Hostel Part 3 - Review

Hostel Part 3 was released straight to dvd on December the 27th 2011, much to the surprise of almost everyone.  Eli Roth, the writer/director of the first two instalments had, to my knowledge, zero involvement with this movie and your mileage may vary on whether or not this is a good thing.

Warning, this is a spoiler based review

I can't really talk about Hostel Part 3 without at least mentioning where I stand on the first two instalments.  I found watching Part 1 very uncomfortable, this was not a movie which I could say that I enjoyed, in the classic sense of the word.  I found there was some genuinely interesting characters in the movie, but the torture scenes were so close to the bone that I felt quite ill and I can handle my gore, but for whatever reason I found it very difficult to watch.

Part 2, however, me and Part 2 are best buds.  I love Hostel Part 2.  Maybe because we're following female protagonists and in my opinion, all the best horror movies have final girls instead of final guys, maybe because it was more balanced and we had a better idea of what was going on, maybe because the torture scenes were a little less realistic and had slightly comedic elements (like Viktor Krum being eaten by the director of Cannibal Holocaust.)  For me, Hostel Part 2 was everything that the first movie should have been.

So, as usual I've avoided everything I could so I didn't spoiler myself on the movie and it's all loaded up so I really can't put off watching this any longer.

We open on a light bulb and some hands handing a set of keys bearing a number 9 to someone else's hands, we see a cigarette stub dropping on the floor and being crushed by a ladies suede leather boot and then the camera slowly pans up as we see her walking down a bare, hospital like corridor, away from the camera.

We then see a young man whom I am guessing is not the protagonist as the movie has gone out of it's way to make him look with a complete and utter dick with a total of 4 seconds on screen time.  He has a stupid haircut and is wearing a checked flannel shirt and he whistles at the lady walking down the corridor and watches her ass.

The guy opens room nine with the key he was given and sees a girl standing in her bra doing some ironing, because if you're ironing in clothes, then....  actually I have no jokes for this, it's just rather stupid.  I'm assuming she's a trap as he goes to back out of the room and the girl tells him to stay as they have stayed too long and will be leaving soon.  A bald man enters from another door, though this room appeared to be mid-corridor, so what the hell, movie?

The bald guy asks flannel shirt guy what he's doing there and the ironing girl assures him (Victor) that the flannel guy is there for the room, and for some reason keeps smiling and doing little flirtatious shimmies to the flannel guy, right in front of her boyfriend.  Victor asks flannel guy if he's on holiday and flannel guy says yes, he's never been there before and asks where they are from.

Victor slides a look at the ironing girl and shakes his head and then says they're from the Ukraine, then pretty much starts mounting his girlfriend on the bed and I start wondering when the movie is going to cut me a break and name it's characters and also why the bed appears to have pillows thicker than a postage stamp and a duvet instead of sheets as it's been in every single European hotel/hostel I've stayed in ever.  Also the room is fucking huge, I've stayed in smaller ones that had two double beds in them.  See it's this kind of thing which drags me out of the movie and starts me wondering about odd set-design decisions. 

Flannel guy proceeds to stand there awkwardly whilst the two make out on the bed, then Victor invites the flannel guy to have a drink with them and grabs a bottle of vodka from his suitcase and the camera lingers on a hunting knife that had been beside the bottle.  I am now pretty sure that Victor and girlfriend are not a trap, maybe just thieves at the worst because historicaly the hunting group has used drugs to knock people out and take them back for a good torturing.

Flannel guy looks oddly at the vodka bottle that Victor produces and then after being silent for a few moments pulls a six pack from his backpack, that must have been the only thing he kept in his backpack, because it's a small bag and a large set of bottles.  Victor pulls out a Swiss army knife and I'm already bored of the movie trying to fake me out, because obviously, he unfolds the bottle opener in order to open up the bottle of beer that flannel guy passes him.  By the way, we're less than 3 minutes into the movie....  ho boy. 

