What Happens In Vegas Dies In Vegas

When Eli Roth’s Hostel hit cinemas way back in 2006, the horror industry took note in a way that would, in the opinions of many a purist, damn the mainstream for some time. Due to the juggernaut success of the then-fresh Saw series, Hostel’s box office boom cemented the so-called torture porn subgenre as a viable, financially sound investment for theatrical releases.

What followed was mostly uninspired cash-ins like The Collector and Captivity before audiences grew tired of dark lighting and disembowelments. The real shame in all this is that perhaps the subgenre’s best film—Hostel: Part II—was simply made too late. By 2007, everyone from George Romero to New York Magazine were tired of Saw-ish style, and though Roth’s sequel was smart and satirical, critics and ticketbuyers were simply too tired to give it a chance.

Hostel: Part III is the franchise’s first go-around without Roth onboard. In some ways, this particular threequel debuts (to DVD) with a lot of pressure on its bloody shoulders: can this become a profitable series on premise alone? Is there more to say about people paying for the chance to kill other people, and more importantly, will audiences want to listen?

Or should I just get to the face-peeling already…

Quick Plot: Just like that movie everyone talks about that I haven’t seen The Hangover, a group of good(ish) looking late 20somethings are heading to Vegas for token dull dude Scott’s bachelor party. On board is the wealthy best man Carter, handicapped nice guy Justin, and token obnoxious cretin Mike.  

Mike is a gem. Married to a wife he just loves to call fat, with kids who are surely better off by the end of the film for losing their hate-filled daddy, Mike is marked as Victim #1. After a whole lot of false starts, we finally get to see that transformation happen. With a twist.

The smartest thing Hostel: Part III does is play around with its pre-established formula. The earlier films took place in Eastern Europe, a beautiful and, to common American tourists, generally unchartered region where being abducted is hardly out of the question. Moving the action to the recognizable lands of casinos and vice was a risk, but because Michael D. Weiss’ script has a few tricks up its sleeve, the gamble pays off (ba dom bump Vegas pun, amiright?). We recognize the business of Elite Hunting, with a few new Sin City-appropriate touches.

Hostel was a great idea executed with a little too mean execution. Hostel: Part II was a genuinely clever followup where it felt as though Roth was both expanding his universe and fixing what didn’t work about his original (unlikable protagonists, unabashed misogyny, nameless villains). Scott Spiegel’s Hostel: Part III is far lighter in scope and tone, but it’s quite enjoyable as a continuation of the series. Though the characters are a little too forgettable, their plight is filled with surprises, be it false starts, creepy masks, villainous turns, or suffocation by cockroach.

All part of the fun.

High Points

The opening scene is both entertaining on its own and a great blueprint for the rest of the film to follow: as the previous films showed, you really never know who to trust when it comes to secret societies. Throughout Hostel: Part III, that’s a theme that constantly gets put into play

Low Points

I understand that much like the first film, the men on display are supposed to be alpha male wannabe misogynists who lead you to wonder if they get what’s coming to them. That would be fine if all the crass dialogue was restricted to a character like Mike. But why then put such ugly dialogue in everyone’s mouths? The gang sans Mike seems to revel in discovering the prostitutes they paid for live in mobile homes and can thusly be referred to as trailer trash, while a Ukranian prisoner repeatedly screams"f*ggot" while kicking his guard. It leaves an ugly taint on the entire script that makes it hard to say the film isn't, once again, misogynist, racist, sexist, and so on

Lessons Learned

In Vegas, you have to be missing a full week before the cops care to start looking

No matter what your fiancée may say, when his overgrown frat boy friends whisk him away for a weekend of bachelor fun, yes, yes you should indeed be worried

Airbags are great stabilizers for stabbings

Rent/Bury/Buy

Hostel: Part III is not the surprise gem that its predecessor was, but I think I can safely say I enjoyed it far more than the original. The Vegas setting adds necessary refreshment, bringing with it plenty of new quirks in the every-expanding Elite Hunting empire. If the franchise continues to roam the globe in search of new locales, I’ll be happily queuing it up on Instant Watch for years to come. This isn’t really worth a buy or investment of cash, but it’s a well-made straight-to-DVD horror film that has plenty of fun with itself. Give it a spin.

