Tagline: Go home.
“Turistas” is a tense, unsettling thriller centering around a diverse group of young adventure travelers. After a terrifying bus accident maroons them in a remote Brazilian beach town, they slowly discover that the white sand beaches and lush jungles are concealing a darker, unsettling secret…
Brazil. Beautiful women, pristine beaches, a friendly, open culture. Alex (Josh Duhamel) is accompanying his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde) and her best friend Amy (Beau Garrett) for their first time abroad – young Americans who have come to exotic Brazil for fun, adventure and the promise of foreign pleasures.
On a rickety bus rocketing up a twisting mountain road, they meet the beautiful Pru (Melissa George), who speaks the native language Portuguese, and Finn and Liam (Desmond Askew and Max Brown), in Brazil for the sole purpose of experiencing the beautiful Brazilian women they’ve heard so much about first hand.
After enduring a harrowing bus crash which strands them in what seems to be the middle of nowhere, Alex, Bea, and their band of traveling companions attempt to salvage their day by seeking out a cabana bar on a nearby beach rather than wait an endless amount of time for the next bus to come by. This seemingly small decision will change all their fates forever.
The discovery of the beautiful and secluded beach gives way to a day in the sun and surf, an afternoon at the bar, and a night of exotic liquors and hot dancing with the locals. It’s everything their vacation is supposed to be, until they wake up face down in the sand the following morning, drugged and robbed, their possessions gone, and the trace of very real danger in the air. There are places where Americans can travel without worry or fear, but this remote paradise is not one of them.
The farther the group travels into this mysterious and isolated Brazilian community, the further they are from the possibility of escape…and the closer they come to the dark secret that waits for them in the lush jungle and underground caverns of the Brazilian jungle, and they must fight a primal battle for their lives in the most terrifying of all human traps.
Production Notes
“Turistas” is the first American production to shoot entirely in the country of Brazil.
Brazil. Beautiful women, pristine beaches, a friendly, open culture. Alex (Josh Duhamel) is accompanying his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde) and her best friend Amy (Beau Garrett) for their first time abroad – young Americans who have come to exotic Brazil for fun, adventure and the promise of foreign pleasures. On a rickety bus rocketing up a twisting mountain road, they meet the beautiful Pru (Melissa George), who speaks the native language Portuguese, and Finn and Liam (Desmond Askew and Max Brown), in Brazil for the sole purpose of experiencing the beautiful Brazilian women they’ve heard so much about first hand.
After enduring a harrowing bus crash which strands them in what seems to be the middle of nowhere, Alex, Bea, and their band of traveling companions attempt to salvage their day by seeking out a cabana bar on a nearby beach rather than wait an endless amount of time for the next bus to come by. This seemingly small decision will change all their fates forever.
The discovery of the beautiful and secluded beach gives way to a day in the sun and surf, an afternoon at the bar, and a night of exotic liquors and hot dancing with the locals. It’s everything their vacation is supposed to be, until they wake up face down in the sand the following morning, drugged and robbed, their possessions gone, and the trace of very real danger in the air. There are places where Americans can travel without worry or fear, but this remote paradise is not one of them.
The farther the group travels into this mysterious and isolated Brazilian community, the further they are from the possibility of escape…and the closer they come to the dark secret that waits for them in the lush jungle and underground caverns of the Brazilian jungle, and they must fight a primal battle for their lives in the most terrifying of all human traps.
About the Production
“Turistas” spins a dizzying tale of escalating terror that overcomes a group of American tourists whose sense of ease and security are perhaps too great when they set out to have an adventure in exotic Brazil.
Director John Stockwell experienced firsthand this kind of awakening to the potential dangers inherent in traveling after shooting his last film, “Into the Blue.” His adventure into Northern Peru, “went from being an amazing, culturally enriching expedition to a near death experience when I was robbed and shot at by a group of 13-year-olds with guns,”
The experience left him shaken and when he picked up the screenplay to “Turistas,” his reaction was immediate. “After what I experienced, the story really resonated with me,” he says. “There’s something universal about the idea of the fearless, ‘lonely planet’, off-the-beaten-track traveler having a long-awaited journey that goes totally off the rails. Taking that kind of journey is a fantasy for a lot of people, but the reality, it turns out, can be completely different.”
The film begins with a group of loosely connected strangers brought together in the cramped quarters of a bus carrying both tourists and locals. Amongst the group are an American brother and sister, Alex and Bea, played by Josh Duhamel and Olivia Wilde. Stockwell sees Alex as “the kind of guy who will order a coke and a burger in the best restaurant in Brazil. He has probably never been outside of the US. If he has, it’s been to Cancun. He’s a smart, physically-capable guy but very, very cautious and believes everything he hears about the dangers facing Americans around the world.”
