Dark Tourist

Going to dark places taking literally. Our main protagonist is not someone that will win a popularity contest. But that is not the kind of movie you should expect anyway. This is exactly what it says: Dark! And the main actor is great depicting the downfalls and the character trades in general.

Which also makes this is a very uneasy view. This won't go down easy with people who can't stomach a few events. You might see a few things coming, but there are still some surprises that are going even deeper into the tunnel. Very well shot this was a favorite at the Frightfest in London where it was playing. Not for everyone, but if you can dig it (you'll know a few minutes in), you'll have a hell of a ride

(2012) Dark Tourist/ The Grief Tourist PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA/ HORROR

It has security guard, Jim Tahana (Michael Cudlitz) narrating his obsession about actual serial killer books, and during his off days or when he goes on vacation he spends much of his time visiting gruesome sites where the murderers take place making Jim as the "Grief tourist".-hence the title. One of those places Jim visits is the serial killer Carl Marznap (Pruitt Taylor Vince) in which he re-imagines how he commit those murders. Leading to a predictable result that should have been a 45 stint TV show but not as a feature film.

I thought Melanie's character was not needed. She also delivered a less than 'good' performance. I don't know if the Director thought he could cash in on her star power or what he was thinking by allowing her to be in this movie. I felt she sunk the movie faster than it was already sinking on its own. Her weak attempts at crying forced me to fast forward her parts in the movie altogether. The movie was on to something great then the writers or directors (maybe both) lost their way. Showing the other murders and far less of Melanie's character would have been great. The ambiguity of the prostitute in the next room was great because I wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman with a strap on. Some confusion on my part did set in when the reporter said that 6 transsexual prostitutes were murdered. That tells me it was a man. However, her/his phone conversation with the kid and going to Six Flags told me t was a woman. Confusing. HAD potential!

Grim and grimy offering from British director Suri Krishnamma who really seems to capture the unpleasantness of a true crime aficionado who gets just a little too close to those ghastly past events. Michael Cudlitz is solid in the lead and Melanie Griffith puts in a brave performance as a desperate and well past her prime waitress looking for love. Or at least something in her godforsaken town. Bleak throughout with little colour or light relief and grubby and difficult to enjoy whilst even the sex scenes lack glamour or titillation. The fantasy sequences are well done without any fancy effects and the whole is utterly convincing, its just completely uncompromising and oh so ghastly.

Disturbing, raven hued serial killer noir, 'Dark Tourist' has a cogent script, oodles of style, and an especially compelling performance by Michael Cudlitz as the introspective, taciturn, downward-spiralling nightwatchman who exchanges the solitary grind of his thankless job for a thrilling terror trip into the stark, sweltering Californian hinterlands, morbidly retracing infamous mass murderer Carl Marznap's (Pruitt Taylor Vince) historical killing spree! While well-paced, and razor-sharp in its execution, 'Dark Tourist' might not have enough wanton 'Slash N' Gash' to satisfy the more splatter-happy Grindhouse gorelings, but Krishnamma's angsty, flawlessly acted, sexually sordid thriller has a genuinely unsettling fatalistic tone that rigorously infuses the repressed, increasingly unstable psychopath's (Michael Cudlitz) grisly exodus with a palpably zesty threat of inexorable doom!