There are some places tourists shouldn't go. Like, Brazil

When the movie “Hostel” was made, the city of Bratislava, Slovakia was understandably a bit…angry…with director Eli Roth. They invited Roth to Slovakia, considered threatening legal action, and probably thought about chaining him to a table to disembowel him. (I’m taking a wild stab with that last one, with my limited knowledge of Bratislava.)

When the movie “Turistas” was made, Brazil, on which the movie “Turistas” is based, threw up it’s collective hands and said “Okay, you got us.” A quote, if you will, from the Brazilian Tourism Board: “We hope moviegoers will be inspired to learn more about Brazil…”.  No bitching.  No “Hey, don’t forget that we gave you Pelé.”  No defense.

Take into account that Brazilian murder rates have been compared to war zone like highs. The Tourism Board accepts this.

Enough about facts, figures and me planning my next vacation to Iraq; on to the movie. Turistas was directed by one John Stockwell, of “Blue Crush” and “Crazy/Beautiful” um…fame, I guess you would call it. Turistas is about the organ harvesting legend, as experienced by a group of oversexed, drunk idiots who I’m pretty sure I would have wished involuntary, sans-anesthesia, organ donation right here in the US of A.

It's cool, these guys know where the party's at.

This is the only natural next step in directorial evolution I would assume for the director of Blue Crush. I read an interview featuring Mr. Stockwell, an act you should never, ever attempt yourself. Remember in high school when the head cheerleader had to give a book report? It was like, you know, like, well, yeah, uh *pops gum*….like that.
Quoth the Stockwellnator: “I always loved Deliverance. Not that this is it, but I loved the idea of people going into a situation which they think is going to be one thing…” I’m going to stop you right there, John. First things first, if someone goes into a situation like, say, Brazil, and they aren’t even a little bit concerned that shit could go down, they are terrible Googlers and haven’t picked up a newspaper – ever.
Second, let’s take a look at what “Turistas” and “Deliverance” have in common.

All Star Cast – Deliverance, not Turistas
Oscar Nominations – Deliverance, not Turistas
Burt Reynolds – Deliverance, not Turistas
Anyone being asked to squeal like a certain ungulate – Deliverance, not Turistas
Ability to hold my interest – Deliverance, not Turistas

If we both agree that Deliverance and Turistas have nothing in common, why do you bring it up?  No worries, John, surely you can rely on a stellar script, true thespians and excellent cinamotography to be your saving grace.  No?  Oh.  Well, you got boobs in there right?  Okay! I tip my hat to you. All is forgiven.

One last quote: “The best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing… but the worst thing is nothing.” – Crazy, organ thieving guy

I’ll be sure to write that down.

First off – there were far too many, force scares in the first part of it. You know, building tension and then a cat jumps out and makes the audience jump kind of stuff. This is a scary idea, and a scary movie and I’m not sure why those kind of carnival pranks were thrown in. It made it really hard to get into the groove of the flick. However once it got past those, and into the meat of the story things improved considerably. Some of the stranded family members were so annoying you actually wanted them to get killed, and when they did it was rather satisfying. Watching it you could definitely sense that they were being watched and they knew it. And the mutants were fantastic.

What wasn’t fantastic and where the whole thing fell apart in my perspective was when Doug finds the town. A town full of mannequins that has been through a nuclear blast and abandoned for at least 50 years is creepy. A mutant family living in the midst of it is really creepy. A mutant family living in a house full of mannequins that has been hit with a nuclear blast and abandoned for at least 50 years who never touched or changed anything is bullshit. Especially when one of those mutants (who looked like Chunk from The Goonies) has already shown that the littlest think will set him off and cause him to smash everything in sight. In one scene when they run through the living room the table still has a picture perfect place setting that was clearly from the testing days. O RLY? This mutant family has been living here for all these years and they never moved a single plate? Sure they rig up generators and fill one room with a hundred TV, they install a meat cooler to store chopped off body parts but they don’t move a stupid mannequin off the stairs so they don’t have to walk around it to get to the second floor?

I found myself thinking “Oh come on” and “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me” more times than I’d like to during a horror movie. Of course blood drenched Doug does turn it around the beat some serious mutant ass so I can’t really complain too much. I also liked that this version didn’t show as much of the mutants chatting each other up as the original which made them seem a bit more mysterious and a lot scarier. Except for the Chunk looking one, I just wanted someone to give him a Baby Ruth.

As soon as I hit play I remembered the last time I saw this, it was mid to late 80’s and on a USA Up All Night or similar program. It had been edited heavily to take out all the sex references although I think they left in all the blood. So I watched it alone like the cover dared me to do – and I’m not scared at all. My memories of it’s campyness were pretty valid. I’m not saying it’s bad, but a caller saying “bleh ahh ugh errr uugh I’m gonna lick your cunt, then kill you!” then hanging up just isn’t as scary today as it might have been in ‘74. Plus while this movie might have pioneered the “the call is coming from inside your house!” genre, it’s been done much better since. Perhaps it’ll even be done better in the remake?