“Alex is a paranoid American who is thrust into a situation in which his worst fears come to life,” says Duhamel. Like Stockwell, Duhamel responded to the script’s twists and turns but also some of the darker themes present in the story. “There is an edge and grittiness to it, and it just moved me,” he says. “I always wanted to be a part of a movie that was about survival at great odds, the type of movie where all you can do is keep going, no matter how painful or scary the circumstances.”
Duhamel, says the director, did not have to reach far to find the character’s inherent strength. “There’s a lot of overlap between Josh and the character he plays in ‘Turistas,’” says Stockwell. “Josh grew up in North Dakota, hasn’t spent a lot of time outside of the United States and is generally a pretty cautious and thoughtful guy. But he’s also incredibly gifted physically and would be the sort of person you want backing you up if you were fighting for your life in the Brazilian jungle.” Adds his co-star, Olivia Wilde, “Josh’s self deprecating sense of humor and fearless physical dedication always made his scenes so nuanced and exciting.”
Younger and free of their parents, Bea and her best friend Amy are having the time of their lives on this holiday. “Bea and Amy are up for any adventure and always looking to go down the dark unexplored alleys,” Stockwell explains. “They have always dreamed of going to exotic Brazil, with its beautiful beaches, people, music, and food. They are up for any and all adventures.”
Olivia Wilde, who made a splash as Mischa Barton’s love interest on “The O.C.,” plays Alex’s naïve and carefree sister. “Bea is a 17-year-old girl from a small town who has spent her life dreaming of traveling to photograph other cultures,” explains Wilde.
“She wants to ride the buses, stay in hostels, drink the water, and dance with the locals. She’s never been a huge risk-taker, and this is her chance to let loose and be free. She loves her best friend Amy, whom she has known since childhood, like a sister. They do everything together! I loved that sense of family that exists between the three American characters, Alex, Bea, and Amy. They come from somewhere small and safe, and they would do anything for each other.”
“Olivia Wilde was the revelation of the movie,” says Stockwell. “Like her character, she initially seems quiet and understated but that’s all cover for her wild and voracious appetite for life.”
Wilde was drawn in to the film’s uniqueness when she read the script. “I had never read anything so simultaneously gritty and awash with sexy color,” she recalls. “It was exciting, tense, and fun. I was immediately curled up on my couch, biting my nails, flipping the pages like crazy. Most of us have had the experience of being a clueless traveler with no real sense of the immense difference between this foreign culture and our own. There is always the lingering fear of the unknown.”
As their journey begins, Bea and Amy reassure Alex – they’re in paradise; what could possibly go wrong? “Bea is always the optimist in the family,” says Wilde. “Alex hates the way the bus driver handles the roads, whereas Bea would rather trust the guy, and lay back and enjoy the adventure. She always seems to think everything will be fine, until, of course, events take a horrifying turn.”
Alex’s fears come true when the driver loses control and the passengers are barely able to escape with their lives before the bus tumbles down a cliff. Soon, Bea inadvertently breaks taboo and photographs a local child, drawing anger from the locals who had been on the bus.
A fellow tourist steps in and helps cool the situation. This is Pru, played by Melissa George. “I play a very young and very tan Australian who meets these other tourists on a bus,” says George. “She also happens to speak the language, so she is able to explain to the others that there are stories going around of children being kidnapped by Americans and unspeakable things being done to them. So, it’s not a good idea to take pictures of their children. Of course the others didn’t know that; why would they?”
To convincingly play an experienced young tourist with a knack for language, George took a crash course in Portuguese, becoming conversant within just a few weeks of classes. “Melissa was the most well traveled actor in the mix,” explains Stockwell. “She became not only my actress but my own translator.”
Their group soon comes to include a pair of young Brits – Finn and Liam (Desmond Askew and Max Brown), both eager to meet as many beautiful Brazilian women as they can. Their prayers are answered when the group decides to head down to the beach to find a cabana bar they’ve heard about rather than wait out the next bus with the somewhat hostile locals. “They assume they’ll be able to just climb back up the hill in time for the next bus,” says George. “After all, they’re in paradise. This seems like just the kind of adventure they came to Brazil to have. It never occurs to them that everything might not be completely all right in the end.”
The bar is everything they’d hoped and more – exotic drinks, beautiful people dancing and partying well into the night. At one point, a carefree Alex and Bea argue over whether the local ice will give them dysentery, as if that’s the worst that could happen to them. “It’s such a brother/sister moment,” says Wilde. “They are both SO American in their ‘Turista’ ways. It makes me laugh every time I see it. In my real life, I grew up traveling constantly, and my father is European, so playing someone so naïve and sheltered was a fun departure from myself.”
