Paradise Lost opens with a montage of jellied innards and illicit surgery as some young American hottie is harvested for organs. Oh dear. The victim must have forgotten that a hedonistic backpacking holiday around Brazil is certain to end this way if you’re trapped in a sub-standard Hostel clone.
Thus, the Pretty Young Things of this title – Josh Duhamel, Mellissa George and Olivia Wilde – seems destined to come a cropper. Seasoned film-goers will note the involvement of director John Stockwell (Blue Crush, Into The Blue), the latter-day Russ Meyers of malnourished starlets. (No mountainous cleavage here.) They will also spot the inclusion of a cheeky British chappy among the ill-fated travellers. If this doesn’t alert you to the movie’s subtext – The Gulf War is like, really unpopular or something – then never fear. There are plenty of opportunities to catch it on the bounce.
A demented cackling surgeon, for instance, delivers an entire monologue on this very matter while cutting up American Beach Babe #3 for her quivering organs. His gruesome theft, as he explains to his semi-conscious victim, is entirely justified. After all, if the West has plundered the Rest Of World, then what’s a kidney here or there?
Where Hostel delivered its warning with a degree of subtlety – or as much as you can get when characters are hacked to pieces with drills – Paradise Lost puts its message in giant neon letters before completely forgetting what genre we’re at. After one measly revolting dissection scene, we’re into the slow, muddied underwater chase that takes up most of the final act before petering out altogether. Perhaps scuba divers accustomed to such blurry aquatic vistas, will be able to determine what on earth is going on.
Don’t expect Milton.