Behind the screams of the goriest movie of all time

DISMEMBERSHIP HAS ITS PRIVILEGES From left to right, the vivisected author on set with director Eli Roth and legendary Italian actor Luc Merenda

As I watch a specially trained stunt cat hit its cues, gnawing chicken that's doubling as human flesh from the neck of a decapitated corpse, I can't help commenting out loud.

"That cat's better than Lassie."

"That cat's better than Bijou [Phillips]," counters Hostel: Part II director Eli Roth, to the delight of his crew. Nothing against the Page Six party girl-cum-actress, one of three females hired to replace the trio of males mangled in the gruesome 2006 original, but, as Roth explains, "It's very different filming with three girls rather than three guys. With girls, they've got the wrong lipstick on and suddenly the whole scene"—he pauses—"I mean your face is gonna get cut off by a saw blade. It doesn't really matter."

"I'm just putting in so much violence. It's like a bloodbath," says Roth. "I'm gonna go for the most violent unrated DVD of all time. That's the goal"Roth is back in Prague, Czech Republic, for the second installment of Hostel, a film that does for Eastern Europe what Deliverance did for Appalachia. And though the central characters are now women, played by Phillips, Lauren German (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Heather Matarazzo (Welcome To The Dollhouse), the premise is identical: Go for the guilt-free drugs and sex, stay for the bloodletting and torture. Oh, and beware strange businessmen with a fetish for dismembering student backpackers. The biggest difference, which becomes terrifyingly clear with each day I spend on set, is that this time there's even more bloodletting and torture.

GAG REFLEX Bijou Phillips gets a taste for the Hostel takeover

"I've been working at K&B Special Effects for twelve years," says prosthetics pro Michael McCarthy. "And there's a particular scene where I couldn't even look at the monitor. That has never happened to me before. It was just horrifying."

On this overcast afternoon in late fall, the crew is shooting in a Prague suburb that stands in nicely for the Eastern bloc gloom of Slovakia, where the film is set. Already nauseated from an earlier tour of the special effects van, I'm taken aside for a secret look at Heather Matarazzo's agonizing torture scene, an instant genre classic that pays tribute to both meat hooks and Erzsebet Bathory, a 16th century Hungarian countess who enjoyed torturing virgin girls almost as much as she did bathing in their blood.

"The ratings board is okay with violence," sighs Roth. "And they're less okay with sex. If you mix the two, you get in trouble. I'm gonna get crucified. The MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] has got the knives out."

But Roth might have something of a plan. "I'm just putting in so much violence. It's like a bloodbath," he says. "That way, they won't even know where to begin. At least I'm gonna go for the most violent unrated DVD of all time. That's the goal."

As for the violence being directed towards women this time around?

"It's the difference between hunting a lion and hunting a dear. With a lion it's like, 'Awesome, he killed a lion.' With a dear, it's like, 'Aww, he killed Bambi.' When you watch girls get tortured it's just awful."

FACE OFF Actress Jordan Ladd in Eli Roth's directorial debut Cabin Fever

"He wanted me to show my tits!" laughs Ladd of her refusal to go nude for Roth's directorial debut, Cabin Fever, in 2003. "I said no, and then I showed them to some other dudes in another movie." [Note: Club Dread is available at a Wal-Mart near you.]

"However," she adds, gazing at the 35-year-old director in question, "You got your own personal flash later. He was really upset about it, though."

"I was so mad," concurs Roth. "She was like, 'It's not necessary to the story', and I'm like, 'It's necessary for me! For my fantasies!' And then [mimes lifting his shirt] I was totally taken by surprise. It was a big deposit in the wank bank." As it happens, the actress recently performed faux fellatio on (a headless) Eli Roth in his parody horror trailer "Thanksgiving," one of several mock previews sandwiched between the double features in Grindhouse.

After a few more drinks, Ms. Ladd makes what appear to be several blunt passes at the fetching director, with varying degrees of success. Despite the grinding, cuddling, and frequent pecks on the cheek, the overtures are met with indifference. With so many beautiful Eastern European women available to Roth, it seems he has the luxury of picking and choosing. Here's a broken-English text message sent by a Czech bombshell whom Roth loved, then apparently left, while scouting locations for the first film:

"I HEARD EVEN TWO MORE GIRLS IN PRAGUE! U NOTHING THAN BITCH. I HATE UNHONEST PEOPLE. I NEVER MET GAY LIKE YOU! I STEPPED IN BIGGEST CRAP."

"There are so many beautiful girls in Prague, it's insane," says Eli. "I mean I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do drugs—but these girls are worse than all three combined. I would have a better time focusing if I were a crack addict than with these Czech girls."

Of course, it's not just the Czech girls who give him problems. The MySpacers are after him, too. "The upsides," says Roth of the fortuitous combination of successful-Hollywood-director status and a MySpace page, "are the chicks."

"You meet girls, and they're like, 'Oh, you're just in town for one night. I bet you have this with girls in every city.' And you're like, 'No! Because every city they say this!' And you never get laid at all. Then you meet girls on MySpace who actually want to meet you, and you're like, yeah, let's hook up, and it's awesome! The downsides are you get the venom pointed directly at you. MySpace really makes you realize that people want you fucking dead."

OH FACE Writer Bill Schulz, left, is the cohost of Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld on Fox News

Hungover my last day on set, Eli has kindly allowed me to double for a star who shall remain nameless and, for purposes of the scene, gutless. My job is to gyrate manically as a psychotic detective plays accordion with my innards.

"It's a lot of work for a couple of seconds that end up on the cutting room floor because the Motion Picture Association of America says it's too much," laments Michael McCarthy, the effects wizard, as he adjusts the fake intestines within the fake chest I'm wearing on my torso.

On my previous visit to Prague during the shooting of the first film, I was cast in a blink-and-you'll-miss-me castration scene. ("Dude," smiles Eli, "I've killed you in both Hostels!" I'm hoping for a speaking role in the third installment). I recall screaming myself hoarse, take after take, until the second unit director politely informed me that they were filming without sound—as the crew stifled their giggles.

Unintentional method acting aside, I thought I'd done a stellar job, but apparently Eli wasn't satisfied with just one bloody emasculation. For part two, he would go the extra mile.

GUT CHECK Effects maestro Kevin Wasner gets the writer's lower intestine ready for its close-up

"We live and breathe this stuff and I still couldn't look at this castration scene," says McCarthy's partner in gore, Kevin Wasner. "And we show it from beginning to end. The full on wiener, and then the blood squirting out when it gets cut off, up to when a dog eats it. Actually, I've got it right here..."

I can't help recoiling when Wasner opens a box to reveal an incredibly lifelike severed penis.

"Our first day on set we had already outdone the first Hostel," smiles McCarthy. "Not to toot our own horn, but we knocked another one out of the ballpark."