Welcome back to Rotten Ink and to another “From Horror Movie To Horror Comic” update. This time around we will be talking about the 2006 film Turistas, a horror thriller that deals with the horrors of human organ trafficking and the scares one could get when in a foreign country where you are the target of a group of people who want to do you harm. And what is very cool about this film is that the fine folks at IDW Comics gave it the comic book treatment, and like always, I wish more movie companies would team with comic book publishers to make this happen more often. So if you are ready, let’s head to Brazil and see what Dr. Zamora and his internal organ harvesters have in store for us as they slice and dice not only on film but also on the pages of a comic book! And before we move on, I want to also say that I truly do enjoy doing these From Horror Movie To Horror Comic updates as they are a great way to talk about two things I love: horror movies and horror comics. Plus I have always been a fan of comics that are based off films and will always try an cover as many as I can here on my blog.
Let’s start by taking a look at Dr. Zamora, the ruthless killer of the film Turistas, and his ways of dealing death to those who cross his path and don’t follow his orders. Dr. Zamora is a normal man who lives in a small village in Brazil and who takes care of the kids in the village with shots and healthcare, but is using stolen drugs from his victims to do so. Dr. Zamora has an army of armed men that do as he orders as many of them he pays well in drugs and cash making them very loyal to him and not minding taking the lives of others or bringing him tourists to do what he wants with. You see, Zamora is a doctor who steals the organs of tourists after he has his followers drug and take them back to his lab in the middle of the jungle so that he can harvest their livers and kidneys to give to the local hospital to save his people’s lives. He is skilled at cutting up bodies and taking the body parts he needs, but he is also very cruel in nature as he gets pleasure in killing the tourists as he truly hates them and everything they stand for. He is also very cruel to his own followers as he has no issues killing them if he feels they let him down, and uses their death to make sure others fear him. One of his major tools is fear as those who know him, serve him and are targets of his all fear him and his cruel ways. Dr. Zamora will end a person’s life not only with a scalpel but also will use guns in order to make his victims meet a bloody and painful end. He also will use sharp objects like a stick to jab into a person’s eye and into their brain showing how little he cares for life that he feels is below him. But while Dr. Zamora is very mean and evil he is just a man and can be killed like any normal person from beating, stabbing, drowning, burnt, shot and everything else that a person could die from. While he is not the most unstoppable nor brutal killer we have looked at, he is one of the top when it comes to medically killing you to steal your internal organs.
So now that we have taken a look at Dr. Zamora and his was of not only killing you but also stealing your kidneys, I think that it is time we take a look at the film he is from and that is Turistas from 2006. And like before I will be getting the film’s write up from our pals at IMDB and then will write a little about the film’s production as well as my thoughts on the film. So if you are ready, let’s dive into the water and swim around the waterfalls and hidden caves as we try and keep our guts in our own bodies were they belong.
Turistas (2006)
“A group of young backpackers’ vacation turns sour when a bus accident leaves them marooned in a remote Brazilian rural area that holds an ominous secret.”
Turistas was written by Michael Arien Ross and was his first screenplay, but he was not stranger to horror films as he was the editor on such films as Wrong Turn (2003) and 2001 Maniacs (2005). Director John Stockwell was no stranger to shooting films that are set on islands, tropical and beaches and had done such films as Blue Crush (2002) and Into The Blue (2005) and took the directing duty after it reminded him of being robbed by a gang of glue huffing teenagers in Peru and how the police did nothing about it, well they did offer him a chance to kill the kids for $300.00! The film would be distributed by 20th Century Fox and would get a budget of around $10 million. It would be filmed in Brazil to capture the beauty of that country, and when casting they would hire such names as Olivia Wilde, Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Beau Garrett, Desmond Askew and Miguel Lunardi would be hired to play Dr. Zamora the films main villain. The film was shot very barebones with not a lot of crew and the insects were very bad during filming. The underwater stunts in the caves were the actors, and many times during the shoot Olivia Wilde would have some scary issues in the water. Once the film was done Paul Haslinger would score it and 20th Century Fox would release it under their Fox Atomic label to theaters on December 1, 2006 and it would do ok for them bringing in $14.7 million. The film would be called Paradise Lost in the U.K and Ireland, and this was the first film to be released under the Fox Atomic label. The film would only last around 8 weeks at the first run theaters and was met with mostly negative reviews from critics, with Fangoria Magazine at least being a fan of it. The film was also meet with protests due to the negative image it shows of Brazil, and this hurt the film’s run in South America as it was blamed for trying to scare tourist away from visiting. The film would be released on home media in 2007 and found a bigger audience when the DVD would feature both the theatrical and unrated editions of the film for viewers to see as well as tons of extras including deleted scenes and director commentary. The film in 2006 was released with such other films as An America Haunting, Creepshow 3, Evil Bong, Final Destination 3, The Grudge 2, Hatchet, The Hills Have Eyes, Pumpkinhead: Ashes To Ashes, Saw III, See No Evil, Silent Hill, Slither, Snakes Of A Plane and Underworld: Evolution to name a few.