The girlfriend, whom I believe at this point Victor addresses as Vanka, says she's going to take a shower before they leave and strips off right in front of flannel guy and saunters off, in the direction that Victor entered from, meaning the bathroom is a shared floor one and she's going to walk down the corridor naked, or they have a stupidly huge bathroom.  Victor is totally cool with flannel guy watching his girlfriend undress and tells him he'll give him a club card to go to a club where there are lots of hot girls for him to score with.   Victor leaves the room to ask Vanka where the club card is, then starts shouting that Vanka looks like she's had a heart attack or something and asks the flannel guy to get in there.  He keeps asking flannel guy for help and flannel guy does nothing, while Victor slowly starts to collapse, he tears a bit off of flannel guys shirt as crouches over him.

And I'm sorry, movie, but you didn't manage to fake me out on this because you went out of your way to try and make Victor and Vanka look suspicious, therefore I was much more wary of this douche.   Victor tries to grab flannel guys shoe, but he steps out of his way and turns the shower off, he sits down in a chair in the ridiculously huge bathroom and gets out a mobile and calls someone saying that they are good to go.  The mirror in the bathroom folds back revealing a secret corridor, really, movie?  Two guys come in carrying large, black body bags, flannel guy throws a towel on Vanka and tells the guys to dry her off because if she gets sick, they'll have to discount her.  Then we see the two guys sealing up Victor and Vanka in the body bags and then load them into the back of a van.  Then flannel guy looks into the mirror and we get a reveal of his Elite Hunting Tattoo.

And what also appear to be some impressive track marks, what the hell, movie?

We see the van drive off down the street, in what appears to be a very American, Vegas-like city, complete with palm trees, neon lights and the title card, which is quite cleverly done.  So it appears that this movie is going to do something different and move away from the setting of the previous two movies which might work either for or against it, as I was hoping to see if they got that very amusing hostel guy back again and the kid who likes dollars and bitches.

This all fades out and we see a guy with a big bag of golf clubs kissing a girl in front of a house, an airport shuttle van pulls up and the characters decide to explain to each other who they all are, in case they'd forgotten.  The couple are Scott and Amy and they are getting married and the guy with the shuttle van is their best man, Carter whom apparently had a chance at the girl in freshman year, but blew it because he is a man-whore. 

He also really wants to be Neil Patrick Harris - he is no Neil Patrick Harris

So henceforth, this character will be called Barney.  So the guys are going on a guys weekend, come bachelor party, Amy tells Scott not to sleep with any strippers and Scott says that there are no strippers in Palm Springs.  There probably are, in fact strippers in Palm Springs, but I'm guessing Barney's going to pull the old, 'We're going to Vegas - bait and switch' that's been seen in a million sitcoms. 

In the van Barney offers offers Scott a mini bottle of drink and tells him that in a few hours he'll be snorting blow off a hot strippers ass and confirms my thoughts that in fact, they are going nowhere near Palm Springs.

The movie gives us some sweeping stock footage shots of Vegas and we see the guys in a limo, having a drink and causing mischief.  We then see what is either a badly lit old hotel/government building with snow around the ground, surrounded by a fence, or there is no snow and this is due to some shamefully poor lighting.

We see Victor wake up in a dark room, literally we can just to say see his face and hands and that's about it.  He panics for a few moments and then moves towards the camera and we see that he is in a large, container with a cage door, he starts shouting for Vanka, though it turns out her name is Anka, oh well. 

Vanka, is in a cage opposite and he shouts for her to wake up as two guys come in and open up her cage and armed with shock sticks we see that Vanka has a collar around her neck and one of the guys tries to attach a pole to the ring on the collar as they man handle her out of the room by her hair and Victor shouts at the guys to stop.

Back with Barney and Ted, I mean Scott, they check into a swish looking hotel that has pole dancers on the main gambling floor, they meet up with two other guys who are very happy that they can stare at the dancing girls and still be able to tell their wives they didn't go to a strip club.  The guys do some gambling, playing blackjack on the tables, some winning, some losing and we see a pair girls watching the boys.  One of the guys starts to talk about marriage and how he hates being married and tells Scott that he shouldn't get married.  The guy, Mike says that he hates his fat wife, then spouts some racist bullshit about Asians when an Asian dealer comes to the table to take over and so the guys decide to leave the table and discuss what they should do next.

