Reviews: "Hostel: Part III" and "The Innkeepers"
First, I look at the Eli Roth-less sequel to "Hostel." The shocking part is that it went a full hour before someone said "what happens in Vegas..."
And I check out Ti West's new film, which is available via On Demand.
And I check out Ti West's new film, which is available via On Demand.
A good review as always. I wish that The Hangover had a dark sequel.
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dude i agreed with every single point you made during the hostel 3 review. its uncanny, EVERY single point
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Hostel: Part III the Hangover 3
I wasn't interested in this one really as I normally hate direct to DVD cash in sequels to movies, but from your opinion Cabin Fever 2 is pretty good!?
So, it a sequel written by and directed by guys that made nothing but sequels?
I'm curious of your thoughts of From Dusk til Dawn 3? As it's basically the 1st movie but set in the old west.
Oh i head of a movie today I want to see you review it's called Bad Ass and stars Danny Trajo! XD
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I basically agree with you on hostel 3 but at the same time disagree... I can't explain it better but I'll try.
So basically what I feel about the Hostel series is that I would rather eat broken glass than watch any of them again, regardless of director. I wouldn't watch any of them again if they were the only movies on an island I was trapped upon for the rest of my life. But I might least think about the 3rd movie. It was awful but for me it was awful in a way that made me laugh and laugh and laugh, I felt like I was laughing at some children programing but I laughed away. It was incompetent in so many ways I couldn't take even a single moment of it seriously. That might have been because I wanted it to be awful, I needed it to be awful. Oh I hated it, fucking hated it, but I hated in an interesting way. So basically I agree with you it was one of the worst movies I've seen this year but at least I was amused during it.
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I know exactly what you mean. Brian watched the movie with me, and we both laughed quite frequently at how bad it was.
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The Innkeepers
Never heard of this one! I'll look deeper into it! Ti West? I knew that sounded familiar!
Gotta love how you go from a guy talking about a horror film to a kid playing and talking to his pet cat in the blink of an eye!
Is this the kind of ghost movie with the killer ghost that can only be at rest once their murder is solved or the kind that they are just evil for the sake of being evil!?
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Great review, Brad. Agreed, Hostel 3 sucked, but I actually liked the actual ending more than if the asshole would've gotten away.
Oh, also... I have something that I'd like to send to you from my country for "Brad tries", what adress to people usually send this kind of stuff to?
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I saw "The Inkeepers" at the German Fantasy Film Fest last year and i totally loved it. I second everything, Brad said. Excellent characters, so you really care about what happens to them or not. Witty dialogue, fantastic chemistry between the two lead actors and really, really, really scary stuff. The most effective Horror film i have seen for a long time.
I haven't seen a Ti West film before, but after "The Inkeepers" i really need to get his earlier movies.
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Bratislava isn't exactly "in the middle of nowhere", though. It's Slovakia's largest city.
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It's in Europe. I suppose from an American point of view that alone meets the "in the middle of nowhere" criteria.
I am, of course, joking!
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The Innkeepers was filmed about ten minutes away from my house! great reviews Brad!
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You should watch The Roost, it´s a great movie
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Oooh...faced!
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Hostel 3 bug scene could have been so much better. instead, wrong camera angles and poor stylistic choices ruined what possibly could have been the scene of the year. i will stick to "They Are Creeping up on You".
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Those weren't stylistic choices...it was just shitty film making.
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On the note about the roaches in Hostel III, I recently read that in the big bee scene from "Candyman", Tony Todd actually had bees in his mouth and Virginia Madsen (who is allergic) was ACTUALLY covered in bees.
I don't even know why I watched this movie but it was indeed bloody awful. Though had it ended with whats-his-face just driving away from the explosion, it would have pissed me off more. Mostly because I predicted every fucking point in this piece of shit (including the ending that was in the movie) and him getting away with it would have broken my streak
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I see R.O.B. in the background!
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6:00
Do I hear trains in the background?
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I enjoyed The Innkeepers a lot, but I have to disagree and say I thought House of the Devil was better. Oh well.
