Sunday, February 19, 2012

Hostel: Part III (2011)

A soon-to-be groom celebrating his bachelor party in Las Vegas learns his longtime best friend has targeted him for ritual murder.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from this movie... direct to DVD, the biggest "star" in it was Kip Pardue, not even a production credit from Eli Roth... but I had no idea it would be so aggressively stupid and just plain insulting to the intelligence of its audience. Hostel was popular not just due to its gore, but because it played on American fears of that dark and alien place that is eastern europe, as well as themes of xeno and homophobia. In short, it was torture porn that was smarter than it had any right to be and that is why it was such a success. Then along comes Hostel II with slightly less provocative gender themes, misogyny and one of the most disturbing and graphic death scenes to grace cinema theaters in a while. Now we have Hostel III, a movie that is so distant from its predecessors that, as I stated before, it's just plain insulting to viewers. Hostel III follows the Elite Hunting Club's continued booming business of torture and murder, this time taking us to the U.S. (mistake number one) Las Vegas (what happens there stays there, get it?) to be precise, where club members not only get to indulge in acts of carnage, but also have the option of watching and even placing bets on the dismemberment. A group of guys, lead by hasbeen Kip Pardue (you know how I know he's a hasbeen? cause he's staring in Hostel III!) out celebrating their buddy's impending wedding. While this premise sounds mildly promising, it isn't, not even a little bit. This movie fails for one main reason: it betrays its source material completely and utterly. Even with the limited budget of a direct to DVD release, one would at least expect to see some decent gore and disturbing carnage, right? Think again, instead you'll be treated to some of the most bloodless and stupidest deaths you've ever seen. Number one: a person does not die from having their face peeled off. Number two: hissing cockroaches do not crawl into people's mouths by the hundreds to choke them to death. Number three: why on earth is there an unrated version of this? I didn't see anything that was disturbing or horrific enough to even warrent a hard R rating. I'll tell you why, it's a sales gimmick. It's crap like this that is so insulting, to think that this garbage's makers believed that they could piggy back off of decent horror films like Hostel and Hostel II, and try to sell audiences cheap toilet paper like this is just a slap in the face. The worst SAW movie is leaps and bounds better than Hostel III, which is a truly sad and accurate statement. I actually feel dumber for having watched this movie. Save yourself some angst and a few brain cells and skip this movie. Rewatch the first two instead.

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