A group of backpackers, brought together from all over the world, congregate in rural Brazil for some beach-time fun involving volleyball, dancing and copious amounts of alcohol. Unfortunately, some of the locals are less than friendly and their dream holiday soon turns into the worst nightmare imaginable.

Reading this plot, you might think this film is pretty predictable, the storyline a familiar one. You'd be right. In essence, this is HOSTEL in the Brazilian jungle: attractive twentysomethings find themselves at the mercy of a psychopath keen to inflict gruesome surgery on them, one by one. Along the way, there's some underwater cave diving, a bunch of henchmen carrying crossbows and rifles, and some extreme gore here and there. The pacing is fast, the characters fairly unremarkable and the twists well signposted, but nevertheless this is a mildly entertaining movie. Just don't go in expecting anything new.

The cast is okay, if not amazing. There are up and comers like Olivia Wilde present, and Melissa George looks absolutely great in a bikini. Agles Steib is probably the best actor, playing a young Brazilian guy who may or may not be friend or foe. The action scenes are well handled, and the special effects more than gruesome, especially in the film's most outrageous moment when a young blonde girl is totally eviscerated by the evil surgeon bad guy. Okay, it's rather silly, but this derivative outing works periodically well.

Alex (Josh Duhamel),his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde) and her friend Amy (Beau Garrett) are traveling in Brazil. Their bus goes off the road stranding everybody. They and Englishmen Finn (Desmond Askew) and Liam (Max Brown),and Australian Pru (Melissa George) who speaks fluent Portuguese decide to go to the beach and find two more tourists at the bar. They are drugged and robbed. The two other tourists are kidnapped and killed during an attempted escape. The six new friends get help from Kiko who takes them to an isolated cabin. They are taken prisoner by Dr. Zamora who intends to harvest the rich gringos' organs for the poor of Rio de Janeiro.

The first half is pretty good. I would have simplified it by making all characters friends. It would make them more emotionally connected to each other. It would also make the final three less obvious. The first half has the tension of traveling in a foreign land. The chaos in the village is pretty good. The organ harvesting is so idiotic. The three girls are more likely to be sex trafficked and everybody is worth more for ransom anyways. It's a silly made up fear that makes little sense. The final chase in the water is too chaotic and hard to decipher. This is no great horror but it's got some B-movie goodness.

I first saw this in 2007 on a dvd which I own.

Revisited it recently.

Agree its the same old stuff in new settings but the film has some amazing under water sequences, nice locations, good babes n it is a bit frightening, especially after the detailed evisceration sequence.

Mind you, it is not at all a Hostel rip off. I hated Hostel as it is pure torture porn. This one is like a survival thriller.

The cage scenes are shot in darkness and one cannot make out what is going on. Also what happens to the character Liam is never shown. (He decides to stay behind to fight back, only to be shot in the leg and captured). But aft how the movie ended, one expected to see the fate of Liam.