Also, I haven't seen Hostel: Part III, nor do I have any desire to, but a good friend of mine did some of the gore make-up effects, so at least it had SOME practical effects...?
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Also, The Innkeepers is getting a theatrical release on Feb. 3
And Hostel: Part III is getting a single theatrical showing in Michigan for the cast and crew... tonight... and I know because I have to go set up the DVD player on the projector right now.
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Is that an anime dvd/video on your table next to your remote? Just being nosey
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The moment you said "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer", this movie was doomed.
That echo you hear in the distance is Phelous shouting "ZOMBIE FISHERMAN???!!!"
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After watching your Hostel review (and I admit to never having seen the first and only seeing the ending of the second (and movies like that aren't my cup of tea)), I can't get the idea out of my head of a twist sequel to the Hangover movies.
Hostel Hangover!
I just see it like you joked about; it starts with the regular hijinks and goofy drunk/hungover comedy then we get blindsided by another movie in which the guys celebrating a bachelor party are captured and brutally tortured.
At least it would make a good comedy trailer, probably not a whole movie.
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I am one of the few people who likes Eli Roth and Cabin Fever and his Hostel films. I don't mind the whole torture porn subgenre, nor do I mind the "unlikable"-style characters.
Any I find it odd you compare Roth's influence on horror to be the same level of badness as PG-13 horror, if only because Roth wants to end that trend.
Well, to each their own.
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He wants to end that trend, but at the same time he's making movies that are just as bad, or worse. Just because it's "R" doesn't mean it's good.
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I saw the Innkeepers at Toronto After Dark back in October. Utterly fantastic ghost story. I would say it is a must-see for anyone who likes spooky movies. Almost flawless.
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To this day I believe Cabin Fever is one of the very worst films ever made. Hostel, the first half comedy section is crass, crude and stupid. But the revenge murder in the toilet is actually really good. Hostel 2, the actors all do a good job, but the film is utter crap. Eli Roth can't write a good story and all his characters are horrible, except the ones who die in the fist 20 minutes or so. I think that says a lot about him. I so wanted hostel 3 to be good just so I could say, see even a low budget straight to DVD effort is better than anything that mono-brow plonker Roth can make and it is actually worse.
I liked the Innkeepers a lot. Good characters and well made. Another really creepy little ghost story is The Skeptic and thats a PG too.
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I have to disagree with you on "Hostel 2." I thought it was a pretty decent thriller, with a very disturbing final 15 minutes. Roger Bart made an excellent villain. It was, in any case, a vast improvement over the first film.
The first "Hostel" movie is one of the worst pieces of shit I've ever seen. I'd honestly put it in the top 20 or 30 worst movies of all-time. It has the production values of a made-for-TV movie, the gore FX are terrible, the acting is horrendous, the movie has some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard in any movie, particularly as the lines "I'm the king of the swing, of course, my horse." are repeated over and over and over again. The story makes no sense, and peters out at the end into nothing. The guy getting his fingers chopped off, then putting on a glove (instead of bandages or rubbing alcohol or something), and not even wincing for the rest of the movie, was 100% bullshit. Worst of all, the story was just plain old mean-spirited, as all of the torture movies generally are.
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I agree that Hostel is bad, but I do like the revenge murder in the toilet.
Hostel 2, as I said I think the actors do a good job, but I don't like the film at all.
In all honesty I think Eli Roth pretty much talentless.
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Holy shit its Kunt Ti West
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I looked up Ti West and one of his next movies http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1122541081/ looks pretty awesome! Like an unrated hour and a half to two hour long episode of A 1,000 Ways to Die!
Have you seen this yet?
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Not entirely sure, but i think that both movies listed as his next are 'just' collections of themed short stories where west is doing a segment along other directors. I think theres a bigger project waiting to be announced
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Totally agree about "The Innkeepers". I rarely see a new horror movie with such good characters, suspense and atmosphere. There are even some genuinely frightening scenes in there. I think it's on par with The House of the Devil. I also agree about the funny scenes. Like the scene where Claire is trying to throw the garbage. This could have turned into a David Zucker-slapstick scene, but somehow it turns out feeling very genuine and naturally funny. Looking forward to Ti West's next movie.
