Hostel was garbage. Hostel: Part II is that same garbage moved over about a foot on the ground. Not only is the sequel more despicable than the original, it also teems with laziness. Writer/director Eli Roth is still in need of major psychological help, but he could use a motivational speaking session or career self-help book to boot. Every element of the original is here, and even though this is only the first sequel, the formula is so transparent, so tired, it takes about fifty minutes into the movie to actually start hating it instead of just being completely bored by it. There's more of the same blood and gore and people getting off on torture and murder and troubling attempts at comedy within those moments, yet it's shocking how tedious the whole thing is as well. We know every step this movie is going to take soon after its prologue, and it's painfully obvious how shallow Roth's plotting is. Tonally, the movie is all about setting up some nonexistent mood with cryptic characters and heavy foreshadowing, but it's already a foregone conclusion what will happen and who it will happen to. The only question that remains is how sickening the whole thing will play out.

The movie starts where the first one ended, with Paxton (Jay Hernandez), our victim/hero from the original, being interrogated about the events in a rundown factory and getting eviscerated. Don't worry, though, it's all a dream, but the next morning, well, that's a different story. That's when we catch up with our new inevitable victims, three college girls named Beth, Lorna, and Whitney (Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo, and Bijou Phillips) who are in Rome studying art and getting ready to leave for Prague. It's interesting that Roth shows a male nude model but cuts right before the female model Axelle (Vera Jordanova) disrobes; it's almost as if he's playing with expectations. Don't expect that to go beyond this scene, though. On the train to Prague, Axelle suggests the girls go to Slovakia to take in the natural hot springs. They agree, and upon arrival, take up boarding in—you guessed it—a local hostel, complete with a creepy clerk. Meanwhile, the girls are being bid on by the homicidal club of the original, and some dude named Todd (Richard Burgi) wins the bidding and gives one of them to his buddy Stuart (Roger Bart) as a birthday present.

The concept of examining the people who want to torture and kill anonymous people is intriguing and just the kind of relevant material that would make this more than an exploitative vomitorium. The problem is, this is Eli Roth, and he doesn't care. Instead, the movie has the girls meeting lots of sinister people who give knowing looks, narrowly avoiding getting caught by them, and eventually being captured.