Was the world screaming out for a third Hostel movie – especially one without Eli Roth’s involvement? That’s actually a trick question because in the world of direct to DVD horror sequels, it doesn’t matter what you want because producers know that unfussy fear fans will scramble towards any random-ass sequel like a desperate meth addict and thus Hostel Part III was thrust into us like a scalpel being held by a rich psycho.
However, as disposable follow ups go, you have to concede that the third installment of the torture porn fave has at least the nugget of a fairly decent concept. I mean, moving the vicious business of torturing people for money from some shithole in Slovakia to the United States is hardly the most radical change, but at least it’s something.
Elsewhere, the fires of hope are further stoked with the presence of Scott Spiegel at the helm who may have given us an unnecessary From Dusk Till Dawn sequel, but he also co-wrote Evil Dead II and gave us the underrated slasher, Intruder. Surely a spot of torture should be child’s play, right?
Viva(section) Las Vegas!
Scott is on the verge of getting married to his sweetheart, Amy, but before he can get to that, he’s going to have to endure the bachelor party being thrown for him by his best buddy, Carter. However, the rather sedate trip that Scott thought they’d planned turns out to be nothing more than a ruse and before you know it, they’ve headed to Vegas and met up with Scott’s other friends, Mike and Justin. This causes Scott a little bit of anxiety as he was unfaithful to Amy the year before and doesn’t want the twin lures of booze and scantily clad women causing him to relapse into someone else’s bed, but that doesn’t stop Carter and Mike from doing everything in their power to pushing him into unfaithfulness.
They all wake up the next morning to find that while theyve all gained raging hangovers, they’ve list one of their number who seemingly has absconded with one of a pair of escorts they’d hired the night before. However, when they check up on him, they find out from her friend that the girl is also missing. Of course, we know what exactly is going on and they’ve fallen foul of the Las Vegas branch of the Elite Hunting Club that specialises in supplying innocent victims for rich people to murder for money. As Scott and the gang keep looking into the disappearance of their pal, they soon find themselves targeted by the secretive group, but after getting caught, it turns out that nothing is quite what it seemed. It turns out that parts of this ill-fated trip have actually been planned and there’s a set-up up at play that throws off years of friendship.
Will anyone survive the threats of being skinned alive, choked by bugs, or being riddled with arrows while an approving crowd watches – and if so, what possible motive could the traitor have?
Hey, you know what they say, whatever happens in Vegas, slays in Vegas.
There’s a moment early on in Hostel Part III that actually betrays an iota of imagination. As the film opens, a typically awkward looking American tourist enters a undisclosed hostel only to discover an Eastern European couple inhabiting his room who are late leaving. The tourist seems nervous, especially seeing as the girlfriend is uncomfortably flirty and the boyfriend is aggressively friendly – but while we think we know what’s going to happen thanks to the established rules of a standard Hostel movie, we soon find we’re a victim of a classic bait and switch. You see, the hostel isn’t in the middle of nowhere, it’s in Vegas and the “tourist” isn’t the victim, the weird couple is. It may seem like a rather simplistic switch, but it works and it’s just a shame that the film couldn’t have kept up this level of smarts all the way through. So, I guess if you all had to put Vegas-style wagers on how Hostel Part III turned out, you’d all be walking away from the table with more money than you started with – because the third go round of one of torture porn’s most famous franchises craps out in rather dreary fashion. Say what you will about the previous entries, Eli Roth managed to infuse them with a jocular sense of impish charm that managed to shine through even during bouts of savage violence and dated bursts of homophobic language. However, the third entry is missing that certain something that made the initial concept so primal and as a result we get a cynical retred that attempts to add further twists that manages to surgically remove any relatable aspect of the set up. I mean, it’s basically The Hangover or Very Bad Things with a fraction of the budget and a smidge of the charm and no amount of goofy kill scenes can hope to save such a weak hand. In fact, the deaths are so strangely cartoonish, I have to wonder if Spiegel has actually seen a Hostel film all the way through as the man who once gave us the sight of a man having his head sawn in half by a meat trimmer drops the ball on arguably the most prominent part of the movie.
In the original two films, the sight of a dude in an apron advancing on you with various power tools was simple, but brutal enough to put you right in the hot seat; but while Roth made sure his violence was devoid of flights of fancy and were nauseatingly tactile (those achilles tendons popping were gruesomely memorable), Spiegel goes unnecessarily complex. Having your face sliced off is one thing I suppose, as is getting stuck full of crossbow bolts, but a moment where a screaming woman is choked to death by a swarm of bugs scampering down her throat is just too doofy to take seriously. Elsewhere, in keeping with the Vegas theme, the rich people now no longer get their hands dirty and instead bet on the outcomes, but this slick, impersonal version of the business just isn’t as scary as rows of dilapidated dungeons filled with wealthy, holidaying freaks indulging in their wildest kinks with the business end of a power drill.
Further yet, the twist that reveals that one of the party is actually a member of the Elite Hunting Club should be a pretty nifty rug pull, but as a result, it means that everyone stops acting like normal human beings in order to get the to most cinematic ending possible. Why would this club have an actual self destruct button like it’s a cheap jack Bond villain lair, why would Thomas Kretschmann’s sinister boss man agree to Carter’s request if it’s so risky for the murderous franchise and why is his attempt to assassinate his troublesome client simply to let Scott go when he has numerous gun welding thugs at his command?
Dumb, cheap and thoroughly unneeded, Hostel Part III fumbles the ball on every conceivable level which is kind of baffling when you consider how simple the torture porn aesthetic of the originals were. It doesn’t provide any interesting characters, it doesn’t take the rules of the Hunting Club anywhere interesting and it doesn’t even make good use of its surroundings. I’ve already mentioned the adage that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but could this movie stayed there too?
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