Review of Turistas (2006) by Lindsay Elizabeth M — 14 Feb 2010

What started out as a seemingly innocent vacation in a South American country suddenly becomes a horrifying experience for a group of tourists whose bus ends up in a ditch after trying to overtake two teenagers on a scooter.

Starring Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, and Olivia Wilde, Turistas gives you a look at how your dream vacation can end up being your worst nightmare. The South American country has created hostility between them and tourists, since the latter end up kidnapping children and selling their organs.

Now, a doctor has become fed up with this practice and has taken matters into his own hands ? by kidnapping tourists and removing their organs while they are still alive and conscious (although heavily anaesthetized).

Duhamel, George, and Wilde are part of a tourist group who falls prey to the doctor?s trap, as they stay at a beachside resort owned by Camila, one of the doctor?s henchmen. They party, eat, drink, dance, and have sex all night until they end up drugged from the drinks that were served to them.

When they wake up, the resort is empty and all their belongings are missing. As they make their way to town, the British tourists create trouble by running after two local boys (one of which was wearing Duhamel?s baseball cap) and throwing a huge rock at one of them, hitting the boy on the head.

The group would have certainly been mobbed if it weren?t for Kiko, a villager whom they met last night during the party. He says that they shouldn?t stay in town, since the father of the boy is the most powerful man in town.

He claims to have an uncle who has a house deep in the forest, and offers to take them there. On the way, he even shows them secret underwater caves, which would eventually save the lives of Duhamel, George, and Wilde in the end.

On a dare, Kiko jumps into the lake where he showed the group the caves, and ends up hitting his head on a rock, cracking his skull open. The group takes him to his uncle?s house, and there, they get trapped when the doctor arrives and throws all of them in a cage, except for one British tourist and Amy, Wilde?s friend.

The rest of the film is not entirely gory or bloody as one would have expected, save for the scene where the doctor is removing Amy?s kidneys, liver, and heart. I found the movie rather disappointing, and it reminded me of a teenage slasher flick set in a foresty location.

Not particularly scary like the Grudge or gory as the Saw movies, but it?s still watchable.