Now Doesn't That Make You Feel Better?

[I know I'm pretty late calling attention to the cartoon skeleton art of Hyungkoo Lee, but what do yaz want from me here?]
I've got mixed feelings about the box office disappointment of HOSTEL: PART 2. On a personal level, the studio exec I've been working with has specifically advised me to steer clear of anything that resembled "torture porn" as I've developed my screenplay. For months, he's been saying he had a feeling that it was a box office phase that was going to taper out. So theoretically, we may be helped by having not gone in that direction.

It's a fickle business, though, and I don't want this thing of mine to get tainted by a general perception that horror as a whole is yesterday's news.

I saw Eli Roth on Conan last week. He came off sorta badly. A bit cocky and full of it. But I think he was trying to overcompensate for being nervous. His movie had already opened poorly and he was trying to get people to go see it. Plus, LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN isn't the Aint-It-Cool-News crowd: the audience doesn't automatically know Eli Roth, nor do they worship at his altar.

The kicker is, I *liked* HOSTEL 2. (Available online, thankyouverymuch.) I was on the fence with the first HOSTEL, but I genuinely liked HOSTEL 2. Roth knows how to tell a story. He explores different aspects of his original premise.

Not to mention the motherfucker managed to get a cameo in from giallo star Edwige Fenech. Madonn'! I discovered her body of work over a year ago. A smoking-hot 70's sexploitation star who is STILL a raging 10, IMHO. Jesus fucking Christ...

I saw her name in the opening credits and that alone got my blood pumping. If I'd know she was going to be in it, I mighta seen it opening weekend...

(Don't you touch her, Eli Roth!)

For all the hoopla, I would NOT mark this one as "torture porn". (For that, check out SAW III.) The gore is more restrained than in the first movie, and I think it's used effectively.

So, why did HOSTEL 2 tank? I think it came out at a bad time.

The first one came out in January—I went to see it on my birthday. There was no competition. It was marketed as something really intense and different.

They dropped this one in the middle of blockbuster season. Audiences already got unloaded on by SPIDER-MAN3/ PIRATES3/SHREK3: that's a lot of punishment to endure. The trailers for H2 made it look like just a retread of the first movie (which I don't think it is). And a lot of people just didn't like the first movie—which relied more heavily on excessive gross-outs.

Whatever, though. Eli Roth'll be fine. He's got his career rolling, and he's capable of a lot more than he's shown.

So fuck him in the ear. I want MY career to get moving... I want to cast some of MY childhood crushes in movies...