The Grief Tourist

Plot synopsis:
Jim Tahna, a quiet and solitary man, explains in voice-over narration his hatred of society and his employers, though he enjoys his work as security guard, as it allows him long periods of solitude. On his vacation time, he engages in dark tourism, the visitation of murder sites. His current subject is Carl Marznap, a mass murderer and arsonist. He leaves Yonkers, New York, to visit Carl's home in California. His neighbor at the cheap motel in which he stays, Iris, turns out to be a prostitute. Nervous, Jim fumbles in conversation with her, then states in voice-over how much he hates prostitutes. At a local restaurant, he meets Betsy, a friendly waitress. Jim introduces himself to her as Carl and falsely claims that his sister has been diagnosed with cancer. Betsy and Jim draw closer over their difficult lives, and she invites him to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
On his tour of Marznap's home and crime scenes, Jim becomes increasingly disturbed by hallucinations and vague flashbacks. Eventually, Jim hallucinates Marznap himself, who urges him to teach the world what it feels like to be a victim. Once tortured and gang-raped in juvenile detention, Marznap explains that he sought revenge by burning down a church, as he blamed those people for doing nothing to help him while his father abused him. After the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Jim and Betsy bond further, and Betsy invites him to dinner at her house. Betsy offers him marijuana, and he reluctantly accepts. When she tries to kiss him, he becomes agitated and demands that they have sex without any affection. When she asks him to slow down, he berates her and leaves. Marznap encourages him to visit Iris. A trans woman, Iris has anal sex with Jim, and he flashbacks to a childhood gang rape.
Jim and Carl discuss their shared experiences, and Jim expresses his belief that he is broken beyond repair. The next day, at the restaurant, Betsy apologizes to Jim, and he calls her disgusting. She runs away crying, and Jim returns to his motel. Jim breaks into Iris' room, scares off her client, and beats her savagely. After he berates Iris, God, and the kids who raped him, he takes Iris to the church, where he strangles her. Marznap and Jim then discuss what to do next; Marznap counsels him to commit suicide, and Jim slits his own throat. In the epilogue, the police reveal that Jim has killed six trans-women prostitutes on his various dark tourism trips, and a young man visits Jim's house as part of his own dark tourism. Around a hole in the wall in Jim's house, a message reads, "From this void, no one returns!"