Go Fish

Sunday. 10 AM. This:

Quick Plot: It’s a “big financial week” for Lake Victoria as spring break sends in all the obnoxious, tanned, and impressively trim twentysomethings for a few days of wearing bathing suits and dancing on boats to the whooing! of overly excited extras. Sheriff Julie Forester (played by Elisabeth Shue, aka the World’s Greatest Babysitter) prepares for the usual drunken shenanigans while her likable teenage son Jake stumbles upon the role of location scout for a Girls Gone Wild-esque production company.

It’s the dream job for any high schooler, but Jake's smile fades quickly due to the intense Joe Francis-ness of a hammy Jerry O’Connell and last minute invitation of his crush, Kelly (notable only for the fact that she’s played by a Gossip Girl cast member). Sure, that’s a bummer, but the sunny day gets even worse when the town discovers their wet t-shirt contests are being judged above a school of prehistoric and pretty hungry piranhas...in 3D!

Yes, there are boobs, Jaws references (despite the absence of a mayor, it seems to be an unspoken law to not close the water), boobs, penis feasts, boobs, and even actual breast implants (specifically). The primary characters are pretty much transported directly from Eight Legged Freaks and the story, rushed and to the point. Like a lot of recent creature feature fare, Piranha 3D has a knowing goofiness about itself that simply wants you to be happy. It’s almost like the movie is a cold bottle of beer thrusting itself into your mouth (but not in a rape way).

This is not to say Piranha 3D is an instant classic (one of my least favorite oxymorons) or the best popcorn flick since Orville Redenbocker discovered butter,. The movie has its flaws but like last year’s My Bloody Valentine, it knows its audience and has fun giving them what they paid for. The gloriously gruesome mass lake massacre is like a Jersey Shore viewer’s wet dream, made even juicier by the inclusuion of Eli Roth’s head getting squished by a piranha-scared boat.

High Points

I won’t reveal the opening cameo, but rest assured it’s a pretty great way to start a summer movie based in the water (even if mysterious guest star did walk through me without saying excuse me back in October)

Great Scott! Look who’s back:

Low Points

Though I dodged my usual 3D inspired headache, I did find myself squinting in minor pain in trying to decipher the piranhas through the foggy darkness. I understand that the lake was supposed to be polluted, but couldn’t there have been some sort of problem solving plot twist, like how piranhas urinate with cleansing light?

Note this guy is in a lighted aquarium. And he's still shady!

The Winning Line

“Hit it DJ Chocolate Thunder!”

I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to become my new go-to catchphrase

Lessons Learned

The reason to study pole dancing is primarily for developing life skills in order to escape carnivorous fish

Girls, how many Saw IVs and Piranha 3Ds do you have to see before you get it: when in a horror movie, pack a hair tie and for the love of Pantene, USE IT!

Piranhas eat humans in the same way shy girls on dates eat ribs, i.e., leaving most of the good meat on the bone

See/Skip/Sneak In

I’m starting to wonder if the new 3D trend is more to prevent theater hopping than to just juke up the ticket prices. This is a movie that doesn’t necessarily warrant $15 (though my cinema apparently has a $9 early bird show, making me thankful for my inner 75 year old) but it’s a darn good time that I thoroughly enjoyed. Summer cinema at its trashiest.

xoxo

What Goes Best With a Tux? Flesh Eating Bacteria, That’s What!

Cabin Fever was one of the oddest theatrical releases of the early 21st century, an overexcited, occasionally refreshing and often annoying mix of over-the-top gore, crass comedy, ‘80s homage, and pancakes. Perhaps then it’s only fitting that its sequel comes with a bucket of offscreen controversy and onscreen sloppiness.

