Psychiatrists-turned-film-critics call 'Hostel II' painfully compelling
Film is disturbing but not harmful
On a recent afternoon, five shrinks sat inside a movie theater and watched as a naked lady, hanging upside down over a bathtub, was tortured to death by another nude woman using a scythe.
This was not some twisted version of a Harvard Med School retreat. It was a screening of "Hostel: Part II," the latest slasher flick by Newton native Eli Roth.
Sheldon Roth, the filmmaker's father and a professor of psychiatry at the medical school, organized the outing at the Globe's request. He recruited four others -- two men and two women -- to analyze the film by his son, a writer/director considered to be at the forefront of a genre not so kindly referred to as "torture porn."
"This is one of the most misogynistic films ever made," a
None of this worried Sheldon Roth .
"Plato said, 'The good dream of what the bad do, ' " he said in the lobby of the Fenway Regal 13. "Eli, in his own life, was a very good boy, got along with everyone and never made any trouble. I think he handles all these violent feelings through art."
The psychiatrists gathered at the theater for a 4:30 showing. There were only a handful of other people in the theater, so they sat in a row. "Hostel: Part II" hasn't been as successful at the box office as its predecessor, which opened as the top grossing movie last year. It has also lagged behind "Cabin Fever," Roth's debut. But "Hostel : Part II" has already earned back its $10.2 million cost, Eli Roth said in an e-mail this week.
The shrinks weren't concerned with box office take. They agreed to watch the film, and then discuss it, as professionals. To prepare, each had rented the first "Hostel."
"I got through it," said Axel Hoffer, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist and supervising psychoanalyst at PINE, the Psychoanalyst Institute of New England, East.
Horror movies are not necessarily Hoffer's bag. " ' Cabin Fever' freaked me out," he said, his bifocals sliding down his nose. In fact, he once fled a theater during a screening of "The Shining."
Wendy Fabricant, chief resident in psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital, also isn't a big fan of Jason, Freddy , and Michael Myers. "My work is in empathy, and it's painful for me to watch people get hurt or injured," she said.
But Thomas G. Gutheil has no such issues. The Harvard medical school professor's specialty is forensics, and he's been employed as a courtroom expert. He testified in the 1999 case involving a man murdered after his appearance on "The Jenny Jones Show." Gutheil is also a huge film buff.
The group was rounded out by Annette Kennedy, a former math teacher who is currently an advanced candidate in psychoanalytic training at PINE.
There wasn't much chatter in the theater. The shrinks sat quietly, watching the action as the lead characters, three college-age women taking a tour of Slovakia, were stalked, captured, and eventually offered up to the violent deviants paying to live out their fantasies in a grimy factory building.
Kennedy took a certain amount of pride in not turning away from the screen.
"I had heard about the first 'Hostel' and my kids had said, 'Mom, you're never going to be able to get through this,' " she said.
Fabricant admitted she had to close her eyes during a scene in which a young child was killed. She also found the scythe tough to take. She was asked about another scene, in which a man is castrated by one of the college girls with an pair of scissors.
"I watched that," she said, and the others laughed.
As film critics, they were far more forgiving than the national press. The doctors -- Roth's father was excluded from the vote -- gave the young filmmaker two 3-star rankings, a 3 1/2, and a 4. Gutheil said he was very impressed by Roth's use of insider film references, which included casting Ruggero Deodato, the director of the controversial 1980 film "Cannibal Holocaust," as a cannibal.
The group was also asked to put Eli Roth on the couch. Gutheil wasn't concerned.
"The movie isn't about Eli's psychopathology," he said. "It's about the movies he's seen."
Here, Fabricant emerged as the panel's moralist. What disturbed her most about "Hostel: Part II," she said, was the way women were abused. She specifically mentioned the tub scene in which the victim's blood pours onto the sadistic killer's naked body below.
"Her back was turned and the torturer never humanized the victim at all," she said. "That was particularly chilling."
Gutheil agreed, and said that while he would encourage fans of horror films to see "Hostel: Part II," he would not recommend it be shown in prisons. Serial killers would also not be a good target audience.
"By fusing the erotic and violent, there are ways you create fantasies that become a playground for serial killers," he said.
The therapists said they did find Roth's characters compelling, particularly Stuart, the haplessly beaten-down family man who directs his anger at a stranger meant to look like the wife he hates and can't confront.
"Displacement," said Hoffer.
"It's subtle," Gutheil joked, "but it's there."
Does Eli Roth have a problem with women? None of the shrinks thought so.
Sheldon, his father, wrapped up the debate, noting that relationships are always complicated.
"I can say I've been married over 40 years," he said, " and I have a lot of learning to do."
Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com 
