TURISTAS

TURISTAS is a horror film about a spring vacation like holiday in Rio that goes horribly wrong. The film is filled with great looking scenery...lots of young hotties in skimpy bikinis...Oh yeah, the rain forest looks good to. My expectations were low going into this film. I knew it was a horror flick that took place in Rio during a vacation but I didn't know anything else about it. Usually with horror films you know something about the villain. For example, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre...We know the baddie probably has a rusty chainsaw that he uses to introduce his victims to the afterlife. In TURISTAS, the premise involves a surgeon who kidnaps tourists, sedates them, and steals their vital organs to give to the economically depressed people of Brazil. Because health care is not a large concern in Brazil the surgeon and his staff don't bother sewing up their organ-less patients. Their bodies are discarded with the other medical waste involved in the operation.

During the opening credits I was surprised when I saw the name of John Stockwell under the directors title. Although he has never won or deserved an Oscar or even a nomination he has had a few decent credits to his name which include "Blue Crush", "crazy/beautiful", and last years "Deep Blue". All of these were rated 6 or 7 by myself and received mixed to good reviews by professional couch potatoes (movie reviewers). Also, all three of these films involved the ocean in some way shape or form. I like when a director leaves his comfort zone, especially when they abandon a comfortable zone such young twenty-something relationship movies to young twenty-something horror flicks.

STOCKWELL LOVES WATER

...But sometimes leaving your comfort zone can become uncomfortable. Although TURISTAS leaves the familiar "relationship fare" Stockwell is accustomed to...he can't leave water behind. Most of TURISTAS takes place in an underwater cave/cavern system that the good guys use to hide from the bad guys. The problem with this is that caves and caverns are dark...very dark. I had a difficult time figuring what the hell was going on...the lighting was terrible. Half the time I couldn't tell if the bad guys were hiding waiting until the good guys would come closer or if I was seeing the good guys hiding waiting for the bad goes to get further away.

Horror movies are supposed to be scary, not confusing. "TURISTAS" gets a "2".

FYI...TURISTAS stars Josh Duhamel from televisions Las Vegas. He will also be in TRANSFORMERS, which will be released summer 2007.