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Hey Brad,
Bill Weir did a piece on ABC News about just how awful The Devil Inside is, and how almost nobody likes it. He even shows youtube clips of an audience opening booing the ending credits, and brings on experts to talk about how great a job Paramount's marketing department did selling it.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/devil-inside-worst-movie-15326760
So yeah, the sheer awfulness of The Devil Inside made national network news. If it makes much more money, I think the President is going to have to address the nation...
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Well Brad, it made 34 million dollars this weekend... there's gonna be a sequel, I'm sure.
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Brad, if you're reading this, I'm begging you while standing on my knees: please..PLEASE...please, please, please, please, PLEASE review the "Grotesque" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotesque_(2009_film) ). I perfectly understand that your cut-out date is 1995, or something, but...please, make an exception this one time?
Come on, everyone, let's all ask Brad to do this particular movie's review!
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Speaking of Kelly McGillis, has anyone seen 'Stake Land'? She plays a rape-slave-nun, but its way classy.
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"The worst thing to happen to horror movies since the PG-13 rating"...
...really?
Brad, you are a nice guy, and I want to like you, but it's hard for me to do so when you say stuff like this!
Look, here is a short list of sucessful horror movies that AREN'T rated R:
-Coraline
-Drag Me to Hell
-Poltergeist
-Gremlins
-Frankenweenie
-King Kong (the 1933 original, rated TV-PG)
-Frankenstein (the 1931 version, rated TV-PG)
-The Wolf Man (the 1941 version, rated TV-PG)
-Dracula (the 1931 version, rated TV-PG)
-The Mummy (the 1932 version, rated TV-PG)
-The Sixth Sense (one of the GOOD Shyamalan movies)
-Hellboy (not an horror movie per se, but very close)
Horror is all about suspense, mood, excitement and good writing. It has nothing to do with ratings.
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For those who have seen The Innkeepers, is it anything like Insidious? The trailer makes it seem very similar to Insidious, which I loved.
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Hostel became more about the freaking GORGEOUS strippers/porn stars like Ashley Robbins being the fanservice nudity to me.
The only other parts of them to even bother watching them for was to see how people would be killed much like a Saw movie, except more like a parody of them.
The plot was beyond saving after the second one honestly, hell the first one even.
Anyways, I hate Brad for reminding me that From Dusk Till Dawn 2 exists. Killing Bruce Campbell in the first 10 minutes and not even having him come back as a KICK ASS Vampire was a giant FUCK YOU! to the audience.
Also, Eli Roth isn't a real writer/director, he's just Howard Stern's ex intern that caught a break through connections he made while doing that. In other words, a male star f'er..
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I watched "The Innkeepers" after watching your review here and I am so glad I did. I never would have even heart of it if it wasn't for your site and it really is a GOOD movie.
I keep watching horror movies that aren't really "horror" as they aren't scary and more gross than anything else. I feel so disappointed when I go to see these things and end up watching, essentially, the same film with different actors. The last horror movie I had fun at was "Friday the 13th" but that's only because I was REALLY drunk and I was with a group of friends who joined me in riffing the whole thing. So it was only fun because of the company I was in. Otherwise, it's like watching 90 minute long cliché-fest. I doubt I could watch it sober and enjoy it at all.
"The Innkeepers," was so good. It really bothers me that it didn't get a mainstream theatrical release, because this genre is sorely lacking in interesting, genuinely frightening movies. It had a couple moments that had me freaking out quite a bit and I'm just so jaded from jump scares and gore that it surprised me. The scene in the cellar at the end... Wow. And the sound editing? The lighting? The ACTING? Incredible.
So, thank you, Brad, for reviewing "The Innkeepers" and informing us that it exists. It was thoroughly enjoyable.
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