“No, Dad, we’re going to Prague.
It’ll be fine. It’s not the Ukraine.”
Sequels, eh? They can (often) be
rubbish, or they can be The Godfather
Part II. This one is more of a Scream
2, riffing on the tropes and themes established by the original in its
gloriously playful, postmodern way. I rather enjoyed it. As with many good
sequels, though, I may have enjoyed this more than the original but a lot of
the credit for that has to go to the original, which established things that
the sequel doesn’t have to.
It’s the same hostel in Slovakia.
It’s the same drill, no pun intended. The premise has already been established.
What’s interesting is how the film uses the fact that it doesn’t need to do so
much exposition to vary things a bit. There are two perspectives; a new set of
three American victims- this time all female- and also two paying “customers”
who have paid to do the torturing and killing. This latter perspective, in
particular, keeps things fresh and deepens the concept; Stuart and Todd are
contrasted in that one is nervous and one full of bravado, but things do not
turn out as expected. It’s interesting, however, if I can return to my point
from my review of the previous film about the depiction of Europeans, that both
victims and villains are Americans. All the European characters are pretty much
instrumental; it’s the Americans who have the agency. Interesting, too, that
Beth is the sole survivor by virtue only of being stinking filthy rich.
The first to die, Lorna, is the
virgin, a nice if predictable subversion of the horror film cliché. There’s
also more satire of the ignorance of the travellers (“Slovakia? Wasn’t there
some war there?”) and possibly a deliberate response to the criticism of
producing “torture porn” in the scene in which Lorna is slowly and sensually
tormented and bled to death by a naked woman with a sword. It’s a cleverer and
more self-aware film than its predecessor. I liked it a lot.
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