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When someone takes a good vacation they usually go somewhere sunny with a rather cheerful and energetic vibe, but don’t forget that tourism also hides a more mystical and frightening side.
New Zealand filmmaker and journalist David Farrier, is in charge of exploring all those completely unusual places, where few people would dare to go, the series is called Dark Tourist and you can find it on Netflix!
«Dark Tourism: a global phenomenom where people choose to vacation in places associated with death and destruction.»
The series explores concentration camps, funeral rituals of indigenous Indonesian communities, the home of a serial killer to suffer, countries closed to foreigners such as Myanmar or Kazakhstan, walking in Fukushima, or bathing in a lake created by an atomic bomb…
Farries mentions that Dark tourism is increasingly popular since people want to challenge their fears and prejudices by going to extraordinary places, and even after some heart-racing experiences he says that the best thing about this kind of dark tourism is just realizing how good it is to come home.
With a total of 8 episodes, Farrier travels to Latin America where he meets with one of Pablo Escobar’s enforcers in Colombia, and later on, he witnesses an exorcism in Mexico. He also visits a forbidden city in Cyprus. With an extremely dry sense of humor, David Farrier is not afraid to ask the questions that no one dares to ask, pushing the boundaries… how will the residents react to it?
When talking about how the series Dark Tourist came to be, Farrier said a close friend of his had the idea of doing a dark tourism documentary, they talked about it for the first time around 12 years ago. After his success with the documentary Tickled, his next project would be Dark Tourist.
«I’m someone who has never particularly enjoyed taking a holiday to a resort or a beach. I would rather go somewhere that has, something a bit different going on…»
There might be plenty of spooky-looking places in the world, but what made Farrier choose these specific places for the first season? After doing some research online for a couple of months to come up with places to visit, the team would find some amazingly spooky places such as the Island of the Dolls in Mexico were hundreds and hundreds of old dolls are hanging through trees.
However, when looking into the story of this creepy island further, they would realize there wasn’t a story there to sustain a documentary. Dark Tourist aims to gather insights from some of the places with the most unique stories and bring them out of the shadows…
What do you think about Dark Tourism?
