Habitaciones para turistas

I recently watched this film at the 30'Th Gothenburg Film Festival, and to be honest it was on of the worst films I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Don't get me wrong, there are the funny and entertaining bad films (e.g "Manos – Hands of fate") and then there are the awful bad films. (This one falls into the latter category). The cinematography was unbelievable, and not in a good way. It felt like the cameraman deliberately kept everything out of focus (with the exception of a gratuitous nipple shot), the lighting was something between "one guy running around with a light bulb" and "non existing". The actors were as bad as soap actors but not as bad as porn actors, and gave the impression that every line came as a total surprise to them. The only redeeming feature was the look of the masked killer, a classic look a la Jason Vorhees from "Friday the 13'Th". The Plot was extremely poor, and the ending even worse. I would only recommend this movie to anyone needing an example of how a horror film is not supposed be look like, or maybe an insomniac needing sleep.

Story revolving around a gaggle of girls who are individually heading to Trinidad, Argentina. They all end up missing the train and are stuck in this little, weirdo, ultra religious town called San Ramon. Luck be true, a nice guy comes along and offers them a place to stay for the night until the next morning's train. And this is where sh!t hits the fan.

I was told that Rooms for Tourists was a very scary film. One of the scariest in the past couple years. Not sure that's the case, because human villains don't scare me in the slightest, but I would agree to it being one of the best independent horror flicks in the past couple years.

The film delivers some really nice gore effects, some nice atmosphere and camera-work. The camera-work especially when in the house is very well-done. They like to use lighting to only capture the girls, but everything around them is pitch black. It gives the film a nice feeling of that an unknown presence could be anywhere.

The film didn't begin so hot, it was pretty amateurish with it's acting, but fortunately when the action began the girls became somewhat believable. My only problem with the girls later on was the screaming, sometimes too much is too much. Nevertheless the movie became pretty damn good in the final act and I really enjoyed the ending. One other minor fault is the predictability of the death order of girls. I had it all pegged out from the very beginning.

Minus any faults, this film was a nice little (independent) treat of horror and I suggest any fan of foreign horror/slashers to give Rooms for Tourists a go.

This foreign movie is a great example of a good horror movie without the millions of dollars that Hollywood use in their horrible flicks. First a Warning, this movie is in Spanish with English subs, and its in Black and white (looks like DV, not film but i don't know that for sure). If you cant stand subtitles or B&W, stay away from this. If you want to see a very good horror movie, get this from netflix now! A group of young girls are in a town in the middle of nowhere were all the inhabitants are religion-freaks. The massacre begins quickly. There are some Dario Argento inspired moments, like the nightmare sequences, that are really good and creepy. Also, there is a cool amount of blood and gore. 8/10

Director Adrian Garcia Bogliano does terrific work here on a shoestring budget. Finely crafted screenplay. I liked the editing, score, performances; just a nice job all around.

Bogliano is probably better than most filmmakers working in the genre today.

The only minus, and I hate to even bring this up, because it's obvious they had next to no money, it seems it was shot on Hi-8 (or something). It's also B&W. Now, mind you, I don't mind Black & White at all, but the picture is not as sharp as it ought to be, etc. Like I said, though, this is a very minor complaint.

RE: Extras. Don't expect much. No commentary, no behind the scenes--and it's too bad. Would have been interesting to hear what the filmmakers had to say.

Bottom line: one of the better scare flicks in some time.

It's interesting to see what the director tried to do with this film. But the problem is that it's not very good. There was nothing really original in the film and while the plot was well presented, the main characters were all a bit to shallow and you didn't bother for any of them.

Rather bland (and sometimes downright bad) photo leaves a bit to be desired but I guess you can't expect to much from people who are just doing a low budget film for the heck of it. It's unfair to review the film and compare it to other high-budget films. But alas, that is what one must do. On its own, it's not very good. And compared to others, it's still not very good. But it is not without its good points! I liked the plot. It was built up rather nicely and tied together well at the end. Sometimes in the really dark scenes, it managed to build up a creepy feeling as well.

However in the end the film fails to impress. The characters are pretty much non-existent and we don't care for any of them. Any of them might die, but it's possible to pinpoint the final "survivor" from very early on.