REVIEW: Hostel: Part III (2011)

Hey, I didn’t know they made another Hangover sequel already! This one looks kinda dark, though; it’s got all kinds of torture and kidnapping and screaming and blood and…wait, this isn’t a Hangover sequel. It’s a Hostel sequel! AAAAHHHHHHHH…no, wait, it is a Hangover sequel.

But that was actually a good movie. The movie I’m reviewing today is very similar, with only one major difference – it sucks.

Director: Scott Spiegel

Starring: Kip Pardue, Brian Hallisay

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1255916/

Yes, Hostel Part III, straight to DVD and making its big release on Redbox, truly this series is living the high life of horror movie franchises! What kind of horrible brain mish-mash ever wanted this? You know, I don’t even want to know. I’m much better off not knowing what kind of people anxiously await the arrival of one of these films…well, let’s get this crap over with so I can go back to watching Bones.

The film starts off with the four guys from the last movie getting ready to go to Stu’s wedding and…no, wait, that was the Hangover sequel again. Man, 2012 isn’t looking good for me if I can’t even get the movie I’m reviewing right. To be fair, though, this IS about a bunch of idiots going to Vegas for a bachelor’s party, so I wasn’t too far off.

"Hi, I'm an Eastern European girl and I'm stereotypically open about my sexuality, because the movie needs some tits at the beginning to make sure you don't just turn it off and leave."

We get this dweeby looking guy named Travis who walks in on a hot blonde chick in a bikini ironing clothes, who tells him to come right in, because hey, not like he could be a killer waiting to have you auctioned off at a ridiculous murder game show or anything! Knock on wood. She and her boyfriend, Baldy McBaldson, which may or may not be his actual name, get gassed by a bunch of rejected Hazmat guys and kidnapped by Travis.

Then we get introduced to our main characters Scott and Carter, who are…well…I’m drawing a blank. They’re pretty much just more of the same generic assholes you get in every other Hostel movie. To be fair, they’re a little better written, but that’s like saying getting one stubbed toe is better than getting two. It’s true, but not really a measure of any great worth, and not really indicative of anything at all. They’re going on a ‘golfing’ trip which is really a front for PARTYING IN VEGAS, OH YEAH!

Ah, yes, the old 'go to Vegas and cheat on our girlfriends' trick...what endearing characters these people are.

So yeah, the next half hour or so mostly consists of these idiots getting drunk, partying, saying stupid stuff and Scott, being that he’s getting married, ‘just wants to talk’ with his hooker…he’s such a good idiot.

Yeah, the frat party prank is just mysteriously a lot like the actual way the Hostel torture-guys kidnap you. How convenient, right?

The movie then gets really, uh, interesting (cough cough) when we see the first death scene! I’m sorry, this is just silly. They’re doing this whole thing where these people have to bet on what the person being tortured will do next, and when they guess right, it’s broadcast over the loudspeaker in this ridiculous calm female voice that sounds like something you’d hear when the doctor’s assistant tells you to come in for your colonoscopy. And then you get the actual kill, which involves cutting off the guy’s face and putting it on the head of a department store mannequin…charming?

Then we get the scenes where Scott, Carter and their other friend looking around for their buddy Mike, who went home with a stripper and is now nowhere to be found. And how many times are we going to fake-out the audience as to whether or not anyone’s being tortured yet? First it was that frat-prank gone wrong bachelor party, and now we have a scene of them making a smoothie or something close-up to look like blood. How very clever.

So they break into the house of one of the strippers, and, surprise, she isn’t very happy about it when she and her boyfriend, who looks like a Hell’s Angels reject, come back. They shout for a while at each other and…well, here are some of the highlights:

SCOTT: We wanted to talk to Nikki!

KENDRA: Oh, so you broke into her house?

CARTER: Actually it’s more of a trailer…

The pistol whip that follows is more than worth the price of the film. And also…

SCOTT: Our friend Mike went home with her last night.

KENDRA: Oh, so you think he’s just so great that she’d sleep with him, huh?

