PARADISE LOST

(a.k.a. TURISTAS)

A coach load of tourists banter amongst themselves as they travel along a cliff-side road in Brazil. The coach attempts to overtake a young couple on a motorcycle and swerves off the tight road, grinding to a halt on the cliff's edge.

The tourists and coach driver manage to clamber out of the vehicle moments before it crashes down to the bottom of the cliff. Which leaves them stranded on an open road with no mobile phone signals, waiting until the next bus comes along.

A handful of tourists introduce themselves to each other - Alex (Josh Duhamel, TRANSFORMERS), who's on holiday with his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde, ALPHA DOG) and her best friend Amy (Beau Garrett, 4: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER), Australian traveller Pru (Melissa George, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) and token Brits Liam (Max Brown, ACT OF GOD) and Finn (Desmond Askew, THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake).

Between them they cause a dispute with a fellow passenger and decide to break from the group when they spy a couple of hot girls who tell them they bought ice-cold drinks from the bar on the beach at the cliff's base.

With Alex leading the way, our six witless holiday-makers eventually find the secluded beach and are delighted with what they see: a handful of attractive chilled-out bathers, a friendly bar, white sand and blue sea. Paradise found. Understandably perhaps, the group forget about waiting for the bus and decide instead to party hard.

The booze and music carry on well into the night. But come the morning, when Alex and Bea awake hung-over on the deserted beach, it's a very different story. They've been robbed of their belongings and they can't find their friends.

Two of their most recent acquaintances, we soon discover, have been snatched by drug-dependant natives - when they attempt to escape they meet very sticky ends indeed.

But as Alex and Bea find their friends and start a gruelling hike in search of civilisation, we learn that there is something even more sinister in store for them ...

PARADISE LOST's opening half is much akin to a Bacardi advert - perfect beach photography, toned tanned young bodies and attractive model-standard casting, all complemented by a hip soundtrack. It's all hideously superficial, but hard not to go along with - although it's not long before you realise none of these characters are appealing (the British ones in particular are downright repugnant), and after thirty minutes or so of watching them dance/sunbathe/fuck, it's about time something nasty actually happened to them.

When it does, the film takes a nose-dive into overly-familiar SAW/HOSTEL territory and - apart from a couple of decently shot scenes set in a watery cavern - continues to sink from there onwards.

After waiting patiently for the tension to mount and things to get going (well, I did have the girls to ogle in the meantime), PARADISE LOST disappointed by rolling out it's "shocking" second half with suspense-free by-the-numbers mundanity.

Even the gore seems sterile and inoffensive, while the action is shot in a breathtakingly pedestrian manner by director John Stockwell (INTO THE BLUE). Furthermore, my interest levels quickly plummeted to zero when I realised that not only did I not care about the fates of these young travellers, but I couldn't even remember who was who. Such is the impression they fail to make.

Tired, contrived and unoriginal fare. PARADISE LOST boasts some lovely female figures to appreciate (and male bodies too, of course) and similarly easy-on-the-eye sun-kissed locations. But that's all it has going for it - as a horror movie it fails on every level.

This screener disc was bereft of any features, such as extras or even menu pages. However I did notice that the film had remote access via 13 chapters.

Picture quality was very good, with the disc offering a bright sharp anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer. The film was fully uncut - this is the "extreme" version that was apparently too gory for cinemas. What a crock of shit - there's nothing censor-baiting here at all. It's obviously just another cynical marketing ploy, the likes of which DVD companies try to sell to us all to often these days.

The English 5.1 audio track is a solid, impressive affair - the film looks and sounds excellent.

Although the extras were not available to review, the press release states that the retail DVD will include an FX featurette entitled "The Bloody Truth", a handful of deleted scenes and trailers for SEE NO EVIL, FLOOD, FRAGILE and THE HAMILTONS.

Pretty young people get sliced open. It sounds great on paper, but Stockwell and co manage to make it tedious.

Review by Stu Willis