Turistas is a film that I can remember when it was released to theaters as well as Home Media, but it took me all the way until 2023 to watch it even though I had both the film and comic for a long while…and I am not sure why it took me that long in order to watch it as it has a interesting plot and truly I am shocked I didn’t see in theaters to be honest. When Turistas was released, it was during the start of what critics called “torture porn horror” that was started by Saw in 2004 as well as Hostel in 2005, and while this was very bloody, when it comes to the scenes of stealing the organs, it in my opinion is not in the same league as those films in the bloody violent department and is more of a solid horror thriller that has some gruesome moments. What makes this film standout is that they really did film in Brazil, and this made the scenery very beautiful and 100% the film’s standout actor was Olivia Wilde who played Bea, one of the poor vacationers that is kidnapped and captured for organ harvesting. And as you know, Olivia has gone on to be in many horror and sci-fi films over the years including Alpha Dog (2006), Tron:Legacy (2010), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), The Lazarus Effect (2015), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and was not only one of the lead actresses but also the director of “Don’t Worry Darling (2022)! Another standout in this film was Miguel Lunardi, who played the lead killer Dr. Zamora, and he is fantastic as he looks crazy and also careless when he takes live, a very solid performance. It also very cool that Fox Atomic understood that making comic books to help promote their films was a good idea to draw in more fans to the theater and also it brings moviegoers to comic shops to get a copy of the comic they have just seen. The film’s gore effects work really well with some of the surgery shots being real as they filmed a real doctor at work! Turistas is a film that I did enjoy when I finally watched it, but also I feel has been lost in the shuffle over time as this era for horror films was a mixed bag of theater hits, direct to DVD duds and everything in-between. But if you like horror thrillers about tourists in deep trouble, give this one a watch.
Now that we have talked about Turistas as well as its main villain Dr. Zamora we should get to the comic book based on this film that was release by IDW to help promote the film as well as deliver another horror comic into the hands of readers. And first I would like to thank an Amazon Seller for having this comic in stock and making this update possible. I would like to also remind you that I grade these comics on a star scale of 1 to 4 and am looking for how well the comics stay to the source material, its entertainment value and its art and story. And what is cool with this one is just like with the movie, this will be a first time read for me, and much like the movie, I am not sure why it took me so long to give it a read. But if you are ready, I am ready to see what Horrors that Turistas has in store for us.
Turistas # 0 **1/2
Released in 2006 Cover Price $3.99 IDW # 1 of 1
Buck Mercer is a tourist who lands in Cambodia as in America he strikes out with the ladies, and he hopes to find some cheap thrills with the prostitutes in this foreign land. Once there he finds a young woman but as they are walking back to a hotel room, Buck is robbed and breaks down as all of his money is gone that he brought. But the woman tells him that it is ok, she works on credit and the two head back and have sex. Buck gets money wired to him from his bank and he spends a week with the woman who still will not take any money saying she works on credit, all the while the woman is also taking to someone on a cellphone. One night the woman drugs Buck, and he wakes up in a bathtub filled with ice feeling terrible, bloody and his organs have been stolen! We then join Don and Kym Axelrod who are in a more remote part of Cambodia to visit small villages and try and help the people, and they are joined by a guided named Pham who warns the couple not to take any pictures of the kids as they have been having issues with human trafficking. But of course Kym breaks the rules and the villagers turn on her and Don who are told to run by Pham as the men of the village gear up to attack! Don is knocked out and wakes up in the jungle seeing a chopped off human hand holding one of Kyms earrings and he sets out to rescue her. Don fights off and kills some of the villagers only to find that Pham has set them up all along as he is going to sell Kym to the slave market and then plans on eating the heart of Don!
This is a very strange comic tie in to a film as it does not feature Dr. Zamora nor does it even take place in Brazil instead it features two different stories with two different styles of baddies with one being a prostitute who steals organs from visiting tourist and the other is a guide who along with a village human traffics tourist and even eats the organs of others! The first story is about a chubby loser type guy who has no game with women. While on vacation he falls in love with a lady of the night only to wake up in a bathtub of ice with only one kidney. The other story has a couple who travel to a village to help the people who have been dealing with human trafficking only to find themselves the ones who are in need of help from being trafficked. The kidney-stealing prostitute is smooth in her operations as she uses her good looks and her skills in bed to rope in a dope and then once she has gotten a buyer uses drugs to knock them out and then steal and sell their organs on the black market. While Pham and the villagers almost seem to have a fun time messing with the tourist before they sell them or in the male tourists case eat their hearts, to Pham and his people its clear that life is cheap as they seemingly sacrifice their own people in order to toy with Don who is trying to rescue his wife. And while these stories are pretty well done and creepy, I really did wish it would have been about Dr. Zamora and his ways of stealing organs and killing those who got in his way. Out of the two stories as well I would have to say they are both very much even in the entertainment factor as both have their own sinister charm. The comic is does have bloody parts and does have some gory violent moments that should please the horror comic reader who loves the splatter. The cover for this comic is pretty much the theatrical poster making it eye catching for the fans of the film, but not so much for those who are unaware of the film as its just a close up of a woman’s face. The interior artwork was done by Fabian Slongo, and is pretty good stuff as he captures the rawness of the violence and the style of art that IDW had during this time. Over all while this ties into the theme of the film Turistas, it does not fully feel like a movie tie in comic as the main characters and place of this film are not showcased here, but with that said, it still was a entertaining read and fans of this fight flick should still check it out. Speaking of checking out, take a look at the artwork below to see the style of Slongo used in this comic release.
Well it seems like this vacation is over and it looks like the good old organs are still intact, so that means we must have stayed clear of Dr. Zamora! On a side note I wish that both IDW and Fox Atomic would have remained teaming up as there could have been some cool and interesting horror movie comics released! I should also point out that Fox Atomic did break off and have their own very short lived publishing company and even did a graphic novel based on the remake of The Hills Have Eyes (but that’s for a future update).Well before we go our separate ways until the next update, I should let you know that our next one will take us to the world of Italian horror as I will be covering Demons and a comic released by a record label! So until next time, make sure to read a horror comic or three, watch a horror movie or two and as always support your local horror host. See you next update for a spooky, creepy good time!
