by MARK SLUTSKY

Wealthy Americans on vacation, delighting in the sensual spoils of a foreign land, who take a wrong turn and find a lot of gory mayhem and a terrible fate, which they must fight for their lives to escape: that’s pretty much Eli Roth’s extremely entertaining 2005 hit Hostel for you. But that synopsis could equally apply to Turistas, a copycat thriller from director John Stockwell (Blue Crush, Crazy/

Beautiful) that sets the action in gorgeous Brazil instead of post-Soviet Eastern Europe.

Not that this would be the first time a horror film was less than original in its plotting, but after Hostel’s success, the imitation seems particularly shameless. Turistas (sporting a title that’s pretty much guaranteed to confuse its target audience of thrill-hungry teenagers into thinking it’s a foreign film) features a gaggle of sexy young actors (Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde and a handful of others) backpacking their way through South America when they narrowly escape from a bus crash. They find their way to an idyllic beach where they party down with the locals before simultaneously getting woozy and passing out.

It weren’t the rum, though, as it turns out our hedonistic Americans (plus a couple Brits and a toothy Aussie) have been drugged and robbed, and the best is yet to come, as they’re targeted for a gruesome organ-harvesting scheme. In the film’s seeming attempt at a social conscience (kinda), the ringleader of the whole kidney-thieving organization is a doctor peeved at American exploitation of his country, and he plans to donate the whole bushel of tender young organs to a poor Rio hospital.

That’s probably the only clever element of this otherwise pretty yawnsome flick, which features a lot of attractive young folks along with some pretty creepy near-racism. More or less every Brazilian in the film is incompetent or evil (despite a couple of pangs of conscience at the 11th hour), and to be honest, you eventually start to see things from the evil doctor’s point of view. Unlike Hostel’s wry commentary on headstrong tourists messing with a culture they don’t understand, Turistas’ attitude is more or less old-fashioned, natives-are-restless xenophobia, and there’s really no excuse for that stuff anymore.

Turistas opens this Friday, Dec. 1

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