Stuart Heritage 

Holidays in hell: film plots reveal the perils of travel

Never get a flat tyre in Germany. And avoid Bulgaria – you may get buried alive. Stuart Heritage gets some last-minute holiday tips from the movie industry
  
  

Eurotrip
Eurotrip: sexual danger everywhere, especially in the low countries and the Vatican. Photograph: Allstar Picture Library Photograph: Allstar Picture Library

Hostel (Slovakia)
Slovakia, home to beautiful churches and castles – and a shadowy ring of rich businessmen with a sideline in torturing tourists. They will definitely catch you and definitely disfigure you the instant you arrive. Very painfully.

Taken (France)
Although Paris is full of charming and attractive young men, visiting Americans should be aware that the vast majority of them are only interested in one thing – selling you into a lifetime of slavery.

As Above So Below (France)
There's no point in trying to escape underground either, because beneath the streets of Paris lurk a number of dust-based ghost-monster things that will kill you and then eat you.

An American Werewolf in London (UK)
England is crawling with danger. In Yorkshire, hairy scary things will attack you at the least provocation. And then there's London, full of people who'll shoot you dead – just for turning into a werewolf. Ridiculous.

Eurotrip (the Netherlands)
Beware the low countries, where all women are either prostitutes or fronts for a crime syndicate who'll steal your money and passport. Better to visit the Vatican, where sex is much more freely available.

The Human Centipede (Germany)
Never get a flat tyre in Germany. It's full of demented scientists hellbent on sewing your face to a stranger's arse for reasons that are far too boring to explain.

Fright Night 2: New Blood (Romania)
It's a lazy stereotype to claim that Romania is full of vampires, but it's also true. The worst kind are the ones depicted here, with bad dialogue and poor production values. They're the most dangerous.

The Bourne Identity (Italy)
Do not fall asleep on a boat in Italy. If you do, you'll wake up suddenly able to drive a car quite well, but with two bullets in your back. You'll also have amnesia and everyone will be trying to kill you.

Green Street (UK)
So you're a big-shot Ivy League intellectual, huh? Then never come to London, because you'll immediately join a football hooligan firm and have several depressingly nondescript fistfights with people from Birmingham.

Train (Ukraine)
Remember everything that happens in Slovakia? Well, it happens in Ukraine, too – but on trains. As if you needed to be told not to visit Ukraine right now anyway.

The Darkest Hour (Russia)
Moscow is, of course, where all the teen-hating aliens made of pure electricity go for their holidays. Yes, technically you can beat them with good old human ingenuity and microwave guns, but who's got time for that?

I Spit on Your Grave 2 (Bulgaria)
Visitors to Bulgaria can expect to be raped, murdered, force-fed drugs, shot, stripped naked, tortured, electrocuted and buried alive, none of which really does the country any favours when it comes to getting positive reviews on TripAdvisor.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Spain) As soon as you set foot in Barcelona, you will be transformed into an ultra-promiscuous version of yourself. Worse still, you'll talk and talk and talk and talk and everyone will find you unbearable.

Swept Away (Greece)
American tourists are advised not to take any cruises from Greece as they will invariably end up stranded on a desert island with an abrasive stranger. More worryingly, their ability to act will almost immediately vanish.

Chernobyl Diaries (Ukraine)
Do you really need to be told not to visit Chernobyl? Really? What are you, thick or something? How about you try reading a book before you go, about all the hundreds of humanoidish mutants swarming the site and wanting to devour you?

Mamma Mia! (Greece)
Think carefully before attending a wedding on a remote Greek island. You'll either end up embroiled in an ugly paternity dispute, or forced to participate in a shambling, amateurish karaoke singalong that never ever ends. Worst of all, Pierce Brosnan may turn up and bark like an elk at you. Nobody deserves that.

Madagascar 3 (Monaco)
Visitors to the Monte Carlo region should bear in mind that it's littered with furious animal control officers who live for madcap dashes through the town, with the intention of decapitating you for sport. To be fair, though, this does tend to happen more to anthropomorphic talking cartoon lions than to humans.

Saving Private Ryan (France)
Under no circumstances should tourists visit the Normandy region of France. Especially by boat. And especially if they have access to a time machine and are able to travel back to 6 June 1944. Absolutely don't do it. Don't do that at all.

 

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