Customer Reviews

The Ruins (Unrated Edition) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(35)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

This rather bleak film is actually well acted, but not well paced and has an ending that is fairly predictable based upon how the story boxes itself in early.

The story is about two couples who get caught up into checking out some ancient Mayan ruins meet up with some weeds that have incredible abilities. We get enough background on the characters to care about them and it helps that they are all rather appealing even if somewhat flawed. They are refreshing nice young adults who are not the stereotypes we've been seeing in horror films lately. Their interactions with each other are very believable.

They discover an old temple/pyramid and hike into up and into it to discover that the locals will not let them leave it for fear of spreading what lurks in the ruins. This is a clever low-budget way of keeping the action in one or two locations (on top of the ruins and in the ruins), however, it also greatly limits the direction the story can go in and, thus, makes it predictable. There is a generous amount of old fashioned horror bloodshed and very brief nudity that is not gratuitous in any way (for a change). The violence is of the strong R variety and definitely not for the faint of heart. The effects are minimal, but good as is the make up which is quite graphic.

This movie is certainly not all it could have been and borrows heavily from better films like The Descent, The Day of the Triffids, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it is very nicely acted by young people we do care about and there is enough in the tissue paper thin plot to keep us interested for it's brief 90 minutes. There is adequate suspense, but it is often ruined, pun intended, by the director's focus on the grisly stuff rather than leaving a bit more to our imagination.

I had some fun with this film, my nearly sixteen year old son less so, but it isn't as bad as some think, but it certainly isn't as good as others think as well. It is simply an okay film and with some of its jarring images, it isn't easily forgotten.

I never read the novel, but The Ruins is a worthy horror film for those with a strong stomach. There are two really disturbing scenes that put Hostel to shame and the camera doesn't shy away. I can't imagine what they cut out for the Unrated DVD (which you know is coming), but it probably isn't much. The cast is good overall (especially Laura Ramsey in a chilling performance) and there were only a couple of times when I sat shaking my head at the stupid things they said or did. A couple of times is not bad when compared to most horror films, besides it comes with the territory.

My only gripe is that the "creature" isn't shown enough (much like Cloverfield) which can add to the suspense, but by the end of the film I was hoping to see or learn just a little more about it.

All in all, The Ruins is one of the most shocking horror films I have seen in quite some time and worth a trip to the theater.

My wife and I both read Scott Smith's "The Ruins)" two summers back when it came out, which is why she did not go to the theater this afternoon to see the movie version. Previously she has left me sitting alone in the movie theater during showings of "Snakes on a Plane" and "Planet Terror," and I am pretty sure that there is some sort of third strike rule here that I need to stay clear of (for the record, she walked out of parts of "The Passion of the Christ" too, but she went with her mother and I was the chauffer and therefore not on a date). So I returned from seeing the opening showing of "The Ruins" this afternoon, and reported to her that yes, indeed, the scenes that she did not want to see and in the movie, so we was wise to stay eating popcorn in bed and watching episode after episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," because she would have fled the theater. Then she asked how the movie was, and I told her in one concise sentence was happens at the end. She frowned and said, "So they ruined it."

Down in Mexico on Yucatan peninsula a pair of American couples are nearing the end of their vacation. We have Jeff (Jonathan Tucker) and Amy (Jena Malone), along with Eric (Shawn Ashmore) and Stacy (Laura Ramsey). They meet up Mathias (Joe Anderson) and his friend Dimitri (Dimitri Baveas). Mathias is trying to track down his brother, who is working on an archeological dig in the area. The idea of seeing an ancient Mayan ruin that is not some sort of tourist trap is intriguing so they find a local taxi pickup truck and head out into the jungle. Once there they find the path to the ruin, but as soon as they touch the bottom step a group of Mayans show up brandishing guns and other weapons, demanding that the visitors keep going the direction they are going and not return. Once atop the ruins, the group is trapped. Then things get worse.

Reading the novel will tell you most of what happens in this movie, but in adapting his screenplay to the screen, Smith has decided to switch who things happen to in this version of the tale. Maybe this is just to surprise his readers, and maybe it is because some of these people look better in their underwear than others. I cannot say that these changes hurt the story, because they do not. Trying to cut out pieces of an insidious vine invading your body or doing major surgery with a rock and a knife is always going to make me cringe, and I have to think many people will feel the same way. The problem with most of the film is that why all of the choice parts of the novel remain, albeit somewhat recast, most of the connecting tissue has had to be excised to get this film in at 91 minutes. That means that one of the key aspects of the novel, the fact that these people are trapped for several days in the hot sun with next to nothing for food and water, is fast forwarded through in the movie. One of the things that made the novel effective was that you had a real sense for how these people were spending hours not doing anything but living in fear. Then every time they actually tried doing something, it only tended to make things worse. All of that is essentially lost in this movie, which is where we lose the first star.

It is the ending that costs "The Ruins" a second star. Yes, Smith wrote the screenplay, so it would seem that the finger of blame should be pointed in his direction, but I have seen way too many alternative endings (and multiple alternative endings), so I am well aware that directors and studios do not care about how good a book or a script is, they only care about what the test results tell them to think. Because this is the sort of ending that a test audience might like, but only because they did not read the book and they have no appreciation for what makes a great ending in a horror film. What allows hyperbolic copywriters to claim that "The Ruins" is the greatest horror novel of the 21st century (good to know that it is all downhill for the next 92 years) is that the ending of the book drives home the final nail in the coffin. When this movie gets to what is essentially the same final scene as the book, the context is all different because of one massively monumental and stupid change. That final shot is now rendered superfluous.

I went into "The Ruins" not really having any idea what it was about. It just looked interesting from the previews. The basic premise is a group of American twenty-somethings are on vacation in Mexico and on their last day decide to go see these ancient ruins that are not