I just love how they’re turning this into a popularity contest. Lady, YOU’RE A HOOKER. You don't exactly occupy a space in society that allows you to get all high and mighty about this.

They team up and leave Hell’s Angels Reject behind, which is unfortunate, because he had the potential to be pretty hilarious due to his tough guy demeanor. And meanwhile…

Well, I think this speaks for itself.

Yes, we’re now resorting to deaths that look like they belong on a bad episode of Fear Factor…and being that in the other movies, the participants paid to have their victims set up however they saw fit, who’s designing these fetishes anyway? Someone really got turned on by the image of a hot blonde in a cheerleader outfit with bugs poured all over her body? That’s just strange and I don’t want to think about it, so we’re moving to the next scene.

More scenes of them looking for Mike and Nikki, yadda yadda they get captured. I really like how Baldy McBaldson from the beginning is still alive, even though they’ve killed two other people they captured after him. What kind of sense does that make?

Then we find out the BIG PLOT TWIST as Carter reveals he’s been working for the torturing voyeuristic sewer slime all along! Why didn’t he just lead them directly to the society to be kidnapped and tortured from the beginning, then? Because that would have made sense, and making sense doesn’t factor into the writing and producing of a Hostel movie. Oh well, time for another death scene!

....yeah, this does, too. Who the hell comes up with this bizarre imagery? What is that costume supposed to be? Why can't they just kill him and NOT wear that weird outfit? Are they ever going to answer any of my questions?

This one is just weak, guys. I mean really? You’re just going to have a weirdo in a Gimp suit shoot arrows at him? I don’t even know what they’re going for with that one. I expect more tasteless from you, Hostel. More tasteless.

So then they drag Scott in and make him put on a wedding tuxedo. One of the guards delivers this brilliant line: “Don’t bother returning it…enjoy your honeymoon!” Yeah, I’m sure that guy will have a promising career as a standup comic the same way I am sure that drinking bleach from the can will probably make your kids come out a little funny.

In the torture room, Carter mouths off and gives a whole evil speech that is mostly just rather tiring…he admits that he wants to do all this just so Scott’s girlfriend will go out with him instead. Strangely enough, Scott is madder about the fact that Carter told his girlfriend that he cheated on her last year, rather than the fact that Carter is responsible for several gruesome and bloody deaths. Glad to see his priorities are in place! Truly a great movie protagonist we have here! Sarcasm sarcasm sarcasm some more!

Everything seems to be going swimmingly, though, until the higher-ups let Scott out, apparently thinking it would be really hilarious to have a big bloody battle royal that could possibly end in any number of hazards to their business. HOW WAS THIS A GOOD IDEA? Oh yeah, because their boss is every stereotype in the book, as he scowls, grins sinisterly and even hangs out with hookers in the middle of pressing situations. That means he’s REALLY EVIL! And really stupid. So yay, battle royal!

Still better than MTV.

Scott escapes, as does Baldy McBaldson, only he gets killed in the fray and I wonder why he was even in this. Scott is about to escape, but Carter escapes too, somehow, and locks him inside as the building explodes like a cheap action movie. Endearing.

Then we see that Carter went straight back to Scott’s girlfriend and got together with her over his ashes and everything. It’s looking good for him until she stabs him in the hand and reveals that, surprise surprise, Scott was never dead at all, and actually plotted against Carter to tie him up in the basement and then turn him into the police, ending the reign of the Elite Torture Club forever and thus being the final installment of this lame-ass series.

I'm so glad Scott and his girlfriend will get married with the fact that they brutally murdered a man right behind them. Truly this looks to be a great union of two people!

Oh, whoops, I got mixed up there – that’s what a person with functioning brain cells would do. Instead they just take a weed whacker and butcher him to pieces. Hooray for stupidity!

This movie is horrible. To be fair, it’s the least bad of the Hostel movies, which have always had potential that they wasted in spades, but it’s still no good. It’s too silly for its own good and doesn’t have much direction or atmosphere at all. So I don’t recommend this movie at all, but hey, at least I wasn’t watching Final Destination 2 or something...yeah, that’s gonna be next week’s review; no point in masking it now I suppose.

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