TURISTAS (PARADISE LOST)

US, 2006, 96 minutes, Colour.
Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde, Desmond Askew, Beau Garrett, Max Brown, Agles Steib, Miguel Lunardi.
Directed by John Stockwell.

It’s an uncharitable distraction during the first part of Turistas but, if there were to be victims of predatory Brazilians in the jungle who were to abduct a group of twenty somethings who were preoccupied with having a good time (drink and sex being the main ingredients with some surf added), who were completely culturally insensitive to the people whose country they were visiting, who had the personalities of self-absorbed teenagers, and the Brazilians were to take their organs for profit, then the cast of this film really fits the bill.

So that is who these turistas are. For the main part, this is what they do – apart from complaining when things go wrong. And then things really go wrong as they are stranded, robbed, befriended by a guide who is actually leading them to the hideout surgery of a local who resents first world attitudes towards Brazil and where they will be dismembered.

While the subject is gruesome and there are some grizzly scenes, Turistas is not particularly gory. Will this tale of a contemporary problem in terms of organ sales put off the tourists (who in this film come from the US, Sweden, the UK – one of these is the most obnoxious – and Australia (and she is the best and most common-sensed of them)? If it does, then the Brazilian tourist bureau will have less to complain about!

1.The popularity of this kind of horror film? Terror or horror?

2.The Brazilian settings, the natural beauty, the isolation, the mountains, the beach, the roads? The mansion? The surgery? Authentic? The musical score?

3.The title, the focus on tourists and their attitudes? The alternate title of Paradise Lost?

4.The introduction to the young people, the typical twentysomethings, spoilt, international, expectations, complaints? Holidays, sex preoccupation? Drinking? On the bus, the speeding driver? Alex and his anxiety, the girls being calm? The gathering speed, the crash, the bus tipping over, everybody getting out, the bus rolling down the hill, getting the luggage, stranded? No bus for a long time?

5.The girls with the drinks, the group banding together, the incident of taking the photograph of the child and the parents’ reaction? Finding the beach, the kiosk? Swimming, enjoying themselves, drinking? The night on the beach? Their being robbed?

6.The people on the beach, the Swedish tourists? Their being abducted, their being killed? Kiko and his friendliness, advice? Leading them through the jungle? The ten-hour trek? The difficulties? The complaints? Taking them to the pool, swimming underwater, the caves? His change of heart? Trying to warn them?

7.How well defined were the characters? Alex, uptight, protecting his sister, Bea? Bea and her friend Amy? Their wanting a holiday? Prue and her being from Australia, level-headed? Finn and Liam from England, their attitudes, holiday, sex and drink? The effect of the walk on them?

8.The options? The house, their deciding to go, moving in, Kiko’s uncle? The food, the mysteries of the house? The uncle arriving, his henchmen, the shooting? The taking of Amy?

9.The preparation for the theme: the organ-taking, transplants? Doctor Zamora, seeing him at the opening before the credits, in the city, with his henchmen? Their attacking the tourists? Their brutality?

10.Doctor Zamora, his motivation, Brazilian, anti-first world, getting revenge, the organs, the money? His brutality and killing his henchmen? Verbally abusing them? His confrontation with the group, his being shot?

11.The henchmen, the Indians, being humiliated by Doctor Zamora? Kiki and his change of heart, his being wounded, stapling his wound together? His helping with the escape?

12.Alex and his having to be a leader, Pru and her commonsense, Bea and the fright? The Englishman being killed? The escape, underwater, hiding in the caves? The final confrontation?

13.The film less gory than expected? The focus on self-centred twentysomethings? Their ordeal? The issue of illegal organ-taking? Money? The trade?