Turistas

If you're at all squeamish, you'll definitely squirm during this cringe-inducing, mercilessly suspenseful tale of tourists whose vacation turns out to be anything but amusing.

The previews of Turistas might lead you to believe that this is a Hostel wannabe, and while there are some basic similarities — young, good-looking things on vacation in a foreign land, looking for sun, fun, sex and drugs who instead find a very bad people — it's really nothing at all like Hostel. The progression of events is comparable, but the entire tone, storyline, directing style and characterizations are quite different.

TV's Las Vegas hunk Josh Duhamel teams up with Alias hottie Melissa George as the two leads Alex and Pru, but you can forget their television pedigrees here; both have a lot of big screen appeal, and their acting is good enough to carry the picture along with the rest of the ensemble: Olivia Wilde as Bea, Alex's wide-eyed younger sister; Beau Garrett as Bea's freewheeling friend Amy; and Desmond Askew and Max Brown as hedonistic Brits Finn and Liam, for whom footloose travel is a way of life. Agles Steib, making his feature film debut, is a real standout as a local boy named Kiko.

The group bonds in Brazil after the tour bus they're riding crashes in an isolated area with nothing nearby but a small town and an oasis-like bar on the beach. The bus is totaled and another one is not expected for several hours, so they head down to the beach bar for a refreshing tropical drink, and wind up staying for the all-night rave.

Things start to go awry, but I don't want to spoil anything for you (I went into the movie knowing almost nothing, and I suggest you do the same). Suffice to say, bloody deaths do follow, but Turistas is less about torture, blood and grue than it is about primal fear, dizzying suspense, and tons of tension. There are some excellent chase scenes, the most gripping of which takes place in a labyrinth of hidden, underwater caves.

While I enjoyed Turistas and would see it again, it's not without its drawbacks. There are a few places where the story sags, and the antagonist, while well-acted by Miguel Lunardi, just doesn't have that "spark" needed to make for a memorable movie villain.

While director/producer John Stockwell has acted in horror films (most notably in Stephen King's Christine), his directorial background draws on a wide variety of subject matter (HBO's Breast Men, Crazy/Beautiful, Into the Blue). I think this less horror-centric outlook actually helps Turistas in succeeding as not another Hostel, but as a truly terrifying trip to the theater in its own right.

= = =

Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson

Check out Horror.com's exclusive interviews with the cast of Turistas.