After a terrible bus accident, a bunch of tourists get stranded in a small Brazilian village. It's a fantastic looking place that has got a beautiful beach and it almost seems too darn perfect..and it is. Soon it stands clear that the small village holds a dark secret and the tourists are soon to find out exactly what that is.
While the very trailer looked like your ordinary teen survival type of horror with a touch of Hostel to it, Turistas does not deserve to be called a Hostel clone, as this movie was infact something else. Sure, there were scenes of torture and all that, as well as we got to follow a group of American tourists getting sliced and diced in another country, but while you can always draw similarities to other recent films, Turistas still managed to stand on its own. Still, what we're dealing with is a group of teens (well, duh!) that are in the country of Brazil where things tend to be a little different than back home. When going on vacation to a different country, you obviously have to be a bit more cautious than usual, but since the people in the village that they arrive in seems nice enough, the tourists let their guard down, and so the terror begins.
Well, the terror doesn't kick in until a short while into the film or so. First we have to sit through watching the teens goof around, drink, dance and spew out some totally meaningless dialogue as ever so often when it comes to these types of movies. Actually, you can skip the first 20 minutes or so because all that happens is that the tourists happen to have an accident with their bus which leaves them to seek out a small village nearby. Because to sit and listen to the dialogue early on in the movie and watching the youngsters f**k around is about as much fun as getting hit with a shovel over the head.
 
To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting much, if anything, but actually found myself taking a liking to Turistas the deeper into it I got. While it was definitely not a great film, it was at the same time far from being a bad movie, and if you're looking for 94 minutes of suspense and entertainment, you could definitely do worse than watching this one. While the characters that we got to follow were not as irritating as they sometimes can be when watching other similar flicks, they were still shallow, and add to that that there were really no character development whatsoever. Now that is quite a bad thing because we get to see these people getting chased, beaten, shot and operated on, but the fact is that you couldn't feel less for them. They're just there, thrown into a movie that's suppose to amuse and/or scare you and you know that some of them will die during its course, but you couldn't care less IF they die, so all you got left with that might entertain is to see HOW they die. (I'm not as sadistic as it might sound)
The cast was decent and pretty believable, although like I said before, you're not gonna feel too much for them, but at least they were not as obnoxious as these types of characters in other films sometimes can be. The main villain was a bit scary at first, because of the realistic feel that the film sometimes had to it, but it went down the drain as soon as the guy started speaking English and talk about "his mission". Another thing the movie does not have in common with Hostel is that Turistas was not half as brutal as Hostel was, so those of you (gorehounds) looking for that kind of stuff, keep in mind that you might not get what you seek here. Personally, I think that the amount of gore and terror was totally all right, as I'm not a gorehound per say, and for the fact that Turistas was pretty darn suspenseful every here and there, and that was just enough to make it work.
Turistas is obviously a no brainer and those of you who are looking for a smart script and a scary story, it's recommended to look elsewhere. But if you just wanna have a good time, accompanied by some pretty good suspenseful moments, you could definitely do worse than going with Turistas. You'll probably have a good time when watching it, but it's not a film you'll remember for very long.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: John Stockwell
WRITING CREDITS: Michael Ross
GENRE: Horror, Thriller
CAST: Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 94 min
RATING: 5/10
Turistas Website/IMDB
Turistas Trailer Click here
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