Saturday 16 February 2008

"Paradise Lost" (2006)

I've seen so many rubbishy flicks over the last few days, that I have had trouble getting myself to write anything about them.  The above movie was a "make-weight" with some other DVDs purchased (I was probably misled by the cover quotes about it being the best horror film of the year - ha!); it wasn't until I got it home that I realised that this was the UK title for the American movie called "Turistas".  If I'd known that up front, it never would have found its way into my player to add to the overall crappiness of my recent viewing.

The film fits broadly into the new genre labeled "torture porn" and was about tourists (in Brazil here) being waylaid and harvested for their body parts.  Now I have no big objections to this genre as such; I've seen "Wolf Creek" and "Hostel" and did not find them totally irredeemable (although I have developed an absolute hatred for Eli Roth and his bigheadedness).  Well, this movie was by and large just draggy and poorly acted and the gore factor was hardly high by anyone's standards-- partly because it was photographed so darkly and largely because the worst blood-letting seemed to take place off-screen.  There was little new here to justify its existence -- and an incredibly long sequence with our intrepid group of nubile survivors trapped in an underwater cave seemed to go on forever.  The cast were attractive but largely unknown to me; I did have hopes for lead female Melissa George who was so very good in "Waz", but she was just another theoretically expendable actor here.

I guess this disc will join the growing collection of those kept but never to be watched again, which is one step up from those which are immediately consigned to the waste bin.  I must be more careful with my selections in future -- except I probably won't be!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Paradise Lost? Sounds more like Get Lost.

Backpacking's a dangerous thing it seems.... and that's before you reach the haunted house/ pyscho's shack/ the creature's lair etc.


Anonymous said...

Hi Patty =)  Nice to meet you!  So, you have seen ALOT of films!  Thanks for stopping by and playing the Weekly Sentence!  So, do you have a favorite film of all time?  Just curious... Take care!  Hugs, Val xox
http://journals.aol.com/valphish/ThereisaSeason

Anonymous said...

Can males be nubile?   This was a waste of time where the director could not make his mins up between the inanities of a sex comedy, social comment on
tourists in backwardly developed areas and the slasher genre which is what it
was meant to be.