Tags: violence, murder, flashback

Review:
Dark Tourist...a must see..
This review was written by Amanda Baverstock, a UK resident who saw the film in London during Fright Fest.
A spot on review!
With her permission, I am posting here."Dark Tourist is a dark slice of cinema.
No doubt about it.
It makes for truly uncomfortable watching but please, do not let that put you off because if it does then you will certainly be missing out on an emotionally cerebral and breathtaking performance from Michael Cudlitz.
Here he portrays a man quietly being torn apart by deep-seated inner demons like no other actor can.Cudlitz is in pretty much every scene, something I hadn't even noticed until a friend pointed it out to me afterwords.
Now that takes some doing!
To own the film so effortlessly that you don't realize just how few actors were actually involved in this project.
Cudlitz's performance is never contrived.
'Dark Tourist' puts to good use his voice in a superbly sentient narrative thread that runs throughout the film.
It draws you in, closer and closer towards to the inner turmoil that is Jim Tahna.Michael has an acting style that utilizes subtle nuance and body movement so naturally it's a joy to watch and both build towards a perfect picture of a tightly wound man who's hurting beyond measure.Whilst Cudlitz is definitely the lynchpin of the film, Melanie Griffiths brings her unique brand of vulnerability to a role so sympathetically portrayed that the whole cinema actually gasped in despair during one pivotal scene.
I won't elaborate.
You'll know which one when you watch!
And Pruitt Taylor Vince always has immense presence and in this film he adds a hugely important layer to the plot."Dark Tourist' is not pleasant viewing in any shape or form.This film will certainly leave you thinking 'What if'.
What if the characters involved simply had someone who listened to them at a time when they needed it most?
It will certainly make you uncomfortable because it reflects the general murky malaise society has towards understanding and treating people with mental health issues and it leaves you questioning what would happen if more people had the help they needed, when they needed it most.So yes.
I thoroughly recommend 'Dark Tourist'.
It's a film for people desperately fed up with formulaic cinema, filmmaking that is afraid to challenge and it flips the bird at writers and producers content in churning out bland cookie cutter films.".
An Insatiable Modern Film Noir.
Grief tourism is an excursion to locations associated with tragedy.
Travelers visit sites associated with death and murder.
Dark Tourist, directed by Suri Krishnamma, exquisitely examines this fascination with pain in a manner that allows the audience to delve into the mind of a man who uses trauma to connect with others.
This film encourages its audience to understand how feelings of loneliness and isolation devour victims who are unable to reach out to people around them.Michael Cudlitz (Southland, Running Scared) plays Jim Tahna, a security guard whose eagerness for grief tourism goes beyond that of mere fascination with death and destruction.
Jim takes a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana to visit sites associated with mass murderer, Carl Marznap, a quietly chilling Pruitt Taylor Vince (Wild at Heart, Constantine).
In between locating the places where Carl grew up and slaughtered innocents, Jim meets Betsy, a heartbreakingly stoic Melanie Griffith (Lolita, Working Girl).Cudlitz has a magnetism about him.
He is able to maintain momentum between lucid expectation and crushing vulnerability with mere gestures, his limping step, and an emotive intelligence behind his eyes.
Cudlitz plays Jim as a man of many layers whose desperate need to fill the unexplainable void within renders him incapable of sincerity.
Jim knows exactly what to say to people and how to say it.Krishnamma's use of sound allows his audience to make the connection between Jim's insatiable need to bond with others while simultaneously preserving his isolation.
The lighting is at times beautiful and accentuates the grotesque themes of the film.
Trauma, sexual desire, brutal deaths, and painful memories are highlighted under Krishnamma's artful direction.The most intimate moments are surprisingly found during the Jim's voice overs, where we watch him go about his day.
Paired with rhythmic, repetitive, and chaotic sounds, Jim is carried through the story methodically.
This adds to the mounting tension that builds throughout the film as the reasons for Jim's fascination with pain are revealed.In Dark Tourist, Krishnamma deals with the notion of an audience's fascination with death and sexuality as a form of entertainment.
It is as if he is prodding the audience to look inward and discover their own reasons for feeling such satisfaction.
The concept of one being a bottomless void, a face, a name, a victim, plays heavily in this orchestrated piece that no provides no simplistic answers to the logic behind a serial killer's motive.
Nothing is black and white.Dark Tourist is a film that calls to mind the thought of what it means to be a victim of a tragic event.
It daringly and disturbingly draws the audience to the social dilemma victims of violent and sexual trauma face amongst peers, which is the fear of communication and the tendency to turn a blind eye.
Cudlitz's portrayal of Jim during scenes where he is psychologically afflicted is masterful.
In one scene Jim and Carl stand outside a prostitute's door.
Jim is silent, still, almost trembling with the effort to hold himself against temptation.
Here is the moment where change is imminent.
Vince's quiet tones and Cudlitz's pregnant pause embodies the issue of trauma buried deeply into the psyche, and the struggle to keep the despair of its existence at bay.Read the rest here - http://bit.ly/18wwPag. Dark Places.
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.
Dark , Eerie and Brilliant!.
Dark Tourist took me on a ride I did not expect.
The performances were so real I forgot I watching a movie.
Frank John Hughes has an uncanny ability to present deep insight while structuring a story that allows you in...
Michael Cudlitz in the new Charlie Bronson, a silent, powerful, talent who can think on screen without brooding.
God only know what's in store for this miracle of expression, but I would bet big, big, things!The music by Austin Wintory is so profound, it found ways to creep into my being without drawing attention.
What an underscore!Evocative, Provocative, Sensational!See this move!
It will be an experience you're are not likely to forget!.
not what i was hoping for.
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!.
Brilliant and Unapologetic in Portrayal of the Dark Sides of Humanity.
I was interested in this movie, in the beginning, because I kinda have the hots for the lead actor Michael Kudlitz, and believe he is a brilliant actor.
It just so happens I am also a fan of unapologetic dark movies, without sappy happy endings.
It was just by chance that I got both in this movie.This movie isn't easy to watch.
The characters are "broken" sad, mislead, lonely, tired and violent.Melanie Griffith was superb.
So natural, it didn't even feel like she was "acting" Pruitt Taylor Vince was also on top of his game.
Admittedly these types of movies are not for everyone, but I really appreciate the honesty in them in showing the dark side of humanity.
This movie certainly does that.
I actually forgot I was watching ACTORS.
Brilliantly done on subjects that is generally uncomfortable for most people..
One way to kill some time is to spend some time where some killin' actually happened..
Well I would say that this is a slow hot soak in a long cool movie, except the movie is just over an hour long.
Take the fact that it is shorter than most TV pilots, and forget it.
You get every bit of a full fleshed out well acted, and filmed movie here, there is true darkness out there, and this is just one tiny little snapshot.
A well told story that unfolds slowly enough to keep you on course from the beginning.
Michael Cudlitz is really good in this movie, which is no surprise as he has been acting forever, I actually do remember pretty near every time his face has shown up since Jump Street.
Melanie Griffith plays broken very well these days, you just see her, and feel the pain.
I Enjoyed this movie, at first I thought it was going to be something else, but that is what you are supposed to think.
I would only recommend this movie to horror/psycho killer kind of morbid death tour kind of stuff.
You people that are afraid that one day the Hardy Boys won't be there to stop the mad voodoo witch doctor should most likely steer clear of this here.