As it gets later and later, they start to get a little heavy on their feet, and then all goes black, until they wake up – alone on the beach, with all their money, passports and possessions gone, and two other tourists they’d met at the bar missing completely.
“I wanted to explore a world that could go from good to bad in a millisecond,” says Stockwell. “A world where calling 911 or going to the American embassy was not an option. I was interested in examining the fears Americans have of traveling to foreign lands and how a youthful sense of impulsive invulnerability could, with one wrong move or one wrong choice, lead into life-threatening situations that don’t get resolved with a phone call home to the parents.”
They find their way into town and things soon go from bad to worse where Alex spots his cap on the head of a local kid. Chaos ensues, and the sudden appearance of Kiko (Agles Steib), a Brazilian teenager Bea befriended at the party, seems to be their best hope of escaping. “The situation is so unknown to them and everyone seems so hostile that they’re relieved when they see Kiko,” says Beau Garrett, who plays Amy.
“They trust him completely and believe him when he tells them he has a safe house in the jungle where they can hide out. They have no idea how much trouble they’re in; it’s just completely inconceivable to them that everything might not be all right in the end.”
There are forces at work in the village – bad men whose business is shadowy and whose intentions couldn’t be farther from the Turistas minds. But their methods are brutal, and they have no love for turistas. “These villagers have been whipped into a frenzy over the supposed kidnapping of their children,” says George. “To them, all Americans, all tourists, should be held accountable for these crimes, which none of them really have first-hand knowledge of but which they feel is a great injustice done to them. Our group simply has no idea what they’ve stepped into.”
“These are people with different perspectives who believe they deserve to get payback by making examples of Americans,” says Duhamel. “The underlying social and political themes in this story are very current, and this is a hardcore film that doesn’t turn away from the brutal reality of what these tourists get simply for being naïve, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Their new friend draws them deep into a lush jungle, in which they see otherworldly, breathtaking sights – like underground natural caverns and towering forests crawling with exotic wildlife – but the farther they race from the immediate dangers of town, the further they drift from any hope of rescue. “Alex doesn’t want to follow him and is immediately suspicious, but with no embassy, no ID, no phones, they don’t have much of a choice,” Duhamel explains.
“The film explores what it means to be an outsider,” says Wilde, “and how we learn to trust people we know nothing about. The story should make people think about consequences of our actions while traveling, and about the actions of our home countries that we may know nothing about. It’s also a story about survival against impossible barriers, and the lengths we’ll go to in order to protect the people we love.”
And once they reach the so-called safe-house, the dire truth about their predicament finally hits home – none of them is meant to make it out of the jungle alive.
“Bea has always had Alex to keep her safe, and by the end of the film, she has been forced to really come into her own and save herself,” says Wilde. “She has grown colder and yet she holds an appreciation for life that few others her age could ever posses. She is traumatized and fragile, but at the same time she has to attempt to survive a nightmare most could hardly imagine.”
Stockwell started his career as an actor, appearing in such films as “John Carpenter’s Christine” and “Top Gun” before going on to direct such films as “Blue Crush” and “Into the Blue.” “Turistas” represents his first foray into more adult-themed entertainment. “I had a real interest in developing an unflinching, disturbingly very real tale of a trip gone bad,” he says, “one that would prey upon all the fears about what happens when you leave the safety and security of America. I wanted to make a paranoid thriller with moments of absolute horror that would stay with you. Whether these fears are based on reality or totally unfounded is almost beside the point. The fear is very real, and ‘Turistas’ definitely takes that fear to its razor edge.”
“This is definitely not a movie for the faint of heart,” adds Duhamel. “It’s beautiful, sexy and surprisingly funny but it’s also painful, scary and difficult to watch at times. It definitely takes you right to the edge.”
The Journey to Brazil
“Turistas” is the first American production shot entirely in the country of Brazil. The production took residence in Brazil for five months (including preproduction), and filmed at locations including the lush jungles and pristine beaches of Ubatuba and the otherworldly underground water-filled caves near Lencois, which had never before been used as a production location.
“We shot the film in a small Brazilian beach town, called Ubatuba and Itamambuca, half-way between Rio and San Paulo,” comments the director. “And we cast a lot of local non-actors to play Brazilians. There were some language issues as many of the local actors and the majority of the crew spoke little if any English and my Portuguese is terrible.”
Nonetheless, the director found shooting in Brazil, with an almost entirely Brazilian crew, to be a “revelation.” “They worked with a passionate intensity and flexibility that had nothing to do with compensation,” he says. “If they liked you, they would work for hours without any talk of overtime (which doesn’t really exist in Brazil). If you pissed them off, they could just decide they were done with filming that day.”
