Josh Duhamel

Normally Hollywood releases their proverbial slate of horror films in the fall or the late winter. Rare is there a release that comes during the popcorn easygoing season of the summer blockbusters or the more serious dramatic fare of the Oscar hopeful Christmas films. But the new film Turistas a sort of hybrid of genres, is not backing away from the big dramatic Oscar hopeful slate of films.

Turistas, a film directed by John Stockwell based on the script by Michael Ross is about a terrifying bus accident which maroons a diverse group of young adventure travelers (among them star Josh Duhamel) in a remote Brazilian beach town. They slowly discover that the white sand beaches and lush jungles are concealing a darker, unsettling secret.

Horror films have exploded over the last few years, with the Saw franchise, and now the Hostel franchise reinvigorating a roller coaster genre. But Turistas blurs the lines of what is a horror film and what is an action film ' and as we know, good scripts are hard to come by. 'When I read it I knew that this was what I wanted to do'it was one of those scripts that you read and I read it from beginning to end and without stopping; and that is rare for me, and it usually takes me a while and I set it down I will go do something but I'll come back and finish. But this one it was just a page turner and that is always a good sign because you know that the movie is going to move and it just gave me an opportunity to really get dirty and do something different then what I have been doing on [NBC show Las] Vegas, it is kind of the complete opposite of that, it was sort of a different sort of scary movie.'

Audiences have also been so engrained with the Hollywood formulas. A variety of genres continue to keep on producing the same formulaic stories over and over again, ad nauseum. But thanks to Turistas distinct genre bending, the audience has to stay on their toes. 'It's not something that is too predictable I didn't think when I read it, it just felt painful watching it, some of the stuff that happened, these people totally out of their element, just trying to get of that place alive'it was a lot more fun to read then it was to shoot.'

Adding to the unique appeal of the film is the fact that it appeared from a viewer sitting in his chair in the audience that the actors were really in danger. There were certain underwater scenes where I was holding my breath. 'I knew that I wasn't going to die and I knew that there was a good chance that they were going to have to pull me out'which was good and I like the fact that it was dangerous shooting it because I think that came across on film.'

There are certain regulations while shooting films in America, but these same regulations do not exist in other parts of the world. 'They don't have the safety regulations over there in Brazil. It is much more make shift.' This definitely helped give the feel a more intense present vibe, and the style of shooting brought this out. 'It's a different way of shooting which I thought was great, it was sort of gorilla type of a shoot.' Things weren't necessarily 'safe' over there in Brazil shooting Turistas'things were 'safeish,' Josh jokingly but with some truth said.

After spending some intense and hard times in Brazil it was nice to come home to his family' and his dogs. Josh has got two dioxins, and he is not backing down from the glances he might get on the street when he is walking them. 'Since my girl is gone a lot I felt like I needed something to have around the house'they have been a definite welcome addition. Zoe is 1 ', and the other one I rescued, he is not that old but he acts much older. His name is Meatloaf, he looks and behaves like a meatloaf.' Owning dogs is not about being a wimp or anything else, 'to me it is more about companionship then having a dog represent my manly hood. They are just really good friends.'

And when it is time for Josh to leave the dogs behind, at least he has some good reasons. Like the upcoming big blockbuster release Transformers. Josh tells us about shooting the Michael Bay film: '[It was] pretty unbelievable. Just so completely different then Turistas' Transformers big budget, and Michael Bay and Spielberg get access to everything. They had access to these air force bases, they gave us stealth bombers and CB22's, only six are in existence, we got to fly around in them. Just helicopters flying on top of buildings, and everyday was something huge, it was a lot of fun. Michael Bay was a lot of fun to work with too, he gets a bad rap.'

But Transformers is so incredibly different then Turistas. 'Yeah, yeah definitively. At the same time with the Bay film he has always got people working on it [the CGI] as you're shooting. I saw some of the CGI done before we were done'very much more of a machine [a Bay film], where Turistas we didn't see the dailies because we had to send them back to the US hoping we were getting what we were supposed to. Much different experience, both were very rewarding.'

For Josh Duhamel fans, there is no need to worry. He is still stick to his roots. He likes doing the action films, but you can still count on seeing him in the next Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. 'I definitely enjoy doing that, getting dirty, while I am young enough and still being able to do stuff like that. But I still love doing silly, slapstick sort of stuff too, or romantic comedy stuff too. But I definitely enjoy the big explosions too.'

We enjoy them too Josh.