411 Movies Interview: Hostel Part 2 Director Eli Roth

Posted by Tony Farinella on 06.04.2007

411's Tony Farinella sits down with Eli Roth to discuss Hostel Part 2.



TONY: What do you do as a filmmaker to make sure that people walk away from Hostel Part 2 satisfied? It seems very hard to win people over with sequels.

ROTH: Luckily, the response has been incredibly positive. It seems almost unanimous that it's better than the first one. That's been the reaction I've heard from the screenings and from going online. It's really difficult. There are a lot of bad sequels out there. There's really a stigma with sequels. I looked at all the sequels that I've loved. I loved Aliens and Road Warriors. Those are two movies that I really felt took the best parts of the first movie and built on it and made an incredible sequel. I was totally blown away after Aliens. I remember walking out of it and saying to myself: "That's better than the first one." I looked at recent horror sequels that I thought were great like Saw 2 and The Devil's Rejects. I really felt like they took the best aspects of the first movie and really improved upon it. That's what I wanted to do with Hostel Part 2. I wanted to take the best parts of the first one and use that as the foundation for the sequel. Once I mentally thought of it as Part 2, it really freed me up. It's not just the sequel to Hostel. It's really a continuation of the story. It allowed me to explore the things that I felt were the most interesting aspects of the first movie.

TONY: What went into your decision making process with the cast of Hostel Part 2?

ROTH: I think the key to getting good performances is casting the right actors. I think people were really surprised by the script. People loved the script. When the roles went out for the females, the auditions were booked up within an hour. People were fighting to get in the door. As far as the guys, we had so many great actors come in. Roger Bart and Richard Burgi were so incredible. They just won it on the spot. As soon as I saw them, I couldn't see anyone else doing it. I do not watch Desperate Housewives, but I know that they're both on the show. They've actually only met once before. They have separate storylines on the show. They knew each other's work, but they didn't know each other. They were incredible. They hit it off right away. They were such an unbelievable combo. They're so charismatic and so funny. Roger just landed a role on Broadway as Dr. Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein, which is a Mel Brooks musical. I wanted the guys to be fun. I didn't want to write psycho killers that are just going to kill people. I wanted guys that were seemingly normal guys that were obviously disturbed. Even though they were disturbed, they were fun to watch and entertaining. Yes, they're sick, but they're really enjoyable. You like them despite what they're going to do. If I could get sympathy from the audience and really get everyone to feel for these characters and feel for the girls, it would make for just an incredible third act. It would be amazing when everyone meets at this place.

TONY: I've been reading your blog on MTV, and you have mentioned your positive working relationship with the MPAA. What do you think has changed with the MPAA in regards to horror films?

ROTH: While these films weren't being made 5 or 10 years ago, they were being made 30 years ago. You had films like Last House on The Left, which was extremely violent. They played on the drive-in circuit for the most part. They were much more under the radar. Now, I think the MPAA really understands what the horror audiences are there for. Yes, they have a responsibility to parents. I worked very closely with them to determine the final edit of the film. They know that when people are paying to see Hostel Part 2, it's not Happy Feet 2. People who are going to see Hostel Part 2 are going specifically for more of what they loved about Hostel. Hostel pushed the envelope of R rated films farther than any mainstream R rated film had at that point. That's what a segment of the audience is going back for more of. You have to satisfy that. If you don't, people are going to feel ripped off. They get it. They said: "Okay, we understand what your fans want. We know it's being sold under your name and Quentin's name, but here's the areas where we feel like it's going a little too far. These are the areas that we're concerned about." We discussed it and talked about it. Ultimately, we came to a film that I'm really, really happy with. It really does push the envelope farther. I don't care what special effects you have or what movie stars you have, I don't think any movie this summer is going to compete with the ending of Hostel Part 2. I think it's going to bring the house down. I think it will be that movie moment of the summer that everyone is talking about.



TONY: Is it hard to write dialogue for women?

ROTH: When I'm writing the dialogue, I approach it from a different place. You're writing characters in a story. I've written female characters before. Natalya was a very complex character. She's very evil and seductive. People kind of went after me for that. It was just the nature of what that character needed to be. That was the sexuality of the character. Sex was very much a part of the first Hostel. It was the exploitation. The guys take advantage of the hookers, and they become the hookers that they're making fun of in the window. We didn't need to do that now. I always base them on people I know. I always felt that I could write great female roles. I was really learning how to write on Cabin Fever and honing it on Hostel. I really feel like Hostel Part 2 has the best characters I've written to date.

