially fun for genre buffs.

It hardly needs saying, of course, that this material is not for all tastes but it's fairly potent stuff for people favouring the dark, the moody, and the savage.

Eight out of 10.

After arousing widespread notoriety in 2005 with "Hostel," horror movie helmer Eli Roth has struck back with a sensationally unsavory but superior sequel, "Hostel: Part II," that skewers the rule that follow-up films rarely never overshadow their predecessors. Not only does Roth wrap up the loose ends from "Hostel," but he also takes cinematic terror to the next level. Gorehounds who figured that Roth of "Cabin Fever" fame couldn't top the blood, gore, and torture that made "Hostel" a mind-warping melodramatic exercise in mayhem should fortify themselves for shocks, scares and surprises galore. "Hostel: Part II" makes both the "Saw" trilogy and "High Tension" look tame by comparison. "Hostel" confined itself strictly to amoral businessmen who paid profligate sums for the pleasure of slicing and dicing abducted male backpackers on holiday in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. While the original focused on male victims, "Hostel: Part II" serves up equal opportunity sadism as wealthy men and women carve up kidnapped twentysomething damsels in distress. Indeed, specific scenes in "Hostel: Part II" create such intensity that you have to wonder what prompted the usually conservative Motion Picture Association of America to amend its usual standards and grant Roth's ghoulish film an R-rating when it clearly deserved an NC-17 for its full-frontal male nudity. Anti-violence advocates who complain that Hollywood horror movies are getting out of hand will find a lot to raise a stink about with "Hostel: Part II." "Hostel: Part II" picks up the plot where "Hostel" left off. Paxton (Jay Hernandez of "Friday Night Lights") manages to escape from an anonymous Slovakian city where his two pals and he were seduced with promises of promiscuous sex but then were drugged and taken captive in a death factory where maniacs carved them up like roast beef and left them for dead. As "Hostel: Part II" unfolds, Paxton makes it back to America and takes refuge in the middle of nowhere with his ex-girlfriend. The nightmares, however, are far from over for poor Paxton. The scene then shifts to Rome, Italy, where three American college students are sketching nude portraits of men and women. Beth (Lauren German of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake), Lorna (Heather Matarazzo of "Welcome to the Dollhouse") and Whitney (Bijou Phillips of "Bully") form the ill-fated female threesome in "Hostel: Part II." Beth qualifies as the Paxton of this trio, but she learns from her mistakes a lot faster than Paxton. After the girls have gotten on the train to Prague, they run into one of the sexy foreign models that posed for them in Rome, Axelle (Finnish actress Vera Jordanova), graciously acts as their tour guide. Actually, Axelle secretly leads them like lambs to the slaughter. Meanwhile, in a strategy straight out of NBC-TV's "Law & Order" franchise, writer & director Roth provides elaborate background information about the well-heeled slime that run the death factory. These evildoers have created what amounts to an international syndicate along the lines of a terrorist organization. Once an individual—man or woman--hooks up with this odious outfit, they are sworn to secrecy and must sport a bloodhound tattoo. If they harbor second thoughts about these sadistic shenanigans, the organization will track them down and terminate them with extreme prejudice. Two clean-cut American businessmen have already made bids on the Internet in competition with others from around the globe for the opportunity to torture Beth and Whitney, and they have to submit to the tattoo process as an indoctrination of sorts. Todd (Richard Burgi of "Cellular") and Stuart (Roger Bart of ABC-TV's "Desperate Housewives") act like big game hunters would on a safari in Africa. Todd drools over the prospect of torturing a helpless girl, while Stuart has second thoughts about this ordeal .