In case you didn’t have your hopefully still attached ear to the horror news networks these past few months, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever was directed (near completely) by House of the Devil  golden boy Ti West, who pleaded fruitlessly to have his name removed from the credits. Word on the virtual street is that West disagreed with producers over the final cut during the post-production process, eventually stepping away from the project and letting the Powers That Be Lionsgate finish the film as they saw fit.

It shows.

Quick Plot: Top-billed Rider Strong reprises his quickly rotting role as he flees the titular cabin and gets splattered by an early morning school bus. Familiar local cop Winston (Guiseppe Andrews) misdiagnoses the gunk as moose and an animated credits reel reveal the town water soon to be bottled is infected by that same flesh-eating virus that tore through many pretty people in Eli Roth’s original.

We quickly move on to typical high school politics, where smart senior John (Deadgirl ’s jerk Noah Segan, still traveling via bicycle) pines for pretty, popular, and recently-broken-up-from-her-samurai-wannabe-psycho-boyfriend Cassie while chubby pal Alex smoothly enjoys a quickie--real quickie--from a randomly easy classmate. A frog dissection and near suspension later, it’s prom night (cue the song! seriously) and the high school’s a’hoppin’ with a disco beat.

If you’ve heard anything about Cabin Fever 2, it’s probably that this is not the film to watch while eating nachos. See, there’s a lot of blood, and guts, and viral warts on private parts, and bloodier semen than Wilhem Dafoe’s Antichrist  climax. That being said, it’s also really not that...well...disturbing.

Or particularly good.

As the school dance kicks in, Cabin Fever 2 kicks into gear with a gymnasium-full viral spread that starts with a poisoned water, infected urine-spiced punch bowl. An awkward sex scene between the prom king and token obese outcast in a pool seems only to hint at something interesting, while the dance floor erupts into a lightning fast bloodbath before the prom queen can give what was sure to be an Obama-esque speech. In almost no time (the movie is under 80 minutes, after all), we’re left with John, Cassie, Alex, and a few unexplained gun-toting officials trying to survive amid lots of gooey grossness.

Oh! And of those 80 minutes, about 28 or so are randomly assigned to Winston’s Adventures as the enigmatic, if also annoying and baffling cop hangs out with Judah Frielander and hits the road in his cousin’s van. While I enjoy the pure weirdness of Andrews’ oddball character, nothing in this storyline (if you can really call it that) ever feels in line with the rest of the film, making the many diversions to his aimless lollygagging an incredibly wasted amount of screen time with no real payoff.

On one side, we have a humorous, but also occasionally heartfelt teenage gorefest built on occasional suspense and realistically drawn characters. On the other, a simply bizarre and directionless tale of a dimwit. I kind of enjoyed the persistence Cabin Fever 2 had in NOT being your typical by the numbers sequel, but it was, much like its basis, all over the place, further scattered by a tacked-on, far too long 10 minute epilogue following a high school stripper.

I can’t really say where Ti West’s involvement ended, but the lack of a strong directorial touch in the editing finish is uncomfortably felt in the latter half of Cabin Fever 2. Honestly, I don’t know that this would be anywhere near a classic had he stayed on board throughout, but the messiness of plotting--much like the original--makes the viewing experience simply strange.

A recent article in Shock Till You Drop offered one tidbit by producer Lauren Moews explaining how fitting it was that Cabin Fever 2 was edited by the same woman responsible for several John Waters’ films, and there are indeed some similarities. West gives us plenty of gratuitously ick-heavy moments that dare the audience to look away, like a prematurely ended-by-puke lap dance or intensely detailed fingernail peel (the only one that got me wincing). There are plenty of refreshing little quirks that keep the film fun and it’s hard to argue with any movie that recycles the only great thing about Prom Night (namely, Jamie Lee Curtis’ disco tune). At the same time, it’s impossible to care about anything when the film seems so insistent on not taking itself seriously.

