After watching Severance (2006) again recently and mentioning Hostel (2005) in my post about it, I got to thinking about another film that came out around the same time that I hadn’t seen for years.
Paradise Lost (2006)
If you live anywhere other than the UK or Ireland you might know this movie as “Turistas”.
Either way, if you haven’t seen it, it’s a horror/mystery/thriller directed by John Stockwell (Into the Blue).
It stars Josh Duhamel (Transformers), Melissa George (30 Days of Night) and Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy) among many others.
This is what it’s about according to the internet:
“A group of young travellers are in the midst of enjoying a dream vacation along the Brazilian coast. Joining a party of revelers on the beach, the friends are drugged and later awaken to find themselves robbed of their money, credit cards and passports. Led to a mysterious home deep in the jungle where they are told they will be safe, the group instead discover they’ve been led into a trap, and that the owner of the house - a sinister local surgeon - has horrifying plans for them.”
Like with Severance, until the other night I hadn’t seen this film since I first watched it around 16 years ago (where the hell did that time go?!) Unlike Severance though, this didn’t fully live up to my memory of it.
That said, don’t be put off - it’s definitely still worth a watch, I just think that due to the nature of the plot it’s one of those movies that loses much of its impact after the initial watch. Regardless of that, I still enjoyed the revisit.
There were quite a few of these gore-fest horror/survival thrillers involving tourists released between 2005 and 2010. I think Hostel might’ve kicked off the trend and it’s plain to see how this film was inspired by it.
This movie has a pretty shocking rating on IMDb (5.4/10) which I think is unfair. Ok so it might not be the best film of its kind, but it’s certainly original and has decent performances from most of the the main cast (not so much the two British guys) and a fair bit of tension to boot.
The whole production was shot on location in Brazil with no hair and makeup artists or even trailers offered to any of the actors, and that definitely adds a certain realism to the look and feel of the film.
If you happen to like horror movies with lots of tension and gore and find the idea of a group of young, good looking people in their prime wandering about with barely any clothes on for 93 minutes appealing, you should definitely add this to your Halloween horror watch list.
You can rent it on Amazon Prime Video if you don’t mind parting with £3.49 of your hard earned cash.
Already seen it? Let me know below.