Whereas "Hostel" featured stereotypical, one-dimensional characters, "Hostel: Part II" boasts characters that are far more interesting, even if they are just as vulnerable. Writer & director Eli Roth leaves precious little to the imagination once the torture begins. He stages several gruesome scenes that will make even the most hardcore horror fanatic cringe and cross their knees. One ghastly scene shows a murderess in a pool using a scythe to draw blood from a bound and gagged babe suspended above her from the ceiling so that she can wallow orgastically in her victim's blood. While "Hostel" was fairly straightforward, "Hostel: Part II" offers more twists and turns that will catch most audiences off guard, especially the surprise ending. Aside from the gender shifting protagonists, "Hostel: Part II" relies for the most part on the original formula that combined elements of the classic chiller "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), the Jean Claude Van Damme thriller "Hard Target" (1993), and an Asian urban legend that Roth said he discovered on the Internet about people who could pay to torture willing victims. Roth isn't above poking fun at himself. When the mastermind of the death factory strolls into his trophy room of severed heads, a replica of Roth's head is on display. Cult European horror movie maestro Ruggero Deodato, who helmed stomach-churning cult classics such as "Jungle Holocaust" (1977) and "Cannibal Holocaust"(1980), appears briefly as an Italian cannibal dining on a sliver of flesh from a man's thigh. Unlike other summer film releases that drag on for two hours or more in length, "Hostel: Part II" clocks in at a lean, mean 93 minutes without a moment wasted from fade-in to fade-out.

Three American girls (Lauren German, Bijou Phillips, Heather Matarrazzo) on holiday in Europe are enticed to Slovakia by an Italian girl they've met on their travels, who is setting them up for their torture and deaths by the organisation set up to allow sickos to indulge in this.

Eli Roth's follow up to his disturbing and gory film of 2005 delivers much of the same in terms of extreme gore and a desire to shock, if not offend audiences. However, it does explore a concept only touched on in the first film. But first the gore.

The potentially most offensive scene involves the naked woman who lies in a tub beneath a naked, strung upside down Matarrazzo. She precedes to slash her back from side to side revelling in the blood that pours down and eventually drenches her whilst she gets off. This scene is perhaps inspired by Countess Dracula (1972), where the lead bathes in the blood of murdered virgins, as here Matarrazzo is presented as a naïve virgin. The final scene of gore involves a man's penis being sliced off in full view before being thrown to dogs which pays homage to various Italian cannibal films of the 70s and 80s (e.g. Cannibal Ferox 1980) where the mutilation of genitals was almost standard. However, what's more disturbing than the violence in Hostel 2 (like the first film), except fleshed out here much further, is the depiction of the rich, around the world, bidding on German, Phillips and Matarrazzo via the Internet for the 'privilige' to torture and kill them. This is a more grim extension of the concept explored in The Most Dangerous Game (1932), but somehow feels more realistic and possible today. That such people exist is likely (aside from whether such a thing has actually happened in the real world or not) and this is what makes it disturbing. How far and how low would some people be willing to go? Roth is going for a comment on the evils of excess and rampant capitalism gone mad. The fact that we follow two of the winning bidders (two American businessman), one all talk, the other seemingly hesitant and in two minds about what he's agreed to, brings the film a decidedly different approach than the first film. However, somehow Hostel 2 is ultimately not as good(at least for me). Perhaps it's the lack of real mystery and surprise that the first film had and that none of the three lead characters are particularly likable. Hence, we don't particularly care for them and it's almost annoying that German escapes because she's wealthy. Of course, this is a further comment that Roth wants to make about capitalism, but the point is laboured by this stage. A nice touch (as the first film did with Takashi Miike) is the cameo by Ruggero Deodato, director of Cannibal Holocaust (1980), as a cannibal. A must for fans of gore. Others will no doubt wonder why such films are allowed to exist.

This is a very cheesy, obnoxious, and predictable movie. Three American girls follow a young woman to Slovakia, but later find themselves being kidnapped and perhaps murdered.

This film lacked character development, motivation, and overall uniqueness. I had a huge problem with some of the scenes in the film. For example, the scene where the woman is bathing in blood; it could definitely had been shorter if they would have cut down the men lighting up the candles. Also, when Stuart (Roger Bart) first untied Beth (Lauren German) but then re-tied her again. It made absolutely no sense. In addition, I believe that the entire begin was okay where we thought Paxton (Jay Hernandez) was trapped and killed, that is until he woke up next to a young woman (who by the way serves absolutely no purpose to the movie) and got killed for good.

