THIS MODERN NIGHTMARE

HOSTEL PART 2

I’d actually been looking forward to HOSTEL PART 2 for awhile, but life being what it is, I didn’t get to see it until a week after it was released. Which means I had to listen to a lot of other people’s opinions before I saw it. The Boston Globe’s Wesley Morris gave it one star and called it “despicable” (which is why people who don’t like horror movies shouldn’t review them), while the New York Post gave it three stars. I did my best to avoid spoilers – I wanted to see this movie as untainted as possible – but it seems that most of the comments I read were negative, especially on the internet.

I liked the first HOSTEL a lot, and I was really looking forward to the sequel. I shouldn’t have doubted Eli Roth. HOSTEL PART 2 is a really good horror movie.

It begins right where the first one left off. Paxton (Jay Hernandez) the sole survivor from the first movie, is found bleeding and unconscious on a train after his escape from the warehouse where people pay to torture and kill other people, and is brought to a hospital in Italy. He is questioned by authorities about his experience, and then finds out that the people behind the the killing society are much more connected than he thought, as the Italian official who has been questioning him through an interpreter turns out to be another member of the the club - and guts him alive. But it’s just a dream! And Paxton wakes up screaming. Usually I hate that “it’s just a dream” business, and while I think Roth should have made that first scene a reality instead, there’s a payoff soon afterwards when Paxton’s girlfriend finds his real headless body sitting at the breakfast table.

With the loose end of Part 1 tied up, we then begin Part 2 in earnest as three new American travelers, this time three girls. While they are noticable “types” they also seem a bit more fleshed out than the usual horror movie fodder. There’s smart rich girl Beth (Lauren German, who is terrific here), the sexy Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and nerdy outsider Lorna (Heather Matarazzo, who you may remember as “Weiner Dog” from the great movie WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE). At an art class in Rome (taught by the great Edwige Fenech who was a staple in mostly Italian grindhouse flicks in the '70s, including ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK and Mario Bava’s FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON – both from 1970), the girls meet up with a mysterious model, Axelle (Vera Jordonova) who takes a special liking to Beth and convinces the girls to take a detour on their European vacation for a stop in Slovakia to enjoy a spa with hot springs. She even knows a place where they can stay while they’re there. A certain hostel…

Once the girls get there, their passports are used by the creepy manager of the hostel to get their faces and names out on the internet – where people immediately start bidding on them! Beth in particular gets a lot of bidding action going. The winner is an American businessman, Todd (Richard Burgi, who played Terri Hatcher’s ex-husband on the TV show Desperate Housewives), who is pretty enthusiastic about losing his cherry and killing someone. He even brings his pal Stuart (Roger Bart, another Desperate Housewives alum, who played the creepy pharmacist George who stalked/dated Marcia Cross’s character for awhile) along, to join in the fun.

As the girls enjoy the spa and local events (a harvest festival with drinking and dancing), their potential killers check them out, and Stuart even goes so far as to have a conversation with Beth, which is probably a bad idea, because Stuart seems to be having second thoughts about all this, and direct human contact makes him sympathize with Beth all the more.

Nerdy Lorna is the first to be brought to the killing factory, after she is tricked into thinking a local guy actually likes her (which is pretty sad, Matarazzo is great at playing ugly ducklings that we actually feel for), and ends up chained upside down, hanging over a bath tub, as a rich Elizabeth Bathory wannbe uses a scythe to bathe in her blood (in a scene that doesn’t skimp on the gore).

For what happens to the rest of the girls, and whether Todd and Stuart go through with their killing vacation, you’ll have to find out for yourself, because the as the movie approaches its ending, there are lots of fun twists and turns and I’m not going to spoil them here. I’ll just say that nothing ends up as you expect it to. Which is why HOSTEL PART 2 is so damn enjoyable.

The girls this time around are a interesting characters, especially Lauren German, who is infinitely resourceful when the situation demands it. And we get much more insight into the kinds of people who would pay to torture and kill their fellow humans. It’s actually an elite society (called a hunting club), where members not only bid on potential victims, but who have to follow a set of (very strictly enforced) rules, including gettting a tattoo of a bloodhound (I’d love to get one of these as an inside joke, but they’re never shown all that clearly in the film), and signing a contract that states that they must kill their victims if they want to leave the factory alive themselves.

