Category: Torture horror/drama
Directed by: Scott Spiegel
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Not only should movie studios leave well enough alone, but I have to ask: when am I going to stop doing this to myself? I saw some reviews that forewarned me Hostel: Part 3 was not a top-notch cinematic experience (to put it generously), but I just couldn't say no when this offered itself on my streaming. I suffer for my art.
Hostel: Part 3 shares next to no narrative connection to either Hostel or Hostel: Part 2, save for the Elite Hunting Club name and logo and the concept of people paying to kill other people. It's really more a parallel movie rather than a sequel, and was directed by Scott Spiegel rather than Eli Roth.
Anyway, let's go over the plot and then I'll get into likes and dislikes.
The plot:
The movie begins with a young man named Travis (Chris Coy) who walks into a hostel room as if to put his belongings down to settle in for the night when he finds two people already in his room - Victor (Nickola Shreli) and Anka (Evelina Oboza), a Ukranian couple. There is a sense of unease as Victor (looking very gangster-like) offers Travis vodka, with Travis offering beer instead. Victor and Anka accept, and Anka goes to shower while Victor and Travis chat.
Shortly after Anka begins her shower, she collapses while Victor berates Travis for not helping. Victor himself then collapses and a pair of men in military gear come out from behind a false wall and take the pair into custody.
We then cut to a completely separate scene where Amy (Kelly Thiebaud) is saying her goodbyes to her fiancee, Scott (Brian Hallisay) who is being picked up by Carter (Kip Pardue) for his bucks weekend away. Scott and Carter have told Amy that they're going to go golfing, but in reality, they're going to Las Vegas to meet with their other friends, Mike (Skyler Stone) and Justin (John Hensley) for a wild boys weekend.
At a casino, the four are playing Blackjack and catch the attenion of Kendra (Sarah Habel) and Nikki (Zulay Henao) who tell the men about a warehouse party happening outside of town. Given this is a horror movie, the sense of unease and distrust is definitely there. At the party, Scott is taken captive and tied to a chair (giving us the expectation that the murders are about to start) and Carter reveals that he set the whole situation up, up to and including hiring the two women to have sex with the guys (especially Scott) as a final pre-wedding fling. Scott, however, rejects the advances of Kendra stating that he has previously been unfaithful and doesn't want to make the same mistake again. Scott stumbles outside and succumbs to the effects of his excessive alcohol consumption.
However, Scott hasn’t been kidnapped - he wakes up in his apartment wondering how he got back there, to which Carter and Justin tell him that he was already in his bed when they returned. On the other hand, no-one knows where Mike is. As it turns out, HE has been taken by the Elite Hunting Club and we see that he is now in the same holding area that Victor and Anka are being held in - converted shipping containers in a 2x2 arrangement. Victor screams abuse at the guards as Mike is taken away who then finds himself strapped in to a chair, facing a large pane of glass. On the other side of the glass are well-dressed people with screens infront of them where they make wagers on specifics of how the person in the chair will die. For Mike, he is executed by having his face cut off by a surgeon and is still screaming as the surgeon walks out the room (though we don't actually see him die. Strange).
The others cannot locate Mike, to which they locate Nikki's trailer and let themselves in. They are about to be shot by Kendra and a local resident and in the examination at gunpoint, the men are looking for Mike and Kendra is looking for Nikki. Speaking of Nikki, we now see her in the execution room, but this time, stapped to an inclined bed rather than a seat. This is because her method of execution is…coackroaches! Yep - choking on cockroaches!
Given this is 2011, everyone has flip phones with poor cameras, so Scott gets the most unrealistic-sounding text message from Mike's phone, but which was sent by Travis (who we saw from the opening scene in the film) to lure everyone else to the same hostel room from the opening scene. Lo and behold, the secret men are waiting behind the false wall and capture Scott, Carter, Kendra and Justin.
In the cages, Victor is still swearing profusely at any and everyone when all of a sudden, Carter reveals his bloodhound tattoo which gets him out of the cage and in to a meeting with Flemming (Thomas Kretschmann, who we saw in Dragged Across Concrete). It turns out that Carter had come to an arrangement with Flemming that has gone wrong.
In the next scene, Justin is in the hot-seat (yes, it's now a seat again) while a woman in what I would call a Japanese cyberpunk-themed head-to-toe outfit (so we don't even see her face) walks in with a crossbow and puts bolts in to Justin's body inbetween behind-the-backside shots of said woman walking around the room.
