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 enlarge | Director: John Stockwell
Actors: Miguel Lunardi, Melissa George, Desmond Askew, Josh Duhamel, Olivia Wilde
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $0.42
You Save: $14.56 (97%)
New (56) Used (99) Collectible (1) from $0.42
Rating:  76 reviews
Sales Rank: 4562
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Portuguese (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 96
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: FOXD2242885D
UPC: 024543428787
EAN: 0024543428787
ASIN: B000N3AW6G
Theatrical Release Date: December 1, 2006
Release Date: March 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 There's no place like home Dorothy! June 26, 2008
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
If you need a reason to keep your vacations within your home country, this trip makes the escapades in "Deliverance" seem like a nice rafting trip down the river!
He's my poetic tribute to this scary and very gross movie with apologies to "Don't Stand so Close to Me" from the Police.
Young a-dults... Decide to ...Go down to Brazilia
Big party...Great rum drinks...Hard bodies want the wild free love
A bus ride... gets crazy,...It falls down canyon wall
A bar is, close by now,..Let's head down to the shore
Don't take-...Don't take my...Don't take my organs out
Don't take-...Don't take my...Don't take my organs out!
Some Roofies, they mugged them, they ripped off all their stuff
The town folk ,don't like them, can't leave there soon enough
A rock thrown, there's bleeding, a mob soon starts to form
What ensues in their life next, they'll rue that they were born
Don't take-...Don't take my...Don't take my organs out
Don't take-...Don't take my...Don't take my organs out
Pleeaaassee
Don't take-...Don't take my...Don't take my organs out!
 WONDERFUL June 19, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
THIS MOVIE WAS GREAT, UNEXPECTED AND A WONDERFUL MOVIE IF YOU'RE PLANNING A TRIP OUT OF THE COUNTRY... HA HA HA
Deserves more credit................ April 15, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This movie is reminiscent of the movie HOSTEL only without as much gore. As a serious horror fan, I thoroughly enjoyed Hostel but every once in a while you need an intense thriller that focuses more on the tension of the situation than just blood and guts. This movie is that more tense/ less gore "Hostel". The themes are similar-- American/European tourists going on vacation to a foreign exotic country where they get way more than they bargained for when they fall into the sinister hands of a group of locals with other inhumane plans.... I thoroughly enjoyed the movie; the acting was pretty decent, nothing overtly cheesy and their responses and interactions were believable. I could realistically believe that this storyline could have actually taken place. The plot was nothing overly imagined nor too far fetched in my opinion. The characters were intriguing to watch-- likable personalities and sensual hard bodies *smiles*... I think this movie was good enough to have caught it on the bigs screen but popping it into your DVD player on a lazy Saturday is a good bet also. Overall a good "vacationers in danger" thriller.
A horror movie that goes out of its way to target my worst nightmares March 28, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I am very much aware that there are several personal factors at work when it comes to reviewing "Turistas." First, this is my ninth horror film in nine days having just gone through the 8 files 2 die 4 that made up the 2007 edition of After Dark Horrorfest, and having not been overly impressed by any of those films I am not surprised that this one looks great in comparision. Second, when I took Health in high school they showed us an educational film to convince us that smoking was a bad think which consisted of not just the traditional film of doctors cutting out a cancer ravaged lung but the beginning of the operation where they make the initial incision and then crack the chest open. Believe me when I tell you that it was all the stuff before they got to ripping out that guy's rotten lung that had us ready to lose our breakfast (gym class was before lunch). Third, my daughter headed off to Costa Rica last month to serve in the Peace Corps for the next couple of years, so the fact that I keep reading books (Kathy Reichs' "Grave Secrets") or seeing movies ("Borderland") in which horrible things happen to young women in one of our Latin American neighbors is really starting to creep me out.
A bunch of turistas are on a bus going too fast on a roadway somewhere in Brazil. When they find themselves suddenly off of the bus, a group of them decide to see if they can find a party instead of another bus. We have Alex (Josh Duhamel), who is vacationing with his sister, Bea (Olivia Wilde), and her free-spirited friend, Amy (Beau Garrett). Then there is Pru (Melissa George), visiting from Australia, and a couple of English blokes, Finn (Desmond Askew) and Liam (Max Brown), who help make Alex look like the good guy that he is. Along with some others the group indeed finds themselves a party, but this turns out to be bad news rather than good news by the time the sun comes up the next morning. Then things good from pretty bad to infinitely worse.
The scene that first caught my attention in this 2006 film was the one with the first deaths, mainly because they were so quick and simple. Horror movies tend to wallow on the death scenes these days, and certainly "Turistas" has one of the more protracted killings as its centerpiece, Besides, there is an implicit lessons in those initial deaths, because killing is not the goal here, just a natural (so to speak) byproduct of the goal. As for the scene that is supposed to get you, well, it really got me because to my way of thinking it was something that could really happen (plus I think regardless of the context what we are seeing taps into a basic human fear or two). My main complaint with the film is a constant one as a fan of horror films, which is that I did not find the end game to be as strong as the set up. Granted, very few horror films have endings as good as their set ups, but we would still like to hold out hope that things will work out that way.