Richard Burgi and Roger Bart are a lot of fun in the movie. They’re both recognizable enough from various television roles to be familiar (which draws you into their story quickly), yet not famous enough to ruin the illusion that they are their characters, which is perfect for a movie like this. They also provide some comic relief in the film, which has a very strong “gallows humor” feel to it throughout (including a scene where the “Bubblegum Kids” – evil street urchins who were also in the first HOSTEL – play soccer with a human head). I know I was laughing out loud several times while watching HOSTEL 2 and thought it was as much a dark comedy as it was a horror movie.

I also love the cameos Roth has been having in his HOSTEL films. In the first one, Takashi Miike (the director of one of my favorite films, AUDITION), had a cameo as one of the "customers." This time around, we get Edwige Fenech (mentioned earlier) and Italian director Ruggero Deodato as a customer who is also a cannibal (an inside joke, since his most famous film was the notorious CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST), slicing pieces of meat off his screaming victim for a special dinner.

HOSTEL PART 2 is one of the rare sequels which is just as good if not better than the original, and Eli Roth is growing as a filmmaker with each movie he’s done. I thought his first film, CABIN FEVER, was interesting, but flawed. The first HOSTEL was a big improvement, and he’s only growing more with HOSTEL PART 2, and I’m really enjoying watching his growth as a genre filmmaker.

Is it scary? Not necessarily, but then again I’m a jaded old horror writer who comes up with ideas like this, so I’m probably not the right person to ask. But between the strong story, the great acting/characters, the gore (there's some nudity as well, making this a real "R"-rated horror movie, which is a joy by itself these days), and the (very dark) sense of humor throughout, I found HOSTEL PART 2 to be very enjoyable and satisfying as someone who loves horror movies that are done well. Don’t listen to the grumblings and the bullshit. For some reason, the HOSTEL films get a bad rap, and there's no reason for it. It's a clever concept, and Eli Roth delivers the goods.

I loved HOSTEL PART 2. It's a solid little horror flick, and worth checking out.

ENDINGS - SOPRANOS

Tony Soprano sits at a table in a diner. One by one, his family members arrive to eat dinner with him. First, his wife Carmella. Then his son AJ. His daughter Meadow takes about a half an hour to parallel park. Meanwhile, some suspicious looking characters enter. One sits at the counter, looking over at them. Two guys come in the front door. The guy at the counter passes their table and goes to the men's room. There's a godawful Journey song playing on the jukebox ("Don't Stop Believing" - does this have significance?). Meadow finally comes in...and that's it. The screen goes black. I thought the digitial cable was fucking with me again (it happens more than it should, even though digital is supposed to be an improvement). But I digress.

There's some implied menace with the suspicious characters, and some suspense. But are they truly threats? Is this the last supper for the Sopranos? We'll never know. Because that is how THE SOPRANOS ends. On a very ambiguous note. True to show creator David Chase's vision. Because no matter how big the show got, Chase consistently refused to give the fans what they wanted, and instead decided to do things his own way.

So all the speculation about the big finale - does Tony die, or does he get arrested; maybe he gets put into witness protection? If any of this does happen, we won't be seeing it. And there were a lot of frustrated viewers by the end of the final hour.

I had mixed feelings about the finale myself. Like most people, I wanted a big dramatic finish. But I can appreciate Chase's sticking to his guns and doing it his way. I don't think the lack of a dramatic/tragic ending hurt the show. It was still one of the best television shows of all time, with characters who were multi-dimensional and real. No matter what else you say about THE SOPRANOS, you can't take away the strong characterizations, and the fine acting, which put this show in a class by itself.

And I love the fact that Tony was never really redeemed. He kept teetering between redemption and total evil. And he never took the plunge into redemption. And I love that. Because if it had been on a network, it would have ended with Tony being redeemed and everything would have been sweetness and light. And I'm so glad David Chase didn't go that route.

The last episode was choppy. Made up mostly of a bunch of short scenes, jumping from one to another, day to night, keeping things moving at a rapid pace. A lot happened in that final hour, but most of it was pretty mundane. The only real dramatic moment was the death of Phil Leotardo, Tony's enemy and boss of the New York mob. Phil died in true Sopranos fashion. He got shot in the head, dropped to the ground, and, to add insult to injury, got his head squashed when his daughter's SUV kept going after she'd accidentally locked her keys in the car. Bye bye, Phil!

Phil's death bought Tony time, but we'll never know how long. It sure seemed like something sinister was going to happen in that diner. Shit, I always take a Journey song to be a bad omen. The only thing worse is REO Speedwagon.

