Director John Stockwell ("Blue Crush" and "Into the Blue") continues his love affair with water and well shaped female bodies by adding a horror element to a vacation in Brazil for young Americans who venture off the beaten path. While this is no "Babel," it does a nice job of showing how the clueless traveler deals with being an outsider, literally trying to survive.

The film opens with American tourists on a bus with Brazilian locals, barreling down a winding road by the sea. The bus crashes and the passengers escape, just in the nick of time before it pitches down the ravine. Frustrated with having to wait 10 hours for the next bus, the band of six travelers (you need that many so as they start to get bumped off, there will be someone left to finish the film) head to the beach cabana bar after they see two locals return with drinks in their hands.

One of the guileless tourists makes a local father angry when a picture is taken of his child. Americans have kidnapped Brazilian children in the past and some locals believe that a photograph is the first step in that process. This is a hint to a dark secret that we learn later is meant to ensure that this small band of Americans will remain in Brazil, dead rather than alive.

The cabana drinking leads to an all night party that begins to turn ugly when one man realizes that his sexy one night stand has left with the money in his wallet. Later the others wake up, stranded on the beach and robbed of everything they have.

Kiko, a Brazilian teenager who befriended them at the party says he can take them to a safe house until they come up with a plan to leave the area. As they move toward the house, the group becomes suspicious when they realize that there is no road leading to it.

On the way, they explore some underwater caves and Kiko creates a bond so meaningful that he now sees the Americans as friends. Later when a local doctor arrives with plans of retribution not only for the kidnapped children, but also for how resources of Brazil have been abused by Americans, a bad adventure trip becomes a horror story of survival.

The scenes that occur in the house between the doctor and the tourists will send a chill thorough anyone who has been far from home and thought to themselves, "Just let me out of here and I promise I will not come back again." As the hapless travelers escape, the water and the caves become their friend.

We would have preferred an ending with a harder edge, such as in John Sayles’ "Limbo," where the setting was the Alaskan wilderness. Kiko appears to be the only friendly Brazilian, and the environment is hostile; therefore, the image of Brazil suffers as being an opportunistic, unfriendly place. So the saving grace is a softer finish.

You don’t see many reviews of horror films because most have no redeeming value, simply more blood and gore. When the studio does have something else to offer, the film is screened for the press in time for you to read the review on opening day. While this is not a great movie, it’s worth a date night excursion.