Straight-to-Video ‘Hostel: Part III’ an Exercise by the Numbers

Truthfully, the “Hostel” franchise should have stopped at one. Eli Roth’s 2005 horror hit pushed the envelope on what audiences were willing to go to the movies for, even amidst the “Saw” craze. It had a lot of cliche, but also a creep factor—and character development—that set it aside from other “torture porn” of the era. Its success (more than quadrupling its budget opening weekend) led to the land of sequels. And where the first one was fresh, its successor, “Hostel II” (also helmed by Roth) was not. It peeled back the layers on the criminal organization that ran the torture farm, subtracting all of the claustrophobia and surprise of the first one, instead going over the top on gore for gore’s sake. Audiences disliked it more than critics, and that’s saying something. 

Roth seemed to have washed his hands of the series, but in 2011 along came another film in the franchise, “Hostel: Part III.” Directed by Scott Spiegel, the film isn’t as bad as “Hostel: Part II,” saved mostly by some of its cast-members, but all-in-all is an exercise by the numbers. Where Roth’s first film had the treatment of directorial vision, “Hostel: Part III” feels like a stripped down version of the series opener, here moved to Las Vegas. The torture racket is still run by the ‘Elite Hunting’ group, but feels in-authentic and almost wooden. The film’s opening featuring a creepy tourist (Chris Coy) had notes of the original. But it isn’t long before a run of half-formed events lead to a series of kidnappings, prostitutes, and killings in the Vegas underground. 

At Least Some Fun Characters Again

The plot here is a group of 20-somethings who head to Vegas for a bachelor party weekend. It’s standard stuff, and at the forefront is Scott (Brian Hallisay) who is getting married to beautiful Amy (Kelly Thiebaud) in a week’s time. Some drinking and shenanigans ensue as the group of four comprised of Scott, Justin (John Hensley), Mike (Skyler Stone), and Carter (Kip Pardue) meet two escort girls (Sarah Habel, Zulay Henao) and one-by-one end up in ‘Elite Hunting’s’ sinister clutches. 

Where “Hostel: Part III” is an improvement over its predecessor is by trying once again to build characters. Scott has a cheating past, and is working hard—amidst all the Vegas beauties—to stay faithful to his fiancée. Justin suffers a disability and walks with a crutch. He’s the most down-to-earth and likable of the four, and Hensely—who I loved in FX’s “Nip/Tuck”—is by far the film’s most capable actor. He thinks Vegas is all a show—and it is. He has some great lines with Stone, and is just enjoyable to watch. Stone’s Mike is the film’s asshole; he resents marriage, looks forward to cheating on his wife all weekend, and is an immature and cliched ‘bro’ every step of the way. 

Little Tension and Minimal Gore

The problem with “Hostel: Part III”—despite the bond between some of its characters—is that it feels all over the place. Where Roth painted intricate subterranean dungeons in his original film that felt grimy and foreboding, here the captives sit in darkened dog cages as a prior kidnapee, Viktor (Nickola Shreli) tells them repeatedly they’re going to die. The new additions are forcibly taken out of the cages in the same order they were put in, while Viktor sits there for most of the film’s run-time. I wondered why the film didn’t show what happened to his girlfriend (Evelina Turen)—who was also taken—or dispatch him early for a higher body count. The cynical part of me thinks it’s a budget constraint, though it had $1,200 more to play with than Roth’s original. “Hostel: Part III” keeps Viktor around far too long, and wastes him towards the film’s climax. 

The other problem is there’s very little—if any—tension or suspense, and most if not all of the on-screen tortures we see are watered down. Camera pull-aways or cuts to the viewing crowd of millionaires betting on the victims’ deaths—or what pleas they’ll utilize to bargain with—smash any horror present. It’s not that they’re not gruesome. One death was a hard to watch, and another was morose and sad. But unlike Roth who used darkly-lit interiors, a nightmare-inducing score, and over-the-top (yet realistic SFX), here it just falls short. I liked the idea of the victims’ fates being betted on. It was very Vegas and very something these sickos would do. But the on-display, brightly-lit killing room dented the series’ isolate horror, intercut with shots of mostly-naked bar girls serving drinks on an endless loop. 

John Hensley is one of the Film’s Strong Suits

The film’s misogyny is also a problem. In addition to erasing the eery atmosphere of Roth’s first film, “Hostel: Part III” also saw it necessary to cram in chauvinism and toxic masculinity throughout, sort of like “Tomcats” and “Hostel” all in one. Mike is the worst offender; he’s an an unforgiving racist who belittles women whenever he gets the chance (especially his wife), yet Director Scott Spiegel and Writer Michael D. Weiss (*spoilers*) wrongly make his torture the worst and attempt to get us to feel sorry for him. 

Additionally, two goons (Frank Alvarez, Derrick Carr) ’Elite Hunting’ hires to drag the unwitting victims to the kill room are trying way too hard, making fun of and emasculating their victims for “not taking it like a man,” which I found laughable. The stone-cold guards of Roth’s “Hostel” added an eeriness in their lack of emotion and speech. Here, it looks like these two enjoy it, like alphas in a prison yard, and it stole some needed tension. This same problem runs through the film’s climax, also. The film tosses away its one moment of pure tension in the last 20 minutes as a character tries to rescue a victim, and also wastes the excellent Thomas Kretschmann in a series of throwaway sequences. Further, its closing scenes are predictable and unrealistic—really, victims’ cell phones still lay around the hostel in working order?—and ends in a way that is easy to see coming. 

‘Hostel: Part 3: Doesn’t Feel Dangerous

“Hostel Part: III” is an example of a good idea that just didn’t work. Its actors are good for the most part, is slightly better than Roth’s “Part 2,” but just never quite gets there. It even attempts a twist ending I had a hard time buying. But its greatest affront is not the lack of horror or its lack of survey of horrible things that it never explores deeper. It’s simply that this doesn’t feel like a dangerous film. It wants to, but never really does. We never really feel someone is about to die—that terror just isn’t there. Gore doesn’t make these movies, but fear. Roth had it in “Hostel” and then lost it. Speidel is working off the corpse of something that once worked and no longer does. But seeing as none of it reaches the depravity of Heather Matarazzo’s death in “Part 2,” it may just be a harmless and dumb way to kill 90 minutes if you’re in the mood for horror.