Barney notices the two girls looking over at them, one is practically naked, the girls come over and introduce themselves as Nikki and Kendra, the guys introduce themselves and we find out their other friend is called Justin and he walks with a crutch.  Barney asks the girls to join them, Mike wants them to come to their room and get into their jacuzzi which the girls don't seem impressed by and tell the guys that they know a place that's off the strip and play the old "it might be too much for you guys" routine.

Kendra, looking crazy

Kendra looks crazy and Nikki acts like a bitch, so I have no idea why these guys would decide to follow them, I mean that's standard horror movie survival guide page 1 stuff, but these guys are dumb. 
So they set to to the girl's, off the strip, freaky place, on the way the guys share one taxi and Barney asks the driver to turn down the radio a little, which he does, whilst Scott, Justin and Mike discuss whether or not the girls were hookers. 

Scott points out that the drivers meter isn't working, the driver tells him that for the standard ride he'll charge them 20 bucks.  They pull into an alley with an abandoned factory and they question where they are, the driver asks them what they're afraid of and if they think he's going to call his friends, steal their money and cut their heads off.  The driver is now my favourite character.  So the guys get out of the taxi and go and knock on an unmarked door.  Can I point out how spectacularly stupid this is.  You're in a city which is foreign to you, you have no idea where you are, you knock on the door of an abandoned factory on the invitation of a couple of girls you have only just met, anything could happen to you.

So a guy opens the door and asks them if they are on the list, Scott tells the guy that Nikki and Kendra sent them and the guy tells them they're going to have a nice time and they should go down the hall.  The guys walk down a corridor, which looks manky as hell, Scott gets a call from Amy, Amy is wondering if she should be worried because he didn't call straight away, he says no, though he doesn't tell her that he's in Vegas.

When he has finished, Scott notices that the guys have wandered off and so he starts looking around and banging on doors, then someone bags his head from behind and he is strapped into a wheelchair and wheeled into a room where a pipe is shoved into his throat and someone starts pouring beer into a funnel.  Scott starts to choke and I'm guessing this is another bait and switch as we're only twenty minutes and 18 seconds in, the hood is removed and a naked girl climbs into Scott's lap and starts gyrating while all his friends and a whole bunch of guys start whooping and clapping around him.

Scott starts necking shots while the girl rubs up against him and Kendra and Nikki watch on.  There are lots of naked girls around the club, some dancing in cages when he is freed Scott starts talking to Kendra who tells him that she is an escort and I think it is implied that Barney has set this up some how.  Kendra drags Scott off to the "champagne room" and a girl comes up to Justin and introduces herself as Angela.

I'm wondering what kind of motivation women would have to come to this kind of club really, but the idea of Elite Hunting functioning in the US is silly enough on its own to be honest. 

The girl sees Justin's crutch and makes an excuse to leave, why, movie?  Why exactly would a woman do that?  She has no idea what's wrong with him, and neither do we, he might have broken his foot or be recovering from an accident, I could be wrong ladies, feel free to correct me, but a crutch is not an instant boner killer.  Nikki slips her card into Justin's pocket and tells him that he's too sweet and that she'll be back, but doesn't know how long Mike is going to take, so basically she's dragging Mike off for sex and then thinks Justin will be quite happy to pay for seconds. 

Scott and Kendra drink some champagne and Kendra mounts Scott and begins kissing him, Scott asks if they could just talk, she keeps trying to mount him and he puts up a small amount of fight and tells Kendra that he nearly lost his fiancée the previous year after cheating on her and he doesn't want to cheat on her again.  Kendra says that's cool and they can just hang out.

Mike and Nikki come in and Mike is obnoxious, Scott looks and says he needs air, he staggers towards the exit and goes outside, throwing up into a bin, he sees that the taxi is still waiting in the alley.

