20th Century Fox via Everett Collection
Disposable income coffers running a little too low to make travel plans? If your vacation is looking less white-sand-beaches-and-umbrella-drinks and a little more cheap-wine-and-a-Snuggie, we’ve got some movies that definitely won’t make you feel like you’re missing out. Getting away equals the unknown and the unknown equals (in these cases) sheer terror. Queue up these films and be glad you’re safely at home.
Brokedown Palace
The ultimate deterrent to craving a vacation fling, Brokedown Palace gave serious trust issues to a generation of would-be backpacking teenagers. Young and carefree Americans Alice (Claire Danes) and Darlene (Kate Beckinsale) get dreamy over a strapping Austrailian blonde, become his unwitting drug mules, and land in a Thai prison for their trouble. Streaming on Netflix.
The first in Eli Roth’s hugely popular horror franchise is basically a cautionary tale illustrating Travel Rule #1:”If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Hostels aren’t full of hot people who want to sleep with you. They’re full of mildew and jam bands and, in the worse case, a creepy Dutch businessman with a surgical fetish. Streaming on Amazon Prime.
“I’m sure these people know what they’re doing,” you tell yourself as you strap into the roller coaster or put on the windsurfing harness or get on the ski lift. But what if someone makes a mistake? Open Water thrives on a very real fear, and it’s fear you’ll feel in your bones. Streaming on Amazon.
A trip (or getaway, as it were) so ill-advised that it doesn’t even last a quarter of the movie. At least we now have TripAdvisor reviews to help us avoid this sort of thing in the future. Streaming on Amazon.
Back to Thailand for Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Alex Garland’s trippy novel. American tourist Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) follows some beautiful French people to an island paradise and a community that desperately wants to remain unfound. Things get weird, obviously, because Tilda Swinton is involved. Streaming on Amazon.
