That's right; everyone's favorite gore hound, Eli Roth (Hostel), is taking a vacation from blood and guts and trying something just a little different. Roth spoke with journalists backstage at the NME Awards in LA on Wednesday and announced his next project -- a PG-13 'disaster' flick along the lines of Transformers and Cloverfield. Roth told reporters, "This will be my first big-budget, PG-13, mass-destruction movie; I went total chaos and pandemonium." Roth didn't give many more details than that, but ever the self-promoter, he did tell reporters there would be a "big announcement" about the film next month.

So the obvious question is: Why the change of heart? This is the same guy who wanted topless beheaded chicks on his poster art after all. Roth said that, "I feel like I pushed the violence in R movies about as far as I can push it. I feel like I'm bled out. I wanna switch it up, everyone I know has been saying 'When are you gonna do a movie my kids can see?'" -- forget about kids, how about making a movie that doesn't make a fully-grown woman want to upchuck into her popcorn?

Is it just me, or is arguing about 'torture porn' sooo 2006? But, it's not like horror director Eli Roth has ever been one to back away from a fight. Deadline Hollywood Daily tells us about a new post on Roth's personal MySpace page in response to Entertainment Weekly film critic Lisa Schwartzbaum's take on the 'torture porn' genre. Back in July, she had written a film commentary titled 'What I Hate' and as it turns out, the lady hates 'torture porn' -- which is a term that is still not readily accepted in a lot of horror fan circles. You can read Schwartzbaum's entire editorial here, but here are some of the highlights: "It's quite simple: I hate these movies. I won't see these movies" and as if that wasn't inflammatory enough, she went on to say, "I'm not impressed with the ''quality'' of the gore or the ''wit'' of the film making. I'm not enjoyably scared; I'm horrified, and not in the way horror fans get off on, groaning and screaming with pack-mentality excitement. Instead, my horror is one of disturbance and anger: Who makes this vile crap?"

Well, Roth is someone who makes 'this vile crap', and he wasn't exactly thrilled with Schwartzbaum's take on his work. Some of Roth's response: "There is no such thing as "torture porn." It's a made up term, made up by people who don't understand these movies, who are afraid to even watch them, and who feel some bizarre sense of moral obligation to warn the public about them, despite the fact they don't watch them and never would," Then there are people like myself who grew up watching slasher flicks and just don't get what all the fuss is about. Roth will be keeping it relatively PG when he shoots his episode of Heroes: Origins this year. Of course, if you can't wait for the 'goo', Roth is still wrapping up Cabin Fever 2 (which he's producing), and there's still the possibility his big-screen version of Stephen King's Cell will hit theaters at some point in the next five years. Roth wound up his rant with instructions to Schwartzbaum to find a new line of work if she is willing to dismiss films without actually sitting down and watching them. So, as much as I might not personally be a fan of Roth, the man does have a point; don't you think?

Eli Roth's Hostel: Part 2 came and went pretty quickly during the fast-paced summer movie season, but it seemed to earn its fair share of praise from the critics who like the gruesome stuff ... plus let's face it: Flicks like this don't live or die at the box office: They create long and wondrous revenue streams through the magic of DVD and cable television. For example, now that H2 is hitting DVD on October 23 ... guess what else you can buy on that very same day?

Yes, gorehounds, it's time for a Director's Cut of the original Hostel. According to DVDActive.com, It'll hit the shelves on the same day as the sequel, and it will come packing Roth's original 'darker' ending. All of the (numerous) extras from the first Hostel DVD look to be included, in addition to a second platter filled with a bunch of all-new stuff. So yeah, it's a double-dip, but it sounds like there's enough "new stuff" to warrant a peek. As far as H2 is concerned, that DVD will also come in Director's Cut style, and the extras there will include three audio commentaries, a half-dozen featurettes, a bunch of deleted scenes, and all sorts of random nastiness.

And yes: Just in time for Halloween. Personally I don't mind saying that Hostel 2 has earned a spot in my horror collection. I think they're both damn solid horror movies -- and in 10-15 years, a lot more people will agree with me.

Oftentimes Hollywood's lack of originality leads to overexposed trends. Remember when every action movie seemed to be easily defined as 'Die Hard on a ...'? Remember when disaster movies were all the rage? And then twenty years later when they were all the rage again? Remember when there were like a hundred body-swapping comedies? Well, there appear to be fewer trends these days, or maybe it's just that Hollywood turns trends into full-blown practices, as in the case of sequels, comic book movies and fantasy films based on literary franchises. Nowadays even a promised trend, like the one involving religious Passion of the Christ copycats, isn't necessarily going to happen. But despite there being so few here-today-gone-tomorrow film fads, there's at least seven bad ideas currently in vogue in Tinsel Town, and all of them need to disappear soon, lest they too become permanent.