Scott tried to open the door back up, but it won't open and no one is there to hear him knocking.  The taxi driver gets out of his car and walks towards Scott, he slides down the door, collapsing, then we see a van driving through a desert road.  We see the weird old building again and in slightly better light, it appears not to be snowing.  The gates are opened and the van drives in and HAHAHA-OHWOW!  The van driver opens up a locked shutter by holding his forearm up to a panel which scans his Elite Hunting tattoo...  I wish I was making this shit up. 

The van pulls into a kind of underground car park and we get a good look at those spikey things that stop you from driving out of a car park the wrong way, so I'm guessing they're going to come into play at some point.  The screen goes dark and then we get a blurry view of a light bulb, then we see Scott and hear a very loud noise.  Scott wakes up in a room which appears to be in the city from the view out of the window and we see someone making something in a blender.  Barney greets Scott and makes fun of him for finally waking up.

Look, movie, I'm getting tired of this bait and switch shit now, can the death start happening, please? 

Barney and Justin laugh at him and ask how he got back to the hotel, Scott says that the taxi driver must have brought him back.  Scott asks where Mike is and Justin says that he went home with the hooker, then Scott calls Mike's voicemail to tell him to turn on his phone, maybe English phones just work differently, but how are you supposed to get the message if your phone is turned off? 

So because Mike is the biggest douchebag character, he is the one to wake up with a collar around his neck.  Mike is confused about where he is, thinking that he may have been set up by his friends, Victor is in the cage opposite and is trying to break down the cage door.  Protip, you need to use something in your cage, to create a lever to use on the hinges, they look pretty flimsy, simple physics. 

The guys with the shock sticks turn up and shock Victor, then drag Mike out by using the pole ring on his neck.  Mike starts begging the two guys not to hurt him and they shock him with the stick whilst Mike cries.  Mike is led to a room and placed into a chair with straps, they appear to have a much higher tech set up than the European branch, but I still think this is really stupid. 

Ok, this is different.  Some curtains pull back and we see a room with half naked girls serving drinks and men and women sat in chairs with laptops which display information about Mike on it.  I give the movie some props for trying something different, but one of the rules of elite hunting is that you're supposed to kill the person you've bought, what's with all the spectators and witnesses, isn't this a spectacularly stupid idea?  What if someone gets nervous, goes to the police, that's a lot of people you can implicate. 

Mike screams for help and on the laptops there's a weird spinning thing called the wheel of misfortune which has things on it like 'bribes', 'my family', 'threats', etc.  We see the flannel shirt guy from earlier, sans flannel, watching over everything.  An Asian girl with funky hair comes in with a guy who is obviously the cheap version of Julian Sands, because Julian Sands would have cost too much and he looks snarkily through the window at Mike. 

A man dressed in a white smock, gloves, some waterproof black trousers and carrying a medical bag enters the room, he looks around and places his finger to his lips, telling Mike to be quiet.  He opens his bag and removes a striped cloth and places it around Mike's neck while he begs him to stop.  The people's laptops begin spinning a new wheel now, which displays various weapons, it lands on drill.

 *Movie Paused* 
Whatever happens here, unless it turns out to be really funny, I'm not going to describe it, there's gore, I'm fine with gore, I'm fine with silly over the top stuff, I'm fine with a lot of the crap that the Saw movies throw at the audience, but there's some things which I think cross the line into the torture porn category, if this movie wants to say something about the audience being into torture porn by placing the camera in this way and making us look through the lens, it is suddenly less effective if you start drilling random body parts with a power drill.  I had trouble with that scene in the first movie, so I shan't be describing it if that's what happens here.
*Movie Played*

The guy in white gets out a polystyrene head from his bag and places it on the table, he then gets a white mask and places it over Mike's face and draws around it with a marker pen.  Mike starts begging again and talking about his family, a voice announces that it took less than two minutes for Mike to start talking about his family and so players, 2, 5 and 7 have beat the over-under.  The guy shoves a ball into Mike's mouth in order to gag him and then the camera starts sweeping over a weapons table. 

