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Turistas (Portuguese for "Tourists"), released in the UK and Ireland as Paradise Lost, is a 2006 American horror film directed by John Stockwell, starring Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, and Olivia Wilde. Its plot focuses on a group of international backpackers in Brazil who find themselves in the clutches of an underground organ harvesting ring.

It was the first American film to be exclusively shot in Brazil. It was also the first film distributed by Fox Atomic, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, who released it theatrically in the United States on December 1, 2006.


This film includes examples of the following tropes:

  • And I Must Scream: While hiding from the killers in the bushes and trying to stay quiet, one of the girls is being attacked by ants and has to stifle her urge to cry out in pain.
  • Being Evil Sucks: Zamora the evil surgeon is rounding up goons to lure and kidnap more tourists, and they express a lack of desire to participate. He is barely able to ply them with cash.
  • Bilingual Bonus: There is a ton of Portuguese dialogue in the movie left without translation or subtitles.
  • Body Horror: The film focuses on a group of armed killers and organ traffickers who prey on rich travelers. Graphic gore ensues.
  • Boom, Headshot!: The surgeon meets his end this way, courtesy of his own bodyguard.
  • Boomerang Bigot: The surgeon rants on about "rich gringos" taking advantage of Brazilians, and even mentions their "lilly white asses." All along, though Brazilian, the surgeon himself is white, and verbally abuses one of his darker skinned henchmen with racial language.
  • Developing Doomed Characters: The film spends so long setting up the eponymous tourists' predicament (and, in the process, establishing how incredibly whiny, arrogant and unlikeable they all are) that by the time the Mad Scientist shows up it's surprisingly difficult not to think that breaking them all down and selling them for spare parts is really the best thing to do with them.
  • Eye Scream: Zamora executes one of his own bodyguards in front of the others, as punishment for screwing up and mouthing off, by stabbing him through the eyeball with a wooden shrimp skewer.
  • Gutted Like a Fish: Graphically performed on Amy while she was restrained, sedated, but still conscious.
  • Heel–Face Turn: The longhaired bodyguard, near the end, has had enough of Zamora, and makes the split second decision to shoot him dead.
  • Medical Horror: The scene with the live organ removal is very unsettling in general, and particularly for anyone who gets nervous around doctors with gloves and steel utensils.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Kiko, and later on the bodyguard, both eventually turn on Zamora, largely because the guy is an evil prick and had already murdered one of his own guys earlier just to make a point.
  • Organ Theft: Victims' usable organs are being harvested and sent to the People’s Hospital in Rio de Janeiro and used for the benefit of the poor.
  • Slipping a Mickey: After spending the day on the beach, the protagonists are served drugged drinks at the local cabana bar and pass out. They re-awaken to find themselves in the hands of the organleggers.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: This is where most of the gang's victims end up, still alive, while having their warm insides carved out to be sold on the black market.
  • Tone Shift: Just when things are getting really lit at the bar on the beach, the spiked drinks start taking their effect on the tourists. The music slows, accompanied by a Drone of Dread, and the fun is officially over for the rest of the movie.
  • Too Dumb to Live: This would apply to almost the entire group of tourists, save maybe Alex at times. Again and again, they make absolutely stupid decisions and show terrible judgment overall.
  • Upper-Class Twit: Every main character is this. Each of them is a clueless 1st world backpacker who seemingly has zero regard for the iffy territory they're in, even after overtly alarming things start happening.
  • You Have Failed Me: Zamora is admonishing his crew for letting 2 captives get away, when he catches some attitude from one of them. Calmly and without warning, Zamora rams a wooden skewer through the guy's eyeball and into his brain, killing him outright. "No more mistakes."


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