1. Torture Porn

I'm going to start with an easy, surely obvious one. Torture porn is the latest trend in horror, a genre that changes its predominant style every few years, and it may be the most despised -- at least by us non-horror junkies. I miss the days when a friend, an actual junkie, could drag me to a harmless scary movie that provided a few screams, a few laughs and afterward, at the most, a few silly nightmares. Now, with each new horror movie there's promise of a seriously depressing experience. After watching The Hills Have Eyes, I realized I hadn't been frightened at all. Instead I wanted to cry my heart out. I haven't been to a horror flick since, and my friend is going solo. Sure, I hear that Eli Roth's movies are a lot more enjoyable than watching a young woman raped while watching her father burned alive and her mother raped and then shot in the head, but I just haven't been in the mood to find out.

Apparently the torture porn trend is already on its way out. Hostel II performed poorly at the box office and Captivity may have peaked too soon, reaching maximum tastelessness before even opening in theaters. So what will be next? I'm rather looking forward to when slasher movies are in fashion again, when I can delight in seeing sinful human beings killed off quickly and deservedly by an implausible maniac. Which brings me to the next trend ...

Director Eli Roth is speaking out about the lackluster box-office for his latest film, Hostel: Part II, and he's blaming everyone but himself. Roth puts piracy front and center as the reason for the film's performance. "Piracy has become worse than ever now, and a stolen workprint (with unfinished music, no sound effects, and no VFX) leaked out on online before the release, and is really hurting us, especially internationally," he says, before going on to specifically tear into critics who reviewed a leaked copy of the film. "Critics have actually been reviewing the film based off the pirated copy, which is inexcusable," he says. "Some of these critics I have actually known for a few years, and while I wouldn't dignify them by mentioning them by name, I know who they are, as do the studios, and other filmmakers, and they will no longer have any access to any of my films." Roth also advises fans of his that haven't seen Hostel: Part II to "go now, because after next weekend the film will be gone from theaters."

As for the future, Roth says "I am not directing Cell any time soon, and I most likely will take the rest of the year to write my other projects. Which means I wouldn't shoot until the spring and you wouldn't see a film directed by me in the cinemas until at least next fall." He goes on to say that in Hollywood, "the R-rated horror film is in serious jeopardy. Studios feel the public doesn't want them anymore, and so they are only putting PG-13 films into production. The only way to counter this perception is to get out there and support R-rated horror."

I'm not sure if Joe Carnahan is the right person to take a strong stance against gratuitous violence in movies, but his arguments are valid and he presents them in a way that just makes you laugh. Over on his blog, Carnahan wrote a little rant on the "torture porn" phenomenon, although he made sure to begin said rant by pointing out the reasoning behind two pretty vicious scenes included in his last flick Smokin' Aces. Once that's out of the way, the dude goes off on the use of females in these types of films, saying it's something he finds "personally f*cking revolting." And I certainly agree with Joe, especially when he begins talking about Saw.

As I've said before, I watched and enjoyed the first Saw film (which I consider more of a psychological thriller than a straight-up horror flick). But the films that followed (which include both Hostel flicks) seemed to drift from that element, only to concentrate on (as Carnahan says): "this overblown, carnage level, blood sodden grand guignol aimed at the most base, depraved parts of the human psyche." Carnahan continues his rant: "I see these ads for Captivity and the wallowing in and fetishism of torture and I want to put my fist through something solid. And I don't think there's some political overtones or some Iraq/Abu Gharib allegories at work here. F*ck that, it's about titillation and ticket sales."

I like Eli Roth. He's very entertaining in interviews, and his movies are a lot of fun -- although I didn't think Hostel: Part 2 was half the wonderfully disgusting blast that the original was. I also like Richard Roeper. I don't find him to be a particularly insightful or mind-blowing film critic, but he's a likable and funny man, and he's held up Not Siskel and Not Ebert a lot better than I expected him to in Ebert's unfortunate absence. My appreciation of both men makes it difficult for me to choose sides in today's "Minor Celebrity Feud of the Day." In a recent interview, Eli Roth expressed annoyance that critics won't admit to liking his movies. Sayeth Roth: "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."

