What made it hard for me to fully dislike him was that he has a vast knowledge of film, particularly the Italian film industry of the 1970s; reading interviews him was a pleasure as I was able to discover some great films (though he seemed to miss the points the films strived to make). I think Roth is capable of one day making a good film, as long he matures and learns some restraint. When Hostel 2 came out and bombed, he blamed it all on people downloading it, whining that we have PG-13 horror films because of them. Roth seems to fancy himself as a subversive, renegade director like those of the '70s (and like QT), so if there's a problem with his work or his attitude, it's not him, it's us.

I didn't terribly mind the trailer for Thanksgiving, but that knife-in-the-vag got to me. However, he absolutely the feel of a nasty grindhouse film from 1981 down perfectly (even the voice-over was perfect) and I loved Michael Biehn in it. And you're right, it would not work as a full-length film. Initially, there would be the fun of spotting all of the trailer moments in the film, but what else is he going to cram in there? It's basically going to be Roth at play with his imagination and pretending he's Fulci or Carpenter or even Sam Peckinpah (who was about as stunted as Roth, but a very talented man, which can make his films even more infuriating). Though such an attitude could make Thanksgiving successful, as long he goes into the project with the purpose of having fun with it instead of making a purposefully awful film with grotesque imagery. There are more than enough wanna-be schlocky horror films that are failures because they specifically force themselves to be campy schlock, instead of letting it happen naturally. It especially ruins the appeal when the actors are knowingly in on the joke.

After some googling, it indeed appears that Roth has no involvement in Hostel 3 and it may in fact end up straight-to-DVD (which would be hilarious if it turned out to be the best of the Hostel films).