High Points

There’s some nifty practical effects at work, like an early diner scene featuring a blood-squirting voicebox

West tows a careful line with his high school characters, using honored archetypes but imbuing them with interesting enough spins, like the ex-boyfriend’s Japanophile quirks and John’s surprisingly refreshing honesty with his dreamgirl (not deadgirl)

Low Points

An overly headache inducing fire extinguisher attack would be impressive if we hadn’t seen it before in The Signal or Irreversible

We don’t need--or really want--a huge backstory in fluffy romp like this, but the fact that the army or FDA or FBI or whoever the men with guns and gas cans are never explained is one more missing piece in a film not fully put together

A few moments of tension are broken when you realize how ridiculous they play out. Would the soldiers--or whoever it is patrolling the school, see previous Low Point--really not hear the kids escape an empty classroom 4 seconds after exiting themselves?

Lessons Learned

William Katt’s Carrie tuxedo never goes out of style

Bitches value spite and money

If getting a touch of infected blood on your skin will infect you, then running said hand through a buzzsaw and watching the blood squirt all over your face will surely be the cure

Rent/Bury/Buy

Cabin Fever 2 is a manic viewing experience, but not completely devoid of charm. Fans of the original will probably get a kick out of it, as it shares much of the crass humor, all-out gore, and smarter-than-your-average teen sensibilities. If I believed in officially rating films, this one would fall in the negative side. I can't say I liked it (mostly because I didn't like it) but it's not a complete waste of 80 minutes, especially if you're simply too curious to let it pass you by.

How to Succeed In Sequels

More than any other film genre, horror has thrived--and sometimes shriveled--with the onslaught of sequels. From forced character crossovers to flashback riddled running times (is there even ten minutes of original content between the first round of followups to The Hills Have Eyes and Silent Night, Deadly Night?), it’s easy to mess up a sequel. But you know what? Pumpkins are in season, I'm high on candy corn, and the positivity is pumping, so let’s instead take a moment to consider some of the smart choices sequels have made in continuing a good story: 

Expanded Mythology

The true beauty of a sequel is that it can take a premise people found interesting the first go ‘round and attack it from a new angle, such as the Cenobite-heavy chambers of Hellraiser II. While it's true that many a sequel runs the risk of revealing too much (thereby negating some of the mystery that occasionally defines a first film) others seize upon the potential. Eli Roth's Hostel, for example, was a better idea than film, but his followup used the now established setup of a capitalist torture show to fully explore what audiences were drawn to in the first place. Instead of wasting time with standard protagonists, Roth gave us a briefer intro to much more likable women, then promptly delved into Elite Hunting and its own financiers. The result was a quick moving and smartly done film that found just the right note to revisit Slovakia.

Other films are less successful, but not always in a sacrilegious way. The philosophically horrific Cube series debuted as one of the most surprisingly intriguing films of the ‘90s, while a few straight-to-cable/dvd sequels attempted to take an incredible concept and try it with a different recipe. Cube 2 :Hypercube plays with the math, hints at its origin, and shoots itself with a horrid title worth of an Atari game while Cube Zero (arguably a prequel) goes behind the scenes to pose new questions. Neither is anywhere near as satisfying as Vincenzo Natali's original, which works precisely because we ultimately know nothing but what our own fears project. Still, if you watch Parts 2 & 3 as if they’re pieces of fan fiction blown up to feature length, both work on their own terms, sort of ‘what-ifs’ to a question that should never actually be answered.

Remakes In Sequels’ Designer Clothing

The world would be a far less groovy place had Sam Raimi ended the adventures of Ash in 1981. Yes, The Evil Dead is a great gooey film, but it's his first sequel that cements Bruce Campbell's status as an icon among the undead. Only quibble? It's not really a sequel if the first half hour retells the original story.

Sometimes, a filmmaker decides that directing a second film is code for second chance. In the case of The Evil Dead, this minor lapse of originality works because Raimi takes the good and makes it better with more money. We forgive the fact that Ash and Linda had already made a fateful trip to that cabin in the woods because even within the constraints of the same story, Raimi uses such a different energy that we end up with a completely different film not only from its original, but from just about every other film that had come before it.