Not so, sayeth Roeper, who was appalled at the suggestion, writing: "Dear Mr. Roth: Someone is lying to you. The only time I have ever jumped, screamed and squealed at a screening was when Dann Gire came in late and accidentally sat on my lap. But that's another story. Honestly, though, if Cabin Fever had me going crazy, I would have given it a thumbs up, or even the "severed thumbs up" I once gave to The Devil's Rejects. I would never finesse my reaction to a film out of some bull&!#@ concern that it wouldn't mirror the conventional critical wisdom or be politically correct." We're taking both men at their word here, but I've seen Roeper give positive reviews to some widely hated movies in the past. Like Ebert, he's not an elitist critic, so I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt here. However, I do wonder how many (obviously weak) critics gush praise all over highly regarded films just because they don't want to seem out of touch. Or how many critics laugh their heads off at dumb comedies only to trash them in their reviews. I sat next to a pretty reputable critic at a screening for Memoirs of a Geisha, and he fell asleep at several points in the film, snoring loudly each time. His review of the film? Positive.

Although it opened pretty wide, on over 2,300 screens, Hostel: Part II failed to connect with audiences on its opening weekend, pulling in only $8.7 million for a sixth place finish, behind the box-office leader Ocean's 13, the second place finisher, Knocked Up, and three other films. There's no danger of the film not making its budget back, which was pretty small, but it seems that unless the film has some serious legs, it won't be considered a worthy follow-up to its predecessor when the final numbers are tallied. (The first Hostel raked in $47 million at the domestic box office, despite a budget of only $5 million.) If that proves to be the case, this will be the second film in two months -- the first being Grindhouse -- to be smacked down by a national audience in spite of seeming like a home run.

Whether or not Hostel: Part II underperforms, it probably won't affect Eli Roth's immediate plans -- he apparently has no interest in returning to the well for a third Hostel. Instead, he's going to be mounting an adaptation of Stephen King's Cell and putting out a movie made up entirely of trailers, called Trailer Trash. At a Q&A last week, he told the crowd he was even including Howard Stern in the trailer movie -- they're going to make a trailer for his never-made project, Fartman. Roth also said he didn't yet know which project he'd shoot first -- Trailer Trash or Cell. We'll be posting a full report on the talk soon.

The premise of Hostel: Part II is that life isn't cheap -- it's worth at least as much as a luxury vacation or a new sailboat. Early on, the film introduces us to two American men, both late 30s to early 40s with the look of wealthy dot.com entrepreneurs, and reveals that they are both clients of the sinister network we learned about in the first Hostel. That is to say, along with other successful sociopaths, they take part in secret online auctions where the prize is a captured holidaymaker that they can torture to death at a private facility in Slovakia. Once the credit card clears -- I wonder what it says on the billing statement? -- the client is invited to come to the facility and experience the thrill of unleashing their inner sadist on an innocent. Much like a brothel might try to sell you sex toys while you're there, the Hostel facility is fully stocked with a large array of torture instruments to choose from. You can imagine Aaron Eckhart's character from In the Company of Men loving this place.

The victims this time around are Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (harlequin-faced actress Heather Matarazzo) all of them riding around on a Eurail pass for one reason or another. Although director Eli Roth is mature enough not to clog up the early portions of the film with pointless 'boo' moments, he does give us enough reaction shots from creepy-looking Europeans on the train and around the town square to make it seem like all of Slovakia is in on the scheme to capture these American babes and pack them off to the slaughterhouse. By the time they are finally betrayed by the one person who was nice to them -- a Slovak beauty played by Vera Jordanova -- it's hardly a surprise. Still, the early scenes of Hostel: Part II are sufficiently atmospheric and tense, and there's never a question that you're in the hands of a capable director. Even the slobbering gore-hounds in the first row should be entertained enough during the lengthy set-up to not be checking their watches.

We recently brought you news of a shocking new poster for Hostel: Part II that would be unveiled at NYComicCon over the weekend. Since Hostel-activities weren't my beat, I didn't have a chance to see the poster and wasn't exactly looking for it, and quite frankly, forgot all about it until it started turning up on websites over the weekend. It's pretty much what we were told to expect -- it shows star Bijou Phillips standing nude and carrying the dismembered head like it's a football or something. It's an appropriately creepy poster and churns the stomach a little -- both explicitly sexual and gore-tastic at the same time.

If you're a Hostel fanatic and you want to know absolutely everything that is going on inside director Eli Roth's head at the moment, be sure to check out Erik's roundtable discussion with Roth, posted yesterday -- it's one of our many on-the-scene reports from NYComicCon this year. In it, Roth talks about why he wanted to return to the Hostel series and whether or not there will be a Hostel III in our future. Okay, I'll go ahead and spoil that one for you -- he says that if this one makes money, then there could be another one. Big surprise.