I still love the show. And I still think David Chase is a genius. And I also think he's a cruel muthafucker who was probably cackling as he filmed that last scene, knowing everyone would be swearing at their TV sets when it aired.

We'll miss you, Tony.

***
There have been a lot of endings lately. THE SHIELD ended another stellar season last week. Vic Mackey found out that his right hand man Shane was the guy who killed their friend Lem, and it was a pretty painful revelation. Forest Whitaker, who was so excellent last season as Internal Affairs cop Lt. Jon Kavanaugh, was taken out of the picture way too soon this season. And Vic's job is on the line - they even hired a replacement for when he gets forced to take early retirement - except that guy didn't quite work out. On top of that, Shane pretty much declared war on Vic and got in good with the Armenian mob (who Vic, Shane and the guys had ripped off in a previous season - so this is pretty dangerous shit). The season ended with Vic getting the goods on Aceveda (there's a certain photo of him being forced to give head that slipped into Vic's hands) and the two of them teaming up against the even more crooked politican Cruz Pezuela. And if none of this makes sense to you, then you haven't been watching the show, and don't know how damn good it is. However, this season seemed to end of the middle of things, and left a lot of loose ends for next season, which is rumored to be the last.

Which just goes to show that THE SHIELD's seasons are much too short.

LOST got good again after a weak start this season. The last handful of episodes were amazing, as we learned a lot more about the Others, how John Locke is becoming some weird messiah figure, and now it looks like the castways might just get rescued. Or is an even worse danger coming? We have to wait until next season to find out, but we do know at least Jack and Kate make it off the island, since we got - not a flashback - but a flash-forward in the season finale.

VERONICA MARS got canceled. It had its flaws, but it's hard to hate a show that had a theme song by the Dandy Warhols and which starred Kristen Bell (man is she hot!). I can't wait to see what she does next, and I really hope it's not a string of bad PG-13 horror movies like Pulse.

***

And then there are new beginnings. After the final episode of THE SOPRANOS, HBO gave us the first episode of JOHN FROM CINCINATTI, the new show by David Milch who previously gave us NYPD BLUE (a show I watched from day one til the end) and DEADWOOD (maybe my favorite HBO show of all time). Considering Milch was involved, I wanted to like this show. But the jury is still out on this one.

JOHN FROM CINCINNATI takes us inside a surfing family in California. Papa Yost is the surfing legend who got a knee injury and dropped out of the sport. His son Butchie is the next generation prodigy who also became a surfing star, but who gave it up for drugs. And then there's Shawn, the 13-year old son of Butchie, who shows he has the talent to be the family's next star. Throw in Ed O'Neil as an ex-cop who seems be going senile named Bill, and various other quirky characters, and top it off with a blank slate named John who appears to be some kind of magic moron who spouts cryptic phrases when he's not repeating what everyone around him says, and who I can't tell is either 1) an alien, 2) an innocent/Jesus type figure or 3) some kind of retarded guy who can work magic. John comes into their lives and turns everything upside-down. But the big problem is, John is annoying as hell!

I can just imagine all of the people who sat through THE SOPRANOS finale, and were pissed off, and then sat through JOHN and said "Fuck you, HBO" and canceled their subscriptions. LOL.

Because JOHN is awful hard to love. The characters are interesting for the most part, and I'll give the show a chance, but man is that John an irritating fuck. And I want so badly to trust David Milch and I hope he doesn't fuck me over this time.

But how about Rebecca DeMornay playing a grandma? What's that about? I can still remember her as the hot call girl in RISKY BUSINESS, and I've had a thing for her ever since. And she's still plenty hot. Does that make her character a GILF?

I'll give JOHN FROM CINCINNATI a fair trial, but man is this going to be a tough haul. When a show starts out this weird and convoluted, you have to wonder is there a purpose to it all, or is it just weird for weird's sake?

I just hope this show doesn't make me miss THE SOPRANOS even more.

****

Oh, and on an unrelated note, Mike Patton has a new band called PEEPING TOM. They just came out with a self-titled new album. I saw them do a song called "Mojo" on The Henry Rollins Show (a great talk show on IFC, featuring the former singer from Black Flag, if you didn't know), and I'm hooked. I rushed out and got the album, and it's all I've been listening to for the past week.

Patton's the singer who used to be with FAITH NO MORE and then when they broke up he started a bunch of bands including TOMAHAWK (who I dig a lot), Mr. Bungle and Fantomas. And Peeping Tom might just be one of the best things he's done so far. Kind of a cross between punk and R&B, with some rap thrown in on a few songs, but even that description doesn't do it justice. If it sounds like your thing, then check it out. Because it's got me hooked right now.