As for the "Turistas" vs. "Hostel" debate, it seems to be to be apples and oranges. Although they are both are young people traveling in foreign lands and having horrible things happen to them, "Hostel" is quintessential torture porn and I do not see "Turistas" as being in that contemporary sub-genre of horror films. Besides, I thought the element that worked best in "Hostel" was not the graphic violence and dismemberment but the whole "what the hell is going on here?" bit. In the traditional splatter flick (e.g., "Halloween") the audience is usually aware of the backstory that explains the killer's motivation, while the victims are usually left in the dark. In "Hostel" we do not have a clue (which is why the sequel had to go in a different direction given that the audience cannot be surprised twice). Both stories are sort of predicated on urban legends (if something happening in a Brazillian jungle can be said to fall into that category), so each may be equally ludicrous judged in the light of day, but what happens in "Turistas" strikes me as something that human beings have really done to each other much more so than anything that happens in the factory in "Hostel."
Final Note (contains what is technically a minor spoiler): I am getting really tired of the naked girl always having to die in horror films as a punishment for her sexuality, even when this commonplace practice is given a sick twist like it is in "Turistas." I know that "Scream" provided a twist on the virgin always being the one to survive in a horror film, but I am ready for somebody to make a film where the naked girl is the sole survivor at the end (no, "Planet Terror" does not count, and, yes, I know that such a film with inevitably show the naked girl totally covered in blood and gore).
Like Hostel, But Better January 27, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Among the better movies from the recent batch of extreme/torture horror, it's a shame that Turistas is probably destined forever to live in the shadows of the "Hostel" series, because it's significantly better than either installment that Hostel has yet produced. Following an unmistakably similar plot as the first "Hostel" - although I think both movies started production at about the same time and this one just took longer to finish - "Turistas" finds (as does its better-known peer) a group of vacationers travelling to an exotic hot spot (in this case Brazil) for a fun-filled getaway, only to run afoul of a local group of brutal, torture-minded psychopaths. The main differences are, I guess, rather subjective. Personally, I thought Turistas was scarier and sexier than Hostel, and had more likable protagonists and more interesting villains. In the first half, there's little overtly horror movie-ish about the film: the main group is prevented from going to their upper-scale tourist destination because of a bus mishap, and ends up at a more off-the-main-path destination, a small village by the beach without the big hotels from tourist brochures, but with festive, smaller-scale, attractions - open air beach bars, big evening bonfire parties, all that kind of thing. They end up making friends with some fellow travellers and with the locals, but some of those locals have a keen interest in the newcomers that doesn't seem to be on the up and up. Come the next day, the vacationers find they've been robbed and the village starts to seem less than friendly, so, with the help of a local they've befriended, head off towards less threatening envirorns, travelling through a swath of rainforest on what turns out to be a very ill-fated trek. The sexy, fun-natured and sometimes humorous angles of the early parts end up meshing very well (and better than what might be expected) with the dark, deeply intense nature of the movie's second half.
Having established its tourist characters as actually likable and interesting, "Turistas" also brings up the level of its bad guys a bit more than a number of similar movies have done. The ringleader of the group, while certainly not rising to the level of a character like Jigsaw, is well-crafted and believable, a highly intelligent but unflichingly sadistic mastermind. For his accomplices, he's surrounded himself not only with like-minded psychopaths, but a few less obvious choices: desperate, confused and often embittered characters, who he's recruited by not only presenting to them the only feasible means out of their own destitution, but by being a smooth, manipulative talker who can paint even horrible acts (such as his 'organ-harvesting' operation) as being somehow justified. The prescence of these 'reluctant villains', and of the element of the evil charmer who's skilled enough to make people act in ways they'd normally never even consider, are both welcome angles.
With the movie developing into some intense battles, it's in ways like an action movie that's presented as a horror movie. It manages some genuine scares, and hits psychological horror notes as well as gory, visceral horror notes. Well acted and well directed, with impressive camerwork, especially in the underwater sequences. The movie utilizes a kind of unique use of lighting, and sometimes color, to create an effect that really captures the atmosphere and heat, making certain daytime scenes feel like they're drenched in hot sunlight.
"Turistas" is a fine addition to the pantheon of horror movies, and shouldn't be overlooked just because of its similarities to other movies, although the torturous nature of the organ-harvesters means that it's not for everybody. It is a reminder though, that just because a movie isn't exactly reinventing the wheel in terms of storyline, it can still be a great movie.
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