Scott is released from the holding cage and is forced to put on a tuxedo for his impending execution, which is to be carried out by none other than…Carter! It turns out that Carter and Amy were an item before Amy ended up with Scott, so Carter organised for Scott and the others to be kidnapped and executed (though expressing regret about Justin's involvement) and taunts Scott with the thought of getting back with Amy after Scott's death. As Carter is wandering around the room, Flemming makes the call to have Scott's shackles opened, leading Scott and Carter into a fight infront of the audience. Scott escapes the room by ripping Carter's bloodhound tattoo off to use on the scanner.
Victor manages to kill one of guards and frees himself, Scott frees Kendra, Flemming's goons try to find the escapees. Victor uses an axe to shut the power to the facility down and Kendra is shot, but not before Travis finds that Scott had dialled 911 on a still-working mobile phone. Flemming orders the detonation of the building, Travis and Scott get into a fight where Scott uses Travis' meat-cleaver to gory effect and Flemming tries to escape in his swanky car, only to be stabbed by Carter.
Scott makes it outside the building, but not the perimeter as Carter locks the gates on Scott with the intent to ensure his death in the impending explosion.
The last scene takes place back at Amy's place as Carter is comforting Amy over the loss of her fiancee. Amy convices Carter to stay the night and gets a bottle of wine as Carter is seated. All of a sudden, Amy corkscrews Carter's hand to the table while revealing Scott is still alive. Scott, hideous from burns, ties Carter to a chair in the basement and proceeds to murder him with a powered landscaping tool.
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This movie shares very little with the previous Hostel movies - only a title and concept - and one of the things that is sorely lacking is filmmaking panache. Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino are a helluva filmmaking duo, so the first two Hostel films have that X-factor about them. On the other hand, this either didn’t have the budget or didn't have the studio support, to the point that I think the franchise has run out of steam. Where do you go to from this (aside from a prequel)?
Negative aspects aside, there were a couple of things I thought that were really good touches:
- The opening scene where Victor and Anka ended up being the victims instead of Travis was a good reversal of expectations. We see Victor looking all menacing, but he was the victim all along.
- Some of the practical effects were quite good - Mike's face removal, and Travis' body taking multiple blows from the meat cleaver really stood out!
- Kendra and Nikki also not being part of the operation was an interesting twist, as in previous films, it's been the attractive women that have been used to lure guys in.
- I also get the feeling that the director was trying to pay a small amount of homage to the original entries - there was indeed a surgeon in this film, just like there was a surgeon in the first Hostel. The surgeon in this movie doesn't speak, so it's possible that this surgeon is also German-speaking, but doesn't say anything either way to confirm.
- There is also a bit of ridiculous blood-squirting - when Travis gets his arm cut off by Scott with the meat cleaver, the next shot we see is of Travis on the ground clutching (what's left of) his arm with blood squirting out.
- At times, Spiegel does a good job setting a tone for an atmosphere of dread and impending blood-letting.
And lastly, Carter plays the role of the bombastic American who has paid to kill someone before, and has the ridiculous line:
Scott: What kind of fucking man are you anyway? You do this to your own fucking friends?
Carter: When it comes to pussy, I have no friends!
This line was hilarious (intentionally or unintentionally).
However, I also need to get in to what didn't I like:
- The Victor character just continually screaming obscenities and being vile. Like, dude, you're in a cage with a collar around your neck. Shut the fuck up.
- The only character to show any intelligence was Justin, the guy with the cane.
- It didn't come across as having the deep sense of dread that the previous entries had (except in a couple of spots).
All up, I didn't feel like it was the lousiest production I've ever seen, but it certainly didn't have the magic of the first or second. There were the elements of comedy and ridiculousness that are a feature of the Hostel series, but in the end, it came across as maybe a McDonalds version of Hostel as opposed to the fine dining that the first movie was. It's like "yes - there is horror and comedy!". But much like burgers, while anyone can chuck a piece of meat between two buns, you just know it in your soul when you've had a good burger and then what an average one tastes like in comparison. Hostel: Part 3 is the average burger.
Unfortunately, the worst in the series, and I'd actually go so far as to rank it marginally just above Guna Guna Istri Muda as a horror movie - the comedy elements of this movie saved it from being put in the Lousy category. Not recommended, especially if you enjoyed either of the first two.
STAR RATING: 2.5/5
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