HOSTEL: PART III

Scott is about to get married, so his friend Carter organizes a bachelor party for him in Las Vegas. The two lie to Scott's future wife about the destination of the trip and leave together with Mike and Justin for an unforgettable weekend. Upon arrival, the four friends go to a casino where they are approached by two girls who invite them all to the Strip, a club a bit outside the city. Between beautiful women and alcohol, the four guys soon get drunk and, upon waking up, they are in their hotel room... all except Mike, who is practically untraceable. The three then set out to find their friend, look for the two girls who approached them, and soon end up in the claws of Elite Hunting, the exclusive club that sells death. Orphans of Eli Roth, director of the two previous "Hostel" films who here opted out, the producers of one of the most famous series in the torture porn genre decide to continue with the torture hostel and the malevolent club for rich sadists that lies behind it. At the helm of the film is Scott Spiegel, known to the horror public for directing the slasher "Intruder - Terrore senza volto" and "From Dusk Till Dawn 2", as well as being one of the Hostel producers since the first film. The change of director, screenwriter, and the direct-to-video nature of this third film are highly noticeable, and overall "Hostel: Part III" not only turns out to be the weakest of the trilogy but presents itself as a really bad film in itself, regardless of comparisons. Reading the plot inevitably brings to mind one of the standout titles of recent Hollywood filmography, "The Hangover", the comedy by Todd Phillips with which "Hostel: Part III" surprisingly has several narrative points in common. We don't know if this is intentional or not, but the fact is that changing the location and modus operandi of the Elite Hunting Club has absolutely not benefited the film. One of the strengths of Roth's films was precisely the European setting, that sense of disorientation that the characters felt in places that seemed out of time, incredibly accommodating regarding the fruitful choice of local beauties and at the same time absolutely hostile to the murderous practices that took place in a barely concealed underworld. "Hostel: Part III" is set in Las Vegas, the American capital of vice, and with this premise, the archetype of the forbidden and the mystery, as well as the inhospitable place because it is far from one's language and culture, which were the basis of the two previous films, falls. Everything is predictable and banal in this third episode, from the casino as a place to lure (which will then evolve into a strip club) to the literal spectacularization of torture. And this last point proves particularly ineffective in "Hostel: Part III". At the base of the saga's concept is the possibility for rich and bored individuals to torture and kill someone by paying normally prohibitive sums. The intimate, morbid, and perverse dimension of torture in dirty cabins equipped with every imaginable instrument of death was one of the main points of interest in "Hostel" and "Hostel: Part II". Torturing had an erotic connotation; you could clearly see in the crazy look of the rich torturers a spark of libido peek out as they approached their victims. In this third film, the "buyers" are comfortably seated in velvet armchairs, sipping champagne, and collectively watching from behind a glass the tortures performed by the Elite's employees. But what is this? The only participatory tribute they are asked for is to contribute to the choice of the torture weapon with a sort of virtual "luck" wheel. But do we realize that by excluding the torturer from the practice of death (and thus the same spectator) we are undermining the foundation of the film? Praiseworthy is the desire to modernize the product with updates, even of a certain metaphorical caliber (the parallel between the viewer at home and the rich buyer of the film, violence is a spectacle for both!), but here developed in the worst possible way. Consequently, the tortures themselves are disappointing, without imagination or too unrealistic: take, for example, the stupid cockroach torture, which makes no sense and is squalid in its staging. There is violence in this "Hostel: Part III", but it is harmless splatter that induces yawns, from which only the facial decharniement at the beginning saves itself, otherwise the morbid and bad staging of pain from the two previous films is completely absent. But "Hostel: Part III" is also unsalvageable from other points of view. The actors are all particularly anonymous, even the few known ones like John Hensley from "Nip/Tuck" and "Teeth" and Thomas Kretschmann from "The Stendhal Syndrome" and "Dracula 3D". The staging is that typical of a home video product, with bad sets and sloppy photography; moreover, the screenplay by Michael D. Weiss ("Urban Legend", "The Butterfly Effect 2") reaches peaks of stupid absurdity in an ending that is the concrete demonstration of the expression "clutching at straws". Let's forget this "Hostel: Part III" that really has nothing good to offer, and if you are really in the mood for torture on film, dust off the much more valuable two films by Eli Roth or any chapter of the "Saw" saga.