TONY: Hostel 2 features some intense, emotional, and hardcore torture scenes. As a director, how do you approach these scenes and put the cast members at ease?

ROTH: That's a good question. The actors are doing the movie for these scenes. There's no question. Heather Matarazzo flew herself from New York to L.A. to do the scene. She was like: "I want to do this scene. I have to do this." She's naked and upside down. She's also hanging by her ankles with these chains. She was like: "No, no, I have to do this scene." We always film it at the end of the shoot. By that time, everyone is warmed up and feels comfortable with each other. The key is letting your actors feel safe. They have to feel safe physically and emotionally. They have to trust you. Once they trust you, they can really go to that place of darkness. You have to let them know that you're there to hold their hand and help guide them through it. If you have great actors, you really don't need to push them. You just say things like: "I know it can be more. I know you can go darker. I know you can dig deeper. I know you got it in you." And really instill them with a sense of confidence that you have in them. You've also got to let them feel that the crew is with them as well. If they want to get that place of being emotional and crying, you don't want them looking at the crew and going: "Sorry, guys, I know you're waiting." Everyone on the set is like: "Hey, we're here for you." The camera guy, the sound guy, the lighting, and everyone is like: "We're here for you. We're a team. We're all working together. What can we do to help you get there?" Everyone is extremely patient. The actors feel so comfortable with them. We let them know that we are there for them. After six weeks of shooting, you really feel that bond and you feel that trust. When an actor feels safe, they can go to a place that dark. Their pain is real. They're not in physical pain, but that emotional pain is there. They are drudging up horrible, horrible things that they've probably never told anyone about. It's right there on their faces. You can feel it in the room. We usually give them a lot of space and let them take their own action. We'll just roll the camera when they start. Letting them feel safe is the key.

TONY: I talked to Darren Lynn Bousman a couple of months ago, and he told me that he's on Rotten Tomatoes every day seeing what his film is getting rated. As a filmmaker, how much stock do you take in what the critics say?

ROTH: The truth of the matter is that I make films for my fans. When Hostel came out, it got all kinds of diverse reactions. The New York Times said it was misogynistic and homophobic. Art Forum magazine, which is a very high-brow magazine, called it the smartest comment on American imperialism they'd seen in any movie. Le Monde, which is the top newspaper in France, picked it as the best American film of the year. Not just horror film, but the best American film. There were only three American films on their top ten list. We were up there with The New World and The Departed. Hostel was number one on their list. They saw it as an incredible comment on capitalism gone too far. It showed the way people exploit each other and the sick things people do to each other for their own pleasure. It was nice. It's wonderful when people recognize that. I think people get that when they're watching the DVD for the second time. I know that people watch my films over and over again. I like to give them a rich-textured film with a lot to think about. I think the first time people watch it, they focus on the gore and the scares. Then they watch it again and really think about the deeper themes and the intelligence and the thought and the politics behind it. Truthfully, I'm making movies for audiences. It was so satisfying to finally watch the movie with an audience for the first time. The ending really brought the house down. People were cheering, screaming, and going crazy. They're walking out of the theater exhilarated. First and foremost, my job is to entertain.



TONY: I'm sure you're very familiar with the term "torture porn," which seems to be very popular now. How did this term first start, and why do you think so many horror films get branded with that name?

