Paradise Lost

Went to see Paradise Lost, apparently called ‘Turistas’ in most of the world (seems sensible, given the fact that a film based on the Milton poem is supposed to be coming out in the near future), which Aimee has been keen on seeing since watching the trailer. I didn’t object, since I was keen to see a film about Brazil, though in the end the setting didn’t really need to be Brazil, just as Lost in Translation didn’t need to be set in Japan – it just gave an impression of otherness and being lost, though it was important for the story that it was a country that the more powerful nations can exploit. Spoilers ahead.

The movie was pretty much universally panned, mostly because it was seen as offensive to Brazilian and full of stereotypes. As a matter of fact, I was disappointed in it as a horror film, but found it quite satisfying in other ways.

We have a typical slasher movie cast, and a typical slasher movie setting. Obnoxious backpackers that we’re seemingly supposed to like because they’re randy get robbed, run out of a town and taken by the one amicable Brazilian they’ve met (despite a rather weak attempt to assert that Brazilians are some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet) to a safe-house. However, it’s all a trap and the man who owns the house has plans for the new arrivals. The backpackers are picked off in the usual fashion – first the undeveloped couple who barely speak English are offed, then the slutty one, then the buddies, leaving the nice Americans and the one who can speak Portuguese.

But I like horror movies that have, rather than a supernatural menace, a scenario you can believe might actually happen. Silence of the Lambs works because of this; Misery and The Shining are about the only Stephen King horror films worth watching. And you can believe what happens in Paradise Lost, except the bad guy’s propensity to kill his underlings and lay out all his plans to people he’s about to kill in a typical bad-guy monologue. But the idea that he’s harvesting organs from gringos because ‘little Brasilieros’ die as a result of richer countries’ money buying up the donor organs of Brazil is an interesting one, and there’s a more subtle bit of social commentary there – there’s a Brazilian waging war on the Gringos, but it’s of course a rich white man who exploits the blacks and natives working for him.

Most of the criticism of the film is for the last half-hour, a chase sequence mostly set in underwater caves, relying too much on coincidence, chance and because of that, ending in a very unsatisfying way, but it was edgy and claustrophobic enough to work. The publicity made me think there would be a lot of psychological horror about the film, the there would be games played with the backpackers, experiments done on them, but really, the masterminds weren’t in control enough for that to ever happen, and could have quite easily just sedated everybody and had no trouble at all. But then we wouldn’t have had a film.

Not earth-shattering, and certainly not essential, but better than your average horror film.