Camden New Journal - Movies: Paradise Lost

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 31 May 2007

It’s a jungle out there...

PARADISE LOST
Directed by John Stockwell
Certificate 18

YOU just know something nasty is going to happen after the opening sequence of this gory slice of grand guignol, as a tourist bus bumping through the jungle roads in Brazil suddenly veers off and crashes on the edge of a clifftop.
The passengers scramble out before the vehicle slides down the precipice and overturns, leaving them abandoned at the roadside.
Six young backpackers decide to hike off through the jungle for help rather than wait two days for the next bus.
Don’t do it, boys and girls! Too late – they become caught up in an all-night rave on a remote beach, and awaken next morning in a drugged stupor to find all their belongings have been stolen.
They spend the rest of the film in bare feet, trekking through the tangled undergrowth – only to fall foul of a wild-eyed doctor (Miguel Lunardi), whose hobby is kidnapping tourists to remove their vital organs and sell them for profit.
Cut (literally) into grisly scenes where one of the girls (Beau Garrett, who will doubtless dine out on this for years to come) has her kidney removed while she’s still conscious, and the claret flows in rivers.
Director John Stockwell aims to shock us by crossing the Blair Witch Project with Deliverance, but goes so far over the top that he achieves neither.
One thing for sure: it isn’t going to do a lot for the Brazil tourism industry.

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