ROTH: I think it was started by David Edelstein, who writes for New York Magazine. He felt that people were getting off on the violence in movies. He immediately put the film in a sub-genre of pornographic. A lot of critics when they watch these films, they just react to the violence. The violence becomes the lighting rod, and they don't see anything else beyond it. I think that the term "torture porn" says more about the critic than it does about the movie. I think it speaks volumes about a critics' limited capacity to understand what a horror movie can be. It shows how narrow-minded they are and what kind of eyes they watch the movie through. Someone told me in Chicago last night that they sat next to Richard Roeper during the screening of Cabin Fever, and he was jumping, screaming, squealing, and going crazy during the whole movie. He then trashed it in his review. I think that's just how it is with a lot of these critics. They almost feel guilty giving it a positive review. I think the term is absurd. I also feel like a lot of movies that come out are just violence for the sake of violence. I think it's too bad when you get lumped in with them. I get letters through my myspace page from soldiers in Iraq. They've told me that Hostel is one of the most popular movies in the military base. I asked the solider: "Why would you ever watch a movie like Hostel after what you see during the day?" He said that he went out there in the field one day with his buddy, and his buddy saw someone with his face blown off. He didn't react. Following this, they watched Hostel that night. The guy was screaming and squealing in a room full of 400 people who were screaming, and they couldn't look at the screen. I said to him: "How is it you can see the real violence, but not take the movie violence?" What I realized is that when these guys are in the battle field, they can't respond emotionally to violence. They have to respond to it tactically. They're not allowed to show fear because they're soldiers. They put on this brave face. But seeing these images, it's there. It's somewhere in your body and needs to get let out. When they watch Hostel, it gives them permission to be scared. For the next 90 minutes, you are not only allowed to be scared, you're encouraged to be scared. It's OK. It doesn't mean you're a coward. You can blame it on the movie. You can say: "Oh, I was scared by the movie." It doesn't mean you're afraid. You can let these feelings out. That's what any effective art form does. It helps to unlock emotions from the traps inside. It's the same with any song or book that really stirs up strong feelings in you. That's what I think is happening with this phenomenon of these new violent films that have come out. You have a whole generation of kids who were 12-years-old when September 11th happened, and they've been told for the past five years that you're going to get blown up, terrorists are going to kill you, don't travel, and the war in Iraq isn't ending. All these seventeen-year-old kids are thinking: "Fuck, am I going to get drafted? Are they going to reinstate the draft? Am I going to go over there and get killed too?" It's a scary time for these teenagers. They're seeing it, and they're screaming. I don't see it as people getting off on violence. I see the films as unlocking a lot of fear and real feelings of terror that people in this country have right now.

TONY: Why do you think the opinion on you is either love or hate? It seems like you have a lot of haters out there.

ROTH: I think that the Internet is the outlet for people who hate me. Generally, if people like me or love my films, they don't go post about it on message boards. That being said, the people who hate me will go and post on a message board. If you look at the numbers of what the DVDs have done, I think that the numbers speak for themselves. I get messages from thousands of fans through myspace and from conventions every day. They have told me that my commentaries and my films have inspired them to go out and make their own movie. I think even the people that hated me on both films, they still like the Thanksgiving trailer. I think that there's a lot of jealousy out there. You can't worry about that. I'm not making movies for everyone. Horror fans can be very bitter. They can be like comic book fans. They want their horror a certain way. With Cabin Fever, I tried to do something different. I was mixing tones. With Hostel, it's a total shift in mood. It starts out funny and then switches on a dime. Whenever you're the center of attention, you're going to get people that naturally want to hate on you. You can't worry about that. I'm not making movies to please everybody. I'm making movies that I think will hold up 30 years from now and that horror fans will love. What I've done, few other filmmakers have been able to do on a very, very low budget. The average Hollywood budget is 80 million dollars. 80 million dollars! I made Cabin Fever for 1.5 million dollars. I made Hostel for 3.8 million dollars. I did not make Hostel Part 2 for a lot more than that. Even a low-budget film in Hollywood is 20 million dollars. If you combine all three of my movies, it's still considerably less than that. That's less than one major star's movie salary. I'm so happy and fortunate to be in the position that I'm in, that it doesn't matter what those people think. Who cares what they think?

TONY: How do you think your film will do in the summer against all these sequels?

ROTH: When you come out in the winter, it's different timing. You want to play for three or four weeks and the weekends are a big deal. During the summer time, every day is a Saturday. It's very cut throat out there right now, which is why we need everyone's help to rally the troops and get out there on opening night to see it. That being said, I know that nobody else will have what this movie has. I don't care how many movie stars you have or if you have a hundred-million dollar advertising campaign, there's no other movie this summer that will have the ending of Hostel Part 2. I think that people will come out of that going: "That is the most fucked-up ending I've ever seen in a horror movie. It was awesome and so much fun." I think the word of mouth on the movie will help. Oceans 13 is going to out spend you, and you can't compete with their advertising dollars. Nevertheless, I don't think that they can compete with my ending.