Desire Avenue

Anyone else seen Hostel Part 2?

I really had big issues with a certain scene in this film where a girl is sadistically murdered, in my opinion it went absolutely too far. A few other people I know also had the same reservations and this scene in question got the film completely banned in New Zealand.

I do enjoy watching horror films, though I like them to bring thought, intelligence and something original. However Hostel 2 is one of a few films lately that I am starting to think are going too far. Captivity was another film I found exploitive, gratuitous and pointless.

What concerns me is how much further these films can go, from what I saw in Hostel Part 2, it looks like sickening territory beckons.

I watched Hostel 1 because Tarantino produced it. And I really think this was a sick movie, very disgusting and weak. It reaches the porn movie level and it's hard to concive people can really enjoy it.

It seems that in a sequel or remake nowadays there has to be more gore to sell it. Saw was a very original horror movie, but the succesors were more about showcasing more cruel ways to hurt people. The Hills have Eyes was also an example in which it was reaching critical levels. I've become more a fan of scary movies like the Ring, where it's more the suggestion of fear than showing bloody scenes.

I think the concept of decreasing sensitivity to violence the more one is exposed to it is fairly well understood by this point, and it's hard not to draw a connection between it and the ever-increasing appetite for gratuituous, sadistic violence as 'entertainment' in those who are into that kind of thing. Too far is never enough, for some people, and as long as the culture of finding entertainment in extreme violence can't even be questioned without those who are concerned about it being cast as kill-joys or uptight conservatives, it will go on and on.

And people wonder why we have a generation of kids now who find it funny to film beatings on their mobile phones and post the footage on youtube for the entertainment of others.