Twenty-somethings ending up somewhere bad while traveling. It’s a trope as old, at least, as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and it’s a trope that just keeps on giving. Why not? We’re a traveling people. Seeing new things and meeting strangers is what we do during those occasions when we are able to toss off the shackles. Some of us have even been in sketchy situations far from home. Some have been robbed or worse. Who knows? Maybe some of us have been closer to never coming home than we ever knew.
From 2006 comes Turistas, written by Michael Arlen Ross and directed by John Stockwell, whom horror fans might remember for his portrayal of Dennis in Christine. Turistas follows western tourists in Brazil, and the trouble in which they find themselves. The film opens with a harrowing bus ride through the jungle that introduces us to the hapless protagonists. There is Alex (Josh Duhamel); his sister, Bea (Olivia Wilde); her friend, Amy (Beau Garrett); mates from England Finn and Liam (Desmond Askew and Max Brown); and experienced world traveler, Pru (Melissa George). Continue reading “Turistas”
A Chinese Ghost Story, from Hong Kong actor, stuntman, and filmmaker Siu-Ting Ching (screenplay by Songling Pu and Kai-Chi Yuen), is, according to the internet, a xianxia film. Xianxia are ‘closely related to the wuxia and shenmo genres.’ There is some cultural illiteracy here, on my part, but those strange new terms basically mean ‘based within Chinese mythology.’ Now we’re getting somewhere. If one has seen a Hong Kong martial arts flick that takes place before the emergence of modern China, one will be familiar with the look and feel of A Chinese Ghost Story. It’s a piece of fantasy, encompassing demons and the supernatural, with Hong Kong martial arts movie trickery thrown in, and comedy to keep things light.