Keep the Story Consistent

Say what you want about the juggernaut success of the Saw series, but has there ever been a 6 film franchise with such an excessively complicated spiderweb of a plot? Haters like to attack Lions Gate’s posterchild for its grisly suspenseless violence and contrived characters, but I continue to argue that this is, in many ways, one of the tightest (at least by script) franchises in the horror genre. With occasional flashbacks (and inventive ways to utilize the now deceased Jigsaw himself), each film has continued the story with something of a six degrees of separation mentality. A minor character from Part 2 returns to head Part 4, while missing characters reappear with believable, if somewhat logistically stretched explanations as to their whereabouts. I imagine the upcoming installment will have two audiences: those that have followed the five previous films and are still waiting for answers about Jigsaw's wife, the contents of a mysterious box, and the protagonists of Part III’s daughter (who’s been missing, but acknowledged in the last two films) while the other half will simply slurp their sodas through exposition and cheer at the latest rusted torture contraption. In a way, everybody wins. Except for oddly vast majority of horror fans who like to brand Saw the antichrist of filmdom. 

...or Dare To Be Different

Franchises are generally defined by their formula, whether it be pretty teenagers + machetes or redheaded dolls + profanity. Every so often, however, some series take a chance by breaking from the fold (even Chucky changed his act with married life). Though initially panned by critics and ignored by audiences, Halloween III: Season of the Witch has slowly aged to prove itself the most memorable of all those October 31st celebrating films. Admittedly, that’s not much of a feat when its competition included Michael Meyers’ worshipping cults and Tyra Banks, but still: abandoning Meyers for an evil corporation wielding head-melting dime store masks was a daring move well before its time. Likewise, the majority of Elm Street fans tend to use Part 2 as a coaster for their Hypnocil spiked Red Bull, but the sheer fact that such a random entry exists in an otherwise formulaic series is in itself somewhat notable. (Also, it’s one of the most fascinatingly homoerotic/homophobic films of all time, but that’s a discussion save for another day).

Jump Right In

Look, if we’re watching a film with 2, II, or the words “The Return” in the title, you can probably trust that we’ve been here before. Thankfully, the better sequels understand that audiences don’t need heavy exposition to get the kills rolling. Note how starting from Dawn to Land,George Romero’s Dead films never wasted time explaining the oncoming zompocalypse. Similarly, 28 Weeks Later boasts one of the most terrifyingly exciting openings in recent years by immediately thrusting us back into a nightmarish world we know all too well. 

There are plenty more notable sequel rules for continuing a franchise, so add some of your own and let the Freddy Vs. Jason style fights begin!

Are We Dead Yet?

In a few days, I’ll be hopping in a car and driving down south with a few friends for a mobile summer vacation. I know what you’re thinking: how could someone so well-versed in horror films possibly risk such a journey unless she’s itching to be chased, violated, and eaten by prehistoric cave people or rabidly maladjusted children. Thankfully, it’s because of those countless hours spent in front of straight-to-VHS rentals that I’m confident I have what it takes to survive. To be sure, I’ve compiled a few key points to remember when traveling through unchartered (at least by urbanite) terrain in an automobile.

1. Focus on the road

I have an odd, yet justified hatred of any film--particularly horror--that spends too much time in the front seat of a moving vehicle. More often than not, such a scene will feature the driver irresponsibly turning his or her head towards the passenger to carry out a conversation only to then cut to the shocked partner screaming “Watch out!” as the car veers off the road to avoid hitting a stray animal, child, or ghostly presence. (See The Descent, Children of the Corn, and about a thousand other films featuring more than one character on a highway.) A variation on this lesson can be seen in one of the most popular recent entries in the road trip gone awry genre, Wrong Turn. Leave it to seemingly intelligent med student Desmond Harrington to make the fatal error of shifting his focus from the windshield to the radio. The result? A broken leg, busted Mustang, and deadly chase with cannibalistic inbred West Virginian mutants. Take heed, young viewers: as humans, most of us only have two eyes. Glue ‘em to the windshield and let no spatula pry them off.