Now the effects here are, not great, but I'm not describing what happens, if you're that curious, watch the movie yourself. 

We return to the guys who are discussing where Mike is because they couldn't get in touch with him, Justin pulls out Nikki's card which she gave him which only has her email address on it, but from it Justin is able to find a phone number and address.  They drive into a trailer park, which is full of suspicious types and look for Nikki's trailer, which they find.  Scott accidentally pulls off the window to the trailer and decides to hop in, despite the protest of Justin.   Barney goes inside after Scott and Justin decides to wait outside.

They look through the trailer, find a bunch of strap-on's but no Mike, they decide to leave and hear a weird noise outside, they look out of the window and see an upturned chair and Justin's crutch on the floor.  A guy bursts in with a shotgun, followed by Kendra who pistol-whips Barney in the face and ask what the hell they are doing there and why they have broken into Nikki's trailer.

Scott explains that they just want to talk to Nikki to find out where Mike is, Kendra says that she can't ask her because Nikki never came home, shocker.  How dumb is this branch of the Elite Hunting Club?  If you steal enough local people, someone is going to notice.  We cut to flannel guy, still sans flannel, looking through a rack of clothing.  He selects an old cheerleading uniform and places them over Nikki who is strapped to a bed and ball-gagged.

We then see Nikki dressed up in the cheerleader outfit, strapped to a table, a guy speaks to her in a language I am not familiar with, then squirts some liquid into her mouth and over her chest.  He then...  you know, I'm beginning to think this movie, really sucks, he grabs a cockroach and goes to put it on her, then changes his mind and talks to the cockroach, then he tilts the bed she strapped to so it is horizontal and pours the cockroaches onto her and they climb inside her mouth.

This is a stupid movie.

So Barney, Justin, Scott and Kendra get into a car and decide to start looking for the missing Mike and Nikki at the club where they last saw them while Kendra lectures them on how fake Vegas is.  Justin thinks they should call the police, Kendra says that in Vegas the police don't consider someone missing till they've been gone a week.  Vegas PD disagree with Kendra.

We see flannel guy still sans flannel, handle Nikki's body in front of a furnace, a cockroach comes out of her mouth and he freaks out a bit, before squashing it and getting out his phone and taking a picture of Nikki.  At this point, we still don't know if Mike is alive or not.  Justin gets a text from Mike saying that he crashed all day and Nikki is with him and they get a photo of Nikki dead, which the text says she's asleep.  It's lucky they killed her by choking her with cockroaches isn't it, movie?  Just as creepy as the photo of the decapitated Icelandic guy from the first movie, totally on the same level.

They get another text telling them to meet Nikki and Mike in room 9 asap with a map, because motorola razor's can totally do that.  Barney, Scott and Kendra enter a hostel, so it isn't an artifact title and Justin elects to stay inside the car. Inside room 9 they find Nikki's purse and Mike's phone with a note saying they have stepped out and should grab and beer and chill. 

Barney inspects himself in the mirror while Kendra and Scott argue and two guys burst in, one via door, one via mirror and they gas the group.  This band of Elite Hunting are drawing an awful amount of attention to themselves, they could have left a note saying that they are going somewhere and Mike would be back home in a week and then just left them to it and it would have been much easier.

In the car Justin sees the two guys loading bags into the back of their van and so gets out of the car, he is then accosted by flannel guy, who tells him that Mike is looking for him and was too drunk to walk.  Flannel guy sprays something in Justin's face, Justin whacks him with his crutch, but then Justin passes out so they load Justin into the van as well.

So at the Elite Hunting containment cages, Barney is throwing a wobbly, Scott is sat about, Kendra is still passed out and Justin has been given his crutch....  for some reason and Victor is still alive.  HOW, movie, HOW?!?

Victor tells them that when it's their turn someone will come for them, the two guys enter and he shouts at the guys to come for him, but they take Justin.  Barney starts shouting at the guy to come over and oh my god, the movie manages to pull a twist off that I didn't see coming.

