4. Hostel: Part II (2007)
Im already a firm defender of Eli Roths original Hostel film, and while the second one isnt quite on par with the original, its still a very smart, even funny twist on the first film. Hostel Part II winks at critics of the first film (and the torture porn subgenre as a whole), who felt that Roth was using extreme violence for nothing more than arousing and pleasing his audience. In this second film, Roth essentially gives those critics the finger by intentionally throwing in a kill scene that ties bloody death and sexual arousal together in such an over the top fashion that it can only be read as a satire of their criticisms. In fact, as a whole Hostel Part II holds back much more than its predecessor, often throwing in clever cut aways or diversions from the most graphic scenes, which again seems to show Roth winking at his audience and telling them that its not really all about the violence. There's more going on here. By switching the gender of the main characters in the second installment (in the first film the main characters male, here they are female), Roth also gets to comment on the end of the film girl archetype in American horror. Without giving too much away, Roth toys with our expectations of what to expect of certain types of characters in horror films, showing us that innocence and purity arent the guarantees of survival that they may have been in horror films past. A brutal but creative and sneakily smart film, though of course, not for the weak of stomach.