***

Until next time.

Infernally Yours,

~LLS

A BUNCH OF QUICK MOVIE REVIEWS

Here are some quick reviews of some movies I've seen lately:

LEATHERFACE:TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III (1990)
I'd wanted to see this one for awhile, since it has a script by the talented horror writer David J. Schow. But it really doesn't add much to the franchise. This time around, a girl and her boyfriend (soon to be ex?) are driving through Texas and take the wrong road after fleeing a nutball gas station attendant at the "Last Chance" gas station - who acts an awful lot like Chop Top from the previous installments. When they get forced off the road, the couple becomes prey for good old Leatherface (this time played by R.A. Mihailoff – where Gunnar Hansen?). The only difference this time is that the victims fight back, and include Ken Foree (from Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD) as a survivalist. Leatherface has a new Sawyer family this time around, too, including a mother who uses a voice machine to talk, a little girl (is she Leatherface's sister or daughter?), and two "brothers" including a pre-LORD OF THE RINGS Viggo Mortensen. Mortensen and Foree shine here and bring the proceedings to a higher level than would have been achieved otherwise. There's even a cameo by an even more decrepit-looking Grandpa (!), but not much to distinguish it otherwise. It's still better than the remakes, though, and the completely dismal "Texas Chainsaw: The Next Generation" which made the remakes look like masterpieces.

GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL (KYUKETSUKI GOKEMIDORO)
A Japanese sci-fi classic from 1968, directed by Hajime Sato, this one involves the crash of an Air Japan plane on a mysterious island. Beforehand, the pilots are told to make an emergency landing because of possible bomb, but before they can, an evil spy hijacks the plane and demands they reroute. Of course, nobody gets their way because the plane flies into weird orange clouds that cause a crash landing. Once there, a weird flying saucer transforms the hijacker into a zombie by opening up his head and having one of the aliens jump inside him (it looks like slime). The guy then becomes a blood-drinking space vampire and knocks the survivors off one by one. In the meantime, the passengers are all fighting among themselves - including a pilot, a stewardess, a ruthless politician, an arms dealer and his wife, a scientist, a psychologist and an American woman who was going to claim her dead husband in Vietnam. Between the infighting and the vampire nobody is safe, and we watch their numbers dwindle. Featuring a big downer ending that makes the whole thing much more poignant than it would have been otherwise. A decent and very interesting film from a time period where most Japanese imports featured giant rubber monsters.

THE HALFWAY HOUSE (2004)
Girls at a local halfway house, Mary Magdalene Halfway House for Troubled Girls, have been disappearing, but the cops haven't been doing much about it. Until Larissa Morgan (Janet Tracy Keijser)'s sister ends up missing. Larissa works with cop Dick Sheen (Shawn Savage) to infiltrate the house and find out what's going on. It doesn't matter than Larissa looks about 30 and everyone else in the house is supposed to be teenagers! Featuring a priest who loves to use his paddle, the great Mary Woronov as an evil priestess, a drooling handyman who is also her assistant, and a Lovecraftian monster in the basement. This movie is in the spirit of the '80s scream queen flicks that featured equal doses of humor and horror, even though this one was made in 2004. While this kind of movie seems to be getting a bit tired, director Kenneth J. Hall does a decent enough job of keeping you interested, and the Lovecraftian elements are fun, even if they are kind of goofy. Kind of variation on the old "women in prison" genre, since it's a house run by a priest and a nun, and the all-girl "residents" aren't allowed to leave. Woronov is especially good, as always, even if she does play a pretty silly character.

LORD OF WAR (2005)
Lately, it seems like I hate every movie that Nicholas Cage is in. But it wasn't always that way. Back when he made films like LEAVING LAS VEGAS and David Lynch's WILD AT HEART, I thought Cage was pretty cool. He's just made a lot of stupid choices since then. Too many bad movies, to the point where you automatically start thinking a movie's bad if he's in it. Well, Lord of War is actually an exception. This time around, Cage plays Yuri Orlov, an illegal arms dealer who starts out small (providing handguns) and then moves his way up to the status of international businessman, supplying third world countries with armies-worth of weapons. An insider's look into the world of arms dealers, LORD OF WAR is that rare thing these days – a good Nicholas Cage movie. He really clicks with the role here and his smug, tongue-in-cheek attitude to the proceedings actually works, where in many other movies it's just plain annoying. With a good supporting cast including Jared Leto as his brother Vitaly, Bridget Moynahan as the model he goes to great lengths to impress and eventually marry, and Eamonn Walker (Sayid from the HBO prison drama OZ) as a ruthless African warlord he does business with.

