Paradise Lost (2007)
Cast: Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde, Desmond Askew, Beau Garrett, Max Brown
Director: John Stockwell
Writer: Michael Ross
Producer: John Stockwell, Todd Wagner, Marc Butan
Runtime: 1hr 35 Minutes approx.
Age Rating: 18
Plot - A group of young
backpacker's holiday takes a
turn for the worse when their
bus crashes and they are left
stranded in a Brazillian jungle
that holds a dark secret.
Review: By Ross Miller
Modern horror films tend to all have the same problem. And that is that they are all too bloody formulaic. And Paradise Lost (or Turistas as it’s called in other countries) is absolutely no different.
From start to finish this is as formulaic as they come. It’s about a group of young, and obviously attractive because it’s a blatant Hollywood film, people that get into a spot of bother with their travel and are left stranded. They start to have a good time and everything seems completely fine. But lone
behold it’s anything but fine. There just happens to
be some people after them, and off they go trying to
find rescue and evade these people. That’s pretty
much the film in a nutshell and boy is it a waste of
time. I was never once, and I stress that, never once
scared during the entirety of this film. Just grossed
out at parts, and even there it’s not that scary. At
least other films like Hostel and Saw series have the
guts to just accept what it is and just go with it. Whereas Paradise Lost kind of hovers over the idea that it might be scary or that it might be gross but never really follows through. Basically the film is like every other horror film you have seen over the past few years except just not as good.
It’s not that the film built up my hype and excitement and tension for an hour and then nothing happens. It’s that for literally the first hour nothing even remotely related to horror happens and then when the horror does arrive it’s just as bland and boring. The supposed bad guys in the film, who this young group are supposed to be terrified of, seem pretty pathetic to me. I know as an audience member you sit there and think that you would do things differently but it was blatantly obvious that the makers of this film were taking leaps in logic for these supposed killers to have control over the group. The thing I can merit this film with is behind the story at least there is some morality to it instead of just violence and gore for the sake of violence and gore. But that just isn’t enough to save this film, not nearly enough. The ninety minute runtime felt infinitely longer than it was, and you can blame that on the fact that nothing happens
for the full first hour.
Considering the director of this film was the man
behind the atrociously formulaic Into The Blue and
Blue Crush, the first hour is basically the same.
Nothing happens except a bunch of people partying in
swimsuits, drinking a lot and then after that hour
some sort of completely implausible thing happens to
them that just makes you shake your head in
complete disbelief. The plot of this film was just too dumb and formulaic for me to even begin to enjoy it. It came as no surprise to me that this was rubbish, as I was expecting that when I first saw the trailer.
Overview
If you are a horror junky and watch every horror that comes out then you will have seen this film before. It is formulaic, dumb and completely un-scary from start to finish. Avoid this film at all costs and go watch something that you know for fact is worth it.