He's one of them... 

The guy instantly lets Barney out of the cage, Scott asks what's going on, Barney tells him that it's Elite Hunting Club and it's members only, leaving Scott to it.  I predict his death shall be a painful one.  Barney is taken to an office with a half naked girl and flannel guy, the girl pours him a drink and the knock off Julian Sands comes into the office.  He apologises to Barney for the inconvenience of what happened to him, it turns out he's made a special request and since Barney is a top-tier client, they have actually considered it.  To be honest, this knock off Julian Sands guy is a mumbler, so I have no idea what's going on, but he and flannel guy leave and Barney turns to face a monitor which is showing Justin strapped to a chair.

Justin is ball-gagged and the room he is in fills with smoke, when it starts to clear a little we see a lady all dressed up in some weird gear carrying a cross bow.  She shoots it at Justin, a few times, in places that look like they would hurt a lot, she pulls the ball gag out of his mouth and he whispers to her that it's ok, then she kills him.  Making Justin the bravest guy in this movie so far.

Flannel guy, still sans flannel, comes back into the room and tells Barney that it's show time.  Victor is having a bit of a rant, bless him for lasting this long, Scott sits and pouts, Kendra's still passed out.  The two guys come back in the room as Kendra wakes up and they grab Scott and she asks where they are taking him.  They make Scott put on a nice tux, so I can see where this is going, Barney wants to kill Scott so he can have his girlfriend Amy for himself. 

Back in the betting room a voice announces they are onto their main event, Scott is of course strapped to the chair and Barney enters the room dressed up in a tux himself.  This is really stupid by the way, movie, he has motive, motive is how you get caught.  Barney starts talking some crazy talk about some knives they have brought for him and how he used one to skin a girl alive for his first kill and now he's losing the rush so he needed to kill someone who mattered.  Barney says that Mike deserved to die, but Justin didn't, though Scott does because he wants Amy.

He reveals that he told Amy that Scott cheated on her and he will console her when she finds out that Scott is dead and so he revs up a chainsaw.  Outside the room, Julian Sands knock-off and flannel guy watch and Flannel guy makes a call, instructing someone to 'let him go', with Scott free, he grabs a sword so that he and Barney can go to a sword vs chainsaw battle. 

why is there a scan tag on the wall?

Barney is disarmed by Scott, he grabs a mace and he and Scott continue to battle it out, Scott tries to escape through the door, but as Barney jumps on him, Scott ends up pulling a cord which releases the smoke into the room.  He grabs a knife and begins to stab Barney repeatedly as he lies on the ground and the audience watching this stands up and whoops and cheers.  We then see that Scott has sliced off Barney's tattoo and uses it on the door scanner, he walks into the corridor carrying a weapon and then we cut back to Victor in his cage.  He godes one of his captors into coming to him and managed to grab his shock stick and uses it to shock the guard.

He grabs the guards keys and escapes and then shoves the shock stick into the guards mouth and shocks him until he kills him.  Scott managed to kill or at least severely injure a guard in the corridor, while another one shoots at him, Victor then gets one of the other guards to chase him by shooting at him and the building is then alerted to the escaping prisoners.  Victor manages to slip the guards and finds a fire axe.

Oh no, I've stumbled into the props department!

Scott manages to find a pile of phones and looks for one which works whilst Victor starts attacking the buildings electricity cables, knocking out the power to the building.  Victor manages to axe one of the guards to death, but takes a direct shotgun blast to the chest for his trouble, meaning that the last badass character of the movie is now dead, unless the taxi driver should appear again. 

Scott finds a working phone and calls 911, flannel guy comes looking for him, with a gun, Scott leaves the phone on the ground and manages to slip flannel guy and the knock-off Julian Sands tells everyone to calm down and they will be escorted out.  Flannel guy calls him and tells him that the police have been called, he tells flannel guy to kill everyone so there are no witnesses.  This is fucking stupid.  How many high paying clients can you actually afford to bump off?  How easy is it to find people willing to join Elite Hunting Club?