Another issue that I had with this movie was how predictable it was. The young American women were so naïve that of course we felt they had to be killed. Like, Lorna (Heather Matarazzo), didn't your mother ever tell you not to go alone with strangers? Again too pathetic. I say, don't waste your money, time, or effort to watch this film, you would truly be disappointed.

If one actually enjoys watching snuff movies, then this movie is for you. See beautiful young woman being abused and mutilated in the most horrific and perverse manner imaginable, and get your kicks by seeing murder depicted most explicit. It is unimaginable that people actually want to pay money to see movies like this. Quentin Tarrantino should be ashamed of lending his name to anti-human rubbish like this.

It can be no excuse that this Hollywood crap production is supposedly entertainment, it is simply sexist garbage, aimed at the basest instincts.. the instincts of inhuman and possibly deviant beings. Since the first "Hostel" movie featured the torture of males, the second features the abuse of females, then the third installment will possibly feature the abuse of children.

What an irresponsible piece of trash.

I am a huge horror fan...G.Romero's Dawn of the Dead is one my favorite movies of all time. I am also a huge fan of Dario Argento's films (Creepers,Demons etc...) a lot of these two directors films are very bloody and very gruesome!...Romero's films have scenes of people getting ripped apart by zombies!! Eeeccckk!..... ..But I have never turned off one of their movies. Last night I starting watching Hostel 2 ( out of boredom..Hostel 1 sucked too) and when it came to the scene where Heather M. was being hung upside down and then gutted so a naked woman could bath in her blood below...I immediately stopped watching and was totally disgusted! If this is where horror movies are headed courtesy of the Hostel and Saw films.. I have to say a big no thanks to horror movies! I had to think why this scene bothered me so much... I think it was because of the sadistic nature of it....it really was like a snuff film... it was too real... and too sick!..If you watched this movie and liked it.. you should should probably see a psychologist! and I am really not joking when I say that. " Well aren't scenes of zombies ripping a human apart just as sick..?" well yah they are..but there is not a sadistic-torture elements in the zombies scenes... in this movie it's human on human..WITH A woman getting sexual gratification from having another woman bleed on top of her! .. its sick!...and it's not entertainment... SAY NO TO SICK TORTURE AS ENTERTAINMENT!

After seeing Cabin Fever I thought Eli Roth had a talent. A talent to make a movie both incredibly disgusting, chilling and funny (it wasn't flawless, though). Unfortunately, Hostel destroyed that vision for me. Hostel was just average, not scary or funny, just average. It was probably the hype that killed Hostel for me so when I rented this I made sure to have no expectations. I thought this would be a crappy cash-in sequel like most are nowadays and have little to no redeeming value. I was very wrong...

In this second outing we start where we left off in the first one. Paxton, a nervous wreck, is having recurring nightmares about his experience in Slovakia. Ten minutes in and his fears were not in vain, as his girlfriend sees his headless body at the kitchen table, a cat perched on top licking his blood. After this I thought, maybe Eli is improved. We are then introduced to three art students: Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo). They meet Axelle (Vera Jordanova), a beautiful model, who takes them to Slovakia and back to a familiar Hostel with familiar faces. We are also introduced to Todd (Richard Burgi) and Stuart (Roger Bart), two American businessmen who bid for the girls and become members of the underground torture club. When the girls start disappearing one by one it follows the same basic path of the first Hostel.

What saves this from being a meager cash-in, though? The addition of Todd and Stuart help create some interesting scenes of how the Elite Hunters work and what type of people actually bid. This addition was very good but lacked depth to make it outstanding. The characters were not exactly original (Beth; smart one, Whitney; slut and Lorna; nerd) but the actors were good enough to make me care about them.

Also, this one actually had scenes of sickening torture that made me cringe and look away. THIS IS WHAT I WANT! When Roth promised sick stuff in the first and I didn't get it I was annoyed. But thankfully he somewhat lived up to the promise. One scene in particular was very off and quite foul but hey, if you pay to see a movie about torture, what do you expect? Overall this was a surprisingly decent movie (much better than the first) and there still may be hope that Roth produces a perfect horror movie. As much as I like this movie, it isn't GREAT or GROUNDBREAKING, just a decent horror among hordes of crap.

