Turistas

Horrorphile

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Turistas

October 8th 2007 03:40

I’d be scanning the shelves of the local video store, looking for something, anything. My eyes would pass over this particularly dodgy looking cover art depicting a bikini-clad woman lying in a hammock on a beach, her head out of shot, what looks like a surgical wound in her lower belly, dripping blood, which has formed the word “unrated”, like some kind of stamp upon the sand … terrible cover. The movie was called Turistas (2006), the tagline; “There are some places you should never go.”

Everyone off! This bus is goin' down!

So I went there. I hired the movie. It has an Aussie “R” rating (restricted to over 18s) with the warning contains “high level violence”. That helped lure me in, and the fact that the movie is set on the coast of Brazil. I had to assume there would be some female nudity involved. And there was.

Beau Garrett as Amy, Olivia Wilde as Bea, Josh Duhamel as Alex and Melissa George as Pru

While traveling on vacation along the North-Eastern coast of Brazil by bus, an American Alex (Josh Duhamel), his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde) and their friend Amy (Beau Garrett) meet Australian Pru (Melissa George), and two Brits, Finn (Desmond Askew) and Liam (Max Brown). They stick together after the reckless bus driver has an accident and everyone is forced to abandon the ride.

Two Swedish backpackers are mickey-finned

The tourists decide to kill time until the next bus arrives by partying down at the local beach bar well into the night. They awake, much worse for wear, as they realise they’d been drugged and have all been robbed of their possessions. After a run-in with some hostile kids, the group are befriended by a local boy Kiko (Agles Steib) who offers to lead them into the surrounding coastal jungle and to his uncle’s cabin where they can wait safely until the next tourist bus arrives nearby. But it will be two days before another bus.

A moment of blue serenity

During the night, Kiko's "uncle" Zamora (Miguel Lunardi) arrives with his accomplices and the group of hapless tourists discovers, much to their abject horror, the utterly sinister “revenge business” intentions of Zamora. Foreigners have been plundering Brazil for its rubber, sugar, and gold, even its carefree sexuality has been abused. Dr. Zamora sees his surgical exploitation of backpackers (removing organs for sale on the black market) as a way of evening the score.

The girls investigate Zamora's jungle home warily

Director John Stockwell, an actor turned director (he made the bikini flicks Into the Blue and Blue Crush), who obviously enjoys the inherent difficulties with shooting underwater, has made a surprisingly good horror movie. I was expecting so much worse, based on the DVD cover art. The movie is not brilliant by any means, but there are so many worse movies out there that this movie would probably get lumped in with, simply because of the basic plot and dire cover art.

Kiko (Agles Steib) has his head stapled up

Turistas is basically Hostel in Latin America, except for the most part it’s much better than Hostel (2006), but not as good as Hostel II (2007). The screenplay by Michael Ross is paced reasonably well, but it's not very scary. What does work for the movie is its visceral intensity, and the great location filming. Director Stockwell is very adept at the elaborate underwater scenes, and he knows that the ultra-violence needs to be realistic, so his special effects make-up team delivers high calibre work (US Todd Masters and Brazilian Martin Macias), especially in the graphic surgery scene.

Pru finds herself as a caged animal

But Turistas is plagued by a severe technical shortcoming. Cinematographer Enrique Chediak is an accomplished cameraman, so whether this was an artistic decision from director Stockwell or not, but during the attempted night escape from the jungle cabin, you can hardly see what the hell is going on. It’s so damn dark. Sure, it makes it feel realistic, but surely a compromise could’ve been made so the audience can actually follow the action and who is who. A similar problem occurs while everyone is swimming from one underwater cave to another. You can’t tell the tourists from the menacing pursuers. It’s all too bloody dark.

One of Zamora's henchmen

Still, the performances are good, and elsewhere the production values are very strong. The ending is a cop out though. The DVD provides an alternative ending, which is marginally less of a cop out, but still too convenient. Still, the horror joy ride was entertaining enough. In the UK the movie is known as Paradise Lost, which although not an original title in itself, it’s a much more marketable title than the Portuguese Turistas. Most Americans wouldn’t bother renting it, making the assumption it’s subtitled.

