Bad Movies Marathon: Hostel Part III (2011) dir, Scott Spiegel

The first was somewhat definitive of an era and mark of a change in horror movies, the second was a poor clone of the first with the genders switched, the third is just a freakin' joke.
Horror contemporary Eli Roth, creator of the riotous Cabin Fever, brought us Hostel in 2005, as a half softcore porn, half guts'n'gore slasher which took explicit violence to a new level at the time. Despite the obvious 'exploitation,' it was quite bravely made and with quite decent technique.

And then, 6 years later, here we are with the straight-to-DVD addition to the gruelling series: Hostel Part III. Emaciated from Roth-deficiency, this chapter dives straight in with a bunch of typical idiots, on a typical idiot stag party, with one moderately good-hearted Groom, one disgusting, cheating little sex pest, and a bunch of other guys to fill in the gaps. They all have names, but who cares? That's incidental. These generic men are just pawns in the generic horror flick that is Hostel Part III.

Out of Europe all together, the movie is set in Las Vegas, with the idiots instantly trusting the most obviously wrong kind of people, allowing a dodgy silent cabby, whose meter is broken, to drive them to the middle of goddamn nowhere, where there is obviously a party going on, and inevitably get taken out by the same crew of rich freaks who pay to kill strangers in James Bond-style cocktail lounges that we remember from Parts 1 and 2.

It took me a while to decide whether to make this a regular, but low-rated review, or a Bad Movies Marathon entry, as there were traces of decent work. There were one or two examples of interesting camerawork, and there were one or two examples of doing the exact opposite of what you expected. But in the long run, these things didn't matter, nor did much else. The aforementioned dodgy cabby is given a lengthy introduction and involvement, but it never comes to anything: he is never mentioned again. The fate of the  vanished girlfriend of one long-time prisoner is never revealed either, despite her always being brought up.

I also have a serious bone to pick with the way the writers cop out when it comes to the actual horror. So, the creepy little sex pest gets done in pretty well, but then the first pretty girl, complete with cheerleader outfit, is put on a table with a few dozen cockroaches. Her actual death comes from her ridiculous screaming, allowing the bugs to crawl down her throat and suffocate her. Laughable. This sequence was more like a gag reel from I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.

Similarly, when the Groom is inevitably the last man standing versus the bad guy, there is copious "You sick motherfucker!" followed by duelling with various butcher's knives, and finally they resort to several good old fashioned punch-ups. And all of this terrible, predictable action is punctuated by horrific CGI where it's not needed.

Serials, especially the horror ones, are getting old. There is rarely a sequel better than its predecessor, and they usually screw up everything that was once so great about the original. Here we have a nice example. What Eli Roth created as a shocking, but refreshing slasher movie has been reduced to cheap tack, shoddy writing and being known as "one of those shitty series." It's a shame.