2. No skinny dipping

Partially because most natural waters are littered with some very unnatural waste. Also, if my 9th grade biology teacher was telling the truth, August is the time for clams and other sea creatures to deposit their sperm in aquatic environments for the reproduction season. Personally, I’m not quite at the right time in my life to cross into Cronenbergian body territory as the woman impregnated by a mollusk. (I get the feeling such a process is far less fun than it sounds.) The most important reason to stay clothed in the water, however, is that skinny dipping is, by all rules of the horror canon, a sin punishable by death. Take the nice young ladies of Tourist Trap, none of whom partake in any visible sexual activity, all of whom experienced terrifying abuse at the waxy hands of a backwoods artist who got a fleeting glance of their young bodies when they made the fatal error of diving bare into a private lake. Sometimes, that's all it takes to then be strangled, stabbed, and molded into a loose-jawed mannequin.

3. No hitchhikers

What, you mean I shouldn’t pull over and open my car door to that dusty bearded hobo with suspiciously red fluid leaking from his sack? But what of my karma, you ask, with good samaritan glitter in your wide eyes. Keep a running tab and call Sally Struthers when you get a fews bars on your cell phone. Picking up hitchhikers is the surest ticket to a bloody chase at the wrong end of a chainsaw or pesky stalking courtesy of one of the truest psychopaths cinema has ever given us in the pristinely blond body of Rutger Hauer. Remember Leatherface’s skinny big brother? Or how about the gutty mess those unlucky pretty young people never got the chance to clean up in the 2003 remake? Not to mention the finger fries and torso tearing of The Hitcher . Sure, that obnoxious Franklin deserved a little stabbage, but then you (and by default, us) had to deal with his whinings all night. And yes, driving solo cross country can be a lonely, but that’s what obnoxious radio commercials and unfunny DJs were made for. Just remember to see Rule #1 and tuned into one station until the next red light. 

4. No sassing the locals

Sure, rural townsfolk are different, what with their soder pop and mustard on hamburgers (in New York, that offense will send you straight to Ryker’s Island Maximum Security Prison). Always remember, however, that those same bumpkins whose blackened teeth gave you a chuckle can lead you straight into disaster, such as the wrong end of a black market organ donation ring a la Turistas. Eli Roth’s comedic horror homage Cabin Fever is ripe with lessons on how to behave south of the Mason Dixon Line. A few I picked up:

a) Never force a friendship on shy children. Some are socially awkward, but more importantly, some are well-versed in kung fu

b) No thieving the mom-and-pop shops. Particularly when pop wields a shotgun.

c) Avoid peeping on married women. This is an especially bad idea when your friends are dying, you’ve blown up your car, and you may be infected with a flesh eating bacteria like silly little Ryder Strong, who loses his last chance of getting some help when he lingers a tad too long at a local’s window. 

5. No taking advice about off-the-beaten track attractions from locals

It’s not on a map. GPS has nothing to say about it. But that scabby clown dripping in fried chicken grease swears it’s the greatest place since Dollywood. That’s right folks, do not, I repeat, do NOT take traveling directions from suspicious locals, particularly when they survived Spider Baby to grow into older, rounder, and more vicious backwoods peddlers of local town lore like Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. This is a man who, along with his not-quite-fit-for-society family, is so evil he'd actually lure Rainn Wilson into death. You have to be pretty badass to take down Dwight Schrute, and/or really heartless to want Rainn Wilson exterminated. So. If you hit a rest stop littered with mutated skeletons and busting with whispers of a true roadside attraction detailing the life of one of the country's most brutal serial killers...

Oh who am I kidding. There’s no way in hell would I NOT take that advice. The only real question is at whose hands do I ultimately perish. Considering my lifelong complications with Barnum & Bailey's most ubiquitous entertainers, my corpse will probably be shipped home stained with white pancake makeup. But hopefully, I’ll experience enough adventure in those fleeting moments before my untimely death to crank out a few more blogs from beyond the grave.