The third time isn’t exactly the charm for the Hostel franchise as the gruesome comes stateside. The results are more torturous to sit through than their torture porn predecessors. Well, maybe not that bad, but the twists were too often guessed by me and therefore spoiled much of the surprise.
Scott (Brian Hallisay) is being taken to Vegas by his buddy Carter (Kip Pardue) for Scott’s bachelor party. They meet up with their other friends Mike (Skyler Stone), who is happy to be away from his wife, and Justin (John Hensley), who is handicapped and unlucky with the ladies.
They take Scott to an isolated club where they meet up with two hookers Nikki (Zulay Henao) and Kendra (Sarah Habel) and spend the night getting toasted. When the drunken fog clears, Mike and Nikki are missing.
They’ve been kidnapped by the Elite Hunters Club run by Flemming (Thomas Kretschmann) where bets are placed as the subjects are tortured till dead. Our remaining friends go in search of their compatriots only to find themselves in a gruesome game of death.
Both Hostel 1 and 2 have the bloodcurdling tortures taking place in remote European locales, but this direct-to-video sequel brings the horrors to the USA. I didn’t think that hostels were a common occurrence over here, but I don’t know that the makers of the film were exactly thinking that one out.
Those locales were foreign and gritty where this new version seems cheap and plastic. I hate to invoke the spirit of Robert Altman when discussing Hostel, but in The Player there are numerous scenes of people pitching films by comparing two different films (it’s Die Hard meets Pretty Woman) and I can’t help but imaging this one being played as the Hangover meets Hostel.
We’ve got our horny bachelors going to Vegas only to find dismemberment instead of drunken debauchery. This sequel also stumbles in that it plays with expectations. We’re shown things that lead us to believe one thing, but the scene reveals the opposite. Once you realize that’s what is going on it starts to be easy to spot some of the twists. It made the rest of the show very predictable for me.
This one is also a bit too bright and we can see how plastic most of the sets look, not to mention some of the wooden, archetype performances. For fans of the first two, you’ll be highly disappointed.
I also don’t remember seeing Eli Roth’s name anywhere so his involvement is nonexistent (he may have gotten a “characters created by” bit). The gore isn’t exactly creative or cringe worthy either. It’s a pretty mild sequel to bear the Hostel name.
Hostel Part III is presented in widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features are relegated to a commentary by director Scott Spiegel and Kip Pardue.
Hostel Part III is pretty much a “in name only” sequel and a cash grab. If you were grossed out by the first two, do yourself a favor and skip this one.
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