THE BLIND BEAST (MOJU) (1969)
This one was a big surprise for me. I'd heard about it for a long time, but hadn't seen it until it recently aired on cable. THE BLIND BEAST is another '60s genre film from Japan, but instead of dealing with aliens here, we're dealing with much more human "beasts." Based on a story by Rampo Edogawa (considered the Japanese Edgar Allen Poe), the film begins with a blind man feeling the sculpture a famous artist has made of Aki (Mako Midori), a popular model. She is horrified as she watches him careess every inch of the statue that she modeled for, and she feels as if he were putting his hands on her as well, and she runs away. Later, a masseuse turns out to be this same blind man, Michio (Eiji Funakoshi), who kidnaps Aki with the help of his mother (Noriko Sengoku).

Aki awakens to find herself in a strange warehouse full of bizarre sculptures of various body parts – at first a wall of eyes, then ears, and eventually breasts and limbs. The blind man reveals that he is the sculptor of these pieces, and that she will help him to create a new kind of art, meant for the senses other than sight. At first, she resists, making attempts to escape, and eventually using sex to turn the son against his mother. But then something happens and Aki finally succumbs to Michio's desires.

The ending of this movie is as bizarre and strangely poetic as it is violent. I have to admit, I was very impressed with the direction by Yasuzo Masumura. The majority of Japanese horror and science-fiction films of this time period that I have seen do not even come close to MOJU's atmosphere and power. And by the end, it is as much an art film as a horror movie.

If you haven't seen this one yet, I highly recommend it.

BLIND BEAST VS. KILLER DWARF (MOJU TAI ISSUNBOSHI) (2001)
This was the last film by Teruo Ishii, whose long career included HORROR OF A DEFORMED MAN (1969) and perhaps his most well-known film FEMALE YAKUZA TALE (1973). This last movie was filmed on digital video (which, while very crisp and clear still forsakes the aesthetic beauty of celluloid for me) and adapts two stories, once again by Rampo Edogawa, which are intertwined here. The first is a new adaptation of THE BLIND BEAST, and the story is pretty much the same. Once again an actress sees a blind man caressing a statue that she modeled for in a museum after hours, but this time the man is also running his tongue along the statue to taste it. Later, in his profession as a masseuse, he kidnaps the actress and brings her to his warehouse hideaway, which is full of sculptures of various body parts. It is here that the similarities end, however. Having seen the original BLIND BEAST first, this film pales in comparison. The BLIND BEAST storyline in this film has no real substance or depth, and the man acts alone, without his mother, which removes a major conflict in the story. There is no talk of his desire to create a new kind of art. He simply kidnaps her so he can torture and kill her, and later encase her in plaster as a living statue. And, it appears, she is not his only victim. While the "beast" here is quite creepy (and rather homely) as played by Hisayoshi Hirayama, Rampo's story is not done justice.

The second story (based on Rampo's THE DWARF) is about a dwarf (who at times walks on fake limbs created by his artist brother) who blackmails the wife of a rich man into sleeping with him. The connecting thread involves a writer, clearly patterned after Rampo Edogawa, who investigates both incidents with the help of his friend, a famous detective.

Despite the title, the Blind Beast and the Killer Dwarf do not meet or engage in battle. But it is explained, rather badly, at one point that they increased the number of their victims in a kind of competition with each other (although until that point, we see no proof of this).

While it has its rare moments of true creepiness, this BLIND BEAST VS. KILLER DWARF is far inferior to Yasuzo Masumura's original film, and the look of the video itself adds a shoddiness to the proceedings, as if it were made for television instead of a true theatrical film. I think I would have been disappointed with this one anyway (considering Ishii's long career, I expected something much more accomplished as his swan song), but I found myself much more disappointed when you compare this to Masumura's powerful earlier film.

BONAFIDE HILLBILLY

Here's a weird one. Go on Google.com and choose "Images." Then do a search for "hillbilly." Of all the millions of people in this world, I pop up on the first page as an example of what a "hillbilly" is. Imagine that! Who woulda knowed it. LOL

This is how I looked when a bunch of us were in a jug band called The Sleepy Hollow Boys for a talent show one summer. Who knew I'd get immortalized on Google?

Bye now. Gotta get me some moonshine!