All that material with the shifty-eyed people who give significant looks is blatant filler, and instead of actually attempting to build suspense, Roth relies on Nathan Barr's overbearing suspense score, which doesn't so much as punctuate moments as it beats them senseless. The same goes for the mysterious hunting club, whose leader Sasha (Milan Knazko) apparently isn't evil enough, what with receiving his enemies' heads in boxes, so Roth has a scene where he jams a gun in a line of children's faces and eventually shoots one of them. That'll teach the kids for helping out a sociopathic businessman. Meanwhile, Todd gets himself psyched for the big day, and Stuart looks anxious. It's a complete waste of the only potential this movie has.

Worse off are the girls, who Roth purposely writes to be more annoying than the other. The first movie had male victims, and the switch here just adds an overwhelming level of misogyny to the proceedings. Roth gives us no one with whom to sympathize, which leaves him free reign to do what he will with them. There's a reprehensible scene that combines two naked women, a scythe, and liberal amounts of blood that visually defines the concept of "torture porn," and once again, Roth tries to make jokes during these scenes. A girl is tied to a chair, and a guy approaches her with an electric saw. The cord's too short. Ha. That's nothing compared to the movie's climax where one character turns out to have some predictable psychological issues. The whole debacle ends, just like the first movie, with a turn to revenge torture (aided by the only piece of solid information about one of the characters Roth clumsily develops earlier) and a graphic emasculation (seriously, it's sick), and no, the whole idea of female empowerment through violence does not make up for the raging, hateful view towards women we've suffered through up until that point.

Just like its predecessor, Hostel: Part II is a depraved, repulsive monstrosity. It has no redeemable qualities. It's a clumsy, lazy, exhausted, and hollow piece of nihilism for nihilism's sake, and I think it's time for Roth to move on—and not just from this franchise.