Upon arriving in the vast South American country, the cast and key crew had some unsettling experiences of their own. “Five minutes outside of the Rio airport, we looked over and saw a boy sticking a .9mm gun into the window of the car next to ours,” recalls Stockwell. One of the Brazilian actresses they auditioned had herself been kidnapped at gunpoint not long before. “There’s a volatility to Rio that is quite palpable. That being said, I love the place and would go back and work there tomorrow.”
Cast and crew alike prepared themselves to take things as they come. “This was not your usual ‘Hollywood’ production,” says Stockwell. “We didn’t have the normal RVs or trailers for the actors; we had air mattresses and tents. There was a free-form quality to the filming style, a willingness to do whatever it took to get the shot, that I found very liberating. We adapted to the Brazilian style of filming. The actors all stayed in a fairly primitive eco-hotel in the middle of the jungle and they all have the bug bite scars to prove it.”
Working with Stockwell, Wilde says his “constant preparedness, major sense of adventure, and a truly creative spirit” were both inspiring and contagious. “We showed up on set every day, with no makeup or hair styling, covered in mosquito bites, ready to improvise, and push ourselves to the limit,” she recalls. “He believes in making situations seem real. And some of the scary scenes are disturbingly real!”
Duhamel concurs with his on-screen sister, “It’s great when the captain of the ship knows exactly where he is going. He was open to collaboration but had a vision that made the actors comfortable. This was unlike any film he had done, so I knew he was really inspired creatively.”
The director worked closely with director of photography Enrique Chediak, to set a distinct look for the film that would change as the characters’ situation becomes more dire. “We wanted to start with a highly saturated, rich chroma look,” Stockwell describes, “a very vivid rendering of the lush greens of the jungle and the dazzling, impossibly blue skies. We wanted to make Brazil look as alluring and inviting as possible – impossible to resist. As the film takes a darker turn much of the color bleeds out and it takes on a sort of desaturated, bleach-bypass look.
A critical location was the “safe-house” tucked away in the jungle where Kiko takes the group of turistas. “Almost all of the locations were practical, found locations,” explains the director. “The jungle house was something we literally stumbled on when we were scouting for waterfalls. It was something out of an apparition – this open-to-theelements, slightly faded but wonderfully decadent hunting lodge in the middle of the jungle.”
The cast and crew were especially impressed by the underwater caves where they shot a number of sequences in the film. The underwater cave sequences were shot in the Chapada Diamantina national park in Bahia, one on the more Northern states. “It’s the most unique-looking place we shot,” says Wilde. “The colonial architecture really brought to life the history of the Portuguese occupation and colonization, and so we spent hours walking down cobblestone streets and eating in tiny colorful restaurants that said ‘slow food’ on the doors. We spent our days off there sliding down enormous waterfalls and dancing in the streets. I miss that town and those underwater caves that shone bright neon blue when the sun hit them at midday.”
These physically demanding scenes – in which the characters make their way through a series of interconnected underwater caves – required the utmost safety and preparation. “I did a lot of underwater training before we began the shoot,” notes Duhamel. “It was a physically demanding role so I spent time preparing for that.”
For the Bahia caves, Wilde wanted the opportunity to do the swimming herself, without help from her stunt double. Once underwater, however, she found herself in the midst of a panic attack as she swam under a cave wall, searching for tiny oxygen pockets to breathe in, with no goggles, air or light. “I should mention that my stunt double, Mehgan Heaney Grier, is a champion free diver who holds the record for diving 165 feet on a single breath!” says Wilde.
“Needless to say, I finally made it out after deciding that I was not going to mess up my chance to have completed my own big stunt, and as I swam out of the rocks, everyone clapped. I didn’t tell anyone I had totally panicked until that night at one of our fabulous family dinners, and everyone laughed so hard! This is what I loved about this experience. We were there to support each other, teach each other, and challenge each other.”
So much of what is captured onscreen paralleled the experience of the actors and small contingent of foreigners who approached the Brazilian experience in radically different ways. “And although we left with our wallets and organs intact, everyone sensed that with one wrong turn, one misunderstanding, one broken-down bus, the experience of a lifetime could have taken a radically different course,” he says.
“We were a supremely lucky bunch of kids doing what we loved in the most beautiful place on Earth,” says Wilde.
These production notes provided by Fox Atomic.
Turistas
Starring: Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde, Desmond Askew, Beau Garrett, Max Brown, Raul Guterres
Directed by: John Stockwell
Screenplay by: Michael Ross
Release Date: December 1, 2006
MPAA Rating: R for strong graphic violence and disturbing content, sexuality, nudity, drug use and language.
Studio: Fox Atomic
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $7,027,762 (49.1%)
Foreign: $7,293,308 (50.9%)
Total: $14,321,070 (Worldwide)