3½/5

I don't write reviews very often but i had to say something about this film - IT IS THE WORST FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN! The 1st Hostel was pathetic - to do a sequel that follows exactly the same plot as the original shows how poor a film-maker Eli Roth really is. The only difference between this and the first one is... wait for it... it has girls instead of boys as the lead characters! I suppose that was to up the horror factor, like seeing girls tortured is more horrifying than seeing boys tortured. Wrong, wrong, wrong. As with the first, the characters so stupid and clichéd you couldn't care less about them. There's the geeky girl who's dialogue is so poor you really just want her to die quickly, the annoying party girl and of course the 'heroine' who is not all she seems.

The 2 guys who are in on the kill are terrible, they act like 15 year olds smoking pot for the first time and were just hilarious. Their lines were weak - the F word 4 times in every sentence, one convincing the other that they 'had to do this, dude' etc. As if 40 year old businessmen calling each other 'dude' isn't bad enough, the predictability of their role reversals at the moment of truth is a howler.

Another thing that annoyed me, like the first, in the first 35 minutes absolutely NOTHING happens. Its just talking where the characters involved cross paths until finally one of them gets kidnapped, with not one bit of interesting character development.

Thats enough I can't go on. I never want to think about or see this rubbish ever again. The only people it will appeal to is 14 year old boys and/or incredibly stupid people. The sad thing is I fast-forwarded through half of it and still understood it all as most of the talking parts (which is 98% of the film with 2% horror) is completely unnecessary. This film is boring, there's hardly any horror, the acting is poor and the plot just pathetic. Avoid this film.

OK, I was a fan of the first but now I'm starting to think I was a fan of my version of the first. All movies should have things that you think about when you leave the theatre. Hostel was one of them, by no means a perfect film but a very good effort. This however is so bad that it actually ruins the first. All the stuff you had in your head goes away, you see too much of the inner workings and it just doesn't make sense. The acting is awful with the exception of the lead girl (the one who lives). The character switch at the end makes absolutely no sense,The big guy knows they'll kill him if he doesn't finish her off and whats a bullet to the head when you've sawed her face off? The whole scene on the train is cringeworthy, the set ups look bad, the crowd of Italian soccer fans are all wearing fake jerseys for instance. And the end is crap, Don't get me wrong I squirmed in my seat when she had scissors wrapped around his nuts, decent horror moment and kind of funny. But one why the hell would you be calling her names - NO MAN WOULD!!! and two why did the evil group let her chop off the other girls head. The bubblegum kids don't work, it takes 40mins to actually see the torture place again. Jay Hernandez should have been in a more central role, although I did like his death scene. The bloodbath was good - the rest sucked - I've seen Last House on the Left and a woman bite off a wee willy, I don't really need to see it again. Although I think Eli Roth does again and again and again. The whole character switch thing is rubbish, one guy bottles it AFTER he puts a saw through a girls head and ther other goes a little mental when he looks at a picture of his wife, BS! I wanted to see them pick up all sorts of different weapons from the rack in the trailer like that bit in Kill Bill. I wanted more humour and more smarts. A man's penis getting chopped off and fed to a dog was funny, sick and made everyone squirm but as for a "big payoff" it was a waste of time. Eli Roth is in fact a crappy film maker who got lucky and kudos to the guy for jumping on QT train and riding it all the way, I would too. In terms of being the horror guy of this generation - Aja, Marshall, Wan and all the other splat pack dudes are waaaayy ahead - even those who've only had one film! Another point - The MPAA should seriously be ashamed of themselves, they're a joke. Whats the point of them if they don't say - "No you can't show a man's penis being cut off and fed to a dog - just cut away". This should be a NC-17, no way a Rated R. I'm not one for censoring films. Devils Rejects, SAW franchise etc all had good points in trying to push their films by the board but this is getting ridiculous, just scrap the MPAA. They don't do anything but get talked into stupid ideas.