Stars: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson, Lauren German, Bijou Phillips, Heather Matarazzo, Alice Greczyn, Max Kasch, Maya Hazen, Jack Huston

Director: Paddy Breathnach

Summary: Triplebill of horror films. Includes HOSTEL, HOSTEL PART 2 and SHROOMS.

Triplebill of horror films. Includes HOSTEL, HOSTEL PART 2 and SHROOMS.
In HOSTEL, two young Americans embark upon a backpacking trip across Europe. A fellow traveller recommends a hostel in Bratislava that is full of attractive women who love Americans. However when the two men arrive at their destination, they find themselves in a terrifying situation.
In HOSTEL PART 2, American backpackers Beth, Whitney, and Lorna are travelling around Europe when they meet Axelle, a gorgeous woman who persuades them to follow her to a rejuvenating spa in Slovakia. However, the spa/hostel in question has some nasty surprises in store for the trio.
In SHROOMS, a group of American students get a lot more than they bargained for when they ingest some magic mushrooms during a trip to Ireland. Although they're under the impression that they've acquired the best hallucinogenic money can buy, it's not long before they're convinced there's something sinister lurking in the woods nearby. Is there something picking them off, one by one? Or have the mushrooms begun to have an effect on them? Either way, it's the trip from hell, and it's a long time till morning.

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Hostel
Well-made for the genre--the excessive-skin-displayed-before-gruesome-bloody-torture-begins genre--Hostel follows two randy Americans (Jay Hernandez, Friday Night Lights, and Derek Richardson, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd) and an even randier Icelander (Eythor Gudjonsson) as they trek to Slovakia, where they're told beautiful girls will have sex with anyone with an American accent. Unfortunately, the girls will also sell young Americans to a company that offers victims to anyone who will pay to torture and murder. To his credit, writer/director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever) takes his time setting things up, laying a realistic foundation that makes the inevitable spilling of much blood all the more gruesome. The sardonic joke, of course, is that Americans are worth the most in this brothel of blood because everyone else in the world wants to take revenge upon them. This dark humor and political subtext help set Hostel above its more brainless sadistic compatriots, like House of Wax or The Devil's Rejects. In general, though, there's something lacking; horror used to suggest some threat to the spirit--today's horror can conceive of nothing more troubling than torturing the flesh. For aficionados, Hostel features a nice cameo by Takashi Miike, director of bloody Japanese flicks like Audition and Ichi the Killer. --Bret Fetzer

Hostel 2
The inevitable sequel to one of the decade’s most intriguing and well-made horror films, Hostel Part II, as the title implies, picks up pretty much where the last film left off. And it doesn’t take too long for the sequel to find the same groove that earned its predecessor so much attention.

The setting is once again an underground club, where people bid for the right to torture residents at the hostel of the title. Hostel Part II, however, lets us see events from the other perspective too, as we meet the wealthy businessmen who are availing themselves of the club’s services. It’s a logical dynamic for the movie, and it does bring a fresh perspective to a film that does eventually settle down to a cavalcade of gore and shock.

As a director, Eli Roth has clearly improved since last time around, even if this time he too often succumbs to the temptation to show rather than imply, and Hostel Part II as a result feels a little less fresh and more uncomfortable than its predecessor. Yet it’s most certainly an unsettling piece of cinema, and one likely to find favour with Roth’s increasing fanbase.

A word of warning, though. Hostel Part II isn’t shy about pulling its punches, and it very much justifies its 18 certificate. It’s also a cut above many of its modern day contemporaries in the genre, even though it fails to measure up to part one. --Jon Foster

Shrooms
Heavily influenced by the influx of Japanese horror films over the past few years, Shrooms is a muddled, yet intriguing film, albeit one with an identity crisis. Is it a conventional horror, or is trying to do something a bit different? Inevitably, it’s a little bit of both.

The basic concept could be the basis of any of the avalanche of horror films that have emerged in recent times: six American students in Ireland go hunting for some magic mushrooms. But what Shrooms does is try to distance itself from being a generic slasher movie, and instead attempts to inject some uncertainty. Yet when one of the party, after taking one of the ‘shrooms’ of the title, forsees trouble ahead, you can still pretty much see what’s around the corner.

Shrooms does work hard, though, with an at-times unsettling visual style, and some well earned jumps punching it above many of its contemporaries. But it’s not without problems of its own, not least the fact that the longer the film goes on, the further it goes off the rails.

But at least it had something to start with, and Shrooms does reward your time and money by the time the end credits roll. It’s far from the finest horror-thriller of recent times, but it’s got enough of an identity to hold its own. --Jon Foster

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 H D Widescreen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region B
Subtitles:	Icelandic, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, Romanian, Slovene, Danish, Hebrew, Greek, Hindi, Czech, Norwegian, French, Hungarian, Bulgarian, English, Swedish, Arabic, Turkish, Polish
Release Date:	October 27, 2008
Runtime:	277 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	S B R P 9429
Keywords:	English, General, Part, Horror, Occult, Hostel, Shrooms
Genre:	Horror/Occult