Scott finds the dead Victor and guard and takes the shotgun, he then goes back and rescues Kendra from her cage, as they are escaping however, flannel guy shoots Kendra in the ass and chases after Scott.  The knock off Julian Sands activates the building's self destruct sequence, really, movie?

Oh look whose still alive

Barney stabs the knock off guy to death, setting off his car alarm.  Scott finds his way into the boiler room where he finds the body of Justin and Mike, not really sure what killed Mike to be honest, but he's pretty dead when flannel guy runs in with a clever and cuts his head in half.  Scott uses the clever on flannel guys arm and hacks it off and throws it into the furnace. 

Barney throws the knock-off guy out of the car and prepares to drive out while Scott beats flannel guy to death with Justin's crutch.  Barney grabs knock off guy and puts him over the floor spikes we saw earlier, then drives over him.  Scott runs out of the building, chasing down Barney in the car, Barney gets back out of the car and locks the gates of the building before getting back in the car and driving off as the building explodes.  Really, movie?  I'm actually quite shocked at this.

So Scott is trapped at the fence in the explosion and Barney drives off into the desert as the building burns and we cut to an urn and Barney comforting Amy, placing the blame on himself that it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't taken Scott to Vegas and hugging Amy, it's all a pretty good act really.  Amy then asks Barney to stay because she doesn't want to be alone, she then offers Barney a drink, she goes and gets a bottle and then stabs Barney through the hand with a wine cork. 

Surprise!

So, Scott's alive, even though he was about five feet away from a huge explosion with tones of debris and there's no way he could have survived and Amy's fine with killing a person, instead of them going to the police. 

They strap Barney to a chair in the garage and Scott chooses a lawnmower from a selection of weapons and uses it to kill Barney with, off screen, end of movie.

Summary:

What a stupid fucking movie this is.   For the record, I checked on imdb after watching the movie, the flannel guy's name was Travis, if only he had fucking said it in the movie, that would have been helpful. 

I am wondering if the people who made this movie actually watched part 2 because part 2 did a bang up job of going into detail about how the operation works and why it would only work in a place like Slovenia and it would not at all work in America.  Obviously, it didn't work in America, but really, why would you set one up there when the Slovenian operation was working pretty well and if you can afford the prices that killing a person costs, you can afford a few flights.

The Slovenian operation was pretty tight as well, they had security and transport pretty much down, it was due to the stupidity of the characters that one of the girls ended up being able to get free in the second movie.  So not only do I not buy the premise, they didn't even try to make it believable.  Ok they tried something different, it didn't work, but anyone should have been able to see why it wasn't going to work.

It would have been a pretty bold move to let Barney win in the end, but of course, they didn't do that and to be honest, I think the movie is the poorer for it.  There are two really likeable characters in this movie, Victor and Justin.  Victor is awesome, Victor deserved to live, he fought his way out of there like a mad man.  Justin also was awesome, Justin didn't cry or beg, he told his killer that he forgave them, that makes him pretty awesome in my book and I wish they were the protagonists of this movie.

Scott was not a good protagonist, he didn't cheat on his girlfriend, but he wasn't really putting up much of a fight, he was totally cool with stabbing his friend and then chopping up some other guy and then lawnmowering someone to death.

The second movie took it back for the girls, it really did, the girls were awesome characters and everything they did made sense.  This movie made girls useless again, it turned them into sex objects who might as well not have been there in the first place, take them out and the movie would not change all that much to be honest.

I'd say if you were a hostel fan, it would be worth watching so you could take the piss out of it, but otherwise, skip it, it's not really worth the effort of trying to ignore all the gaping plot holes.

4 & 1/2 out of 10

Edit:  According to some theories online, some people now think that Barney's intention was to have Scott kidnapped by Elite Hunting all along and Mike was grabbed by mistake, and instead of reporting said mistake or at least making an inquiry about it, Barney then waited until they all got captured.  I think this theory would make sense, but if that was their intention they weren't very fucking clear about it.