Bea, Pru and Alex huddle out of sight during the extended cave pursuit

Turistas, like Wolf Creek, probably won’t help the Brazilian tourist trade, but then Turistas isn’t likely to be seen by an awful lot of people either. Despite the studied hostility toward foreigners expressed by the character of Zamora, I’m sure there’s more immediate concern with those reckless bus drivers than anything else. “Take the plane,” advises Alex to a couple of backpackers at movie’s end. Sounds like sage advice to me.

Paradise Lost aka Turistas UK movie poster

Here's the International theatrical trailer:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

10 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

October 8th 2007 06:25

I love sun fun and the beach.
Mix that with a bit of horror and I'll watch it.
Even if it trash. I'll watch it.

Comment by DuskDevi

October 8th 2007 06:49

Rugby World Cup 2007

How come horror movie females have such nice asses?!

Hope you're well Bryn...

Dusk

Comment by JohnDoe

October 8th 2007 07:07

Film & TV on DVD

This one sounds like its worth it for the surgery scenes and promise of buxom babes

Comment by Bryn

October 8th 2007 07:43

Horrorphile

Damo, yeah, throw it back with a few cold bevvies ...

Dusk, true, some shapely derrieres in this fer sure ... lol

JD, yes and yes.

Comment by Michaelie

October 8th 2007 21:17

Flick Wit

Thank goodness for gratuitous violence and the promise of the nude female form, or you may never have watched this cinematic masterpiece.

LOL

Michaelie

Comment by Bryn

October 9th 2007 01:48

Horrorphile

Michaelie,
why yes! I think you may have hit the nail on the head!

Comment by Anonymous

June 28th 2008 06:51

" Most Americans wouldn’t bother renting it, making the assumption it’s subtitled. "

Now, is that backed up by fact, or just assumption on your part? Do you know most Americans? Did most Americans who didn't pick it up assume it was subtitled? Is there a poll or a study somewhere about whether or not Americans would bother picking up the movie based on whether or not they thought (in this case wrongly it would seem, how stupid of those Americans) it was subtitled? Are you sure most Americans wouldn't pick it up not because of a faulty (but apparently inherent) assumption that it was subtitled but instead because the movie received horrible reviews?

If you have anything substantive to link and to bolster the whole "most americans are stupid idiots who would assume this movie was subtitled because of its title (miraculously despite all the trailers endured, might I add) and also not bother to pick it up based on this assumption" thing it would be a welcome discovery and I will shut up.

Comment by Bryn

June 30th 2008 07:35

Horrorphile

Anon, seems I hit a raw nerve ... Apologies if you took offence to what was essentially a throwaway line.
It was a knee-jerk statement I'll admit, with tenuous links to my general disdain for Hollywood's perpetual need to remake any foreign film that does good business overseas into an English language (read: Hollywood) remake. They'll even throw stupid amounts of money to a director to remake their own film and even compromise their own original vision. I also know of several examples where movies have had thier titles changed for the American market to avoid "confusion" ie The Madness of George III was renamed The Madness of King George in case American audiences baulked thinking "Hmmm, well I haven't seen George I or II ... " ... Another example is the Bond movie originally called Licence Revoked, which was renamed Licence to Kill, because executives feared the average American punter wouldn't know what "revoked" means.
Of course it's a generalistation if I say that a large porportion of the American cinema-going public prefer not to see a foreign film because they can't be assed reading subtitles ... Turistas would suggest that the movie is Mexican or some other Spanish-speaking country. Forgetting the trailer, but simply the movie title. I'm not saying all Americans are stupid, but I'm suggesting that Turistas probably wouldn't have done the best business as a Blockbuster DVD simply because if it's title, and the kind of Joe Public clientele that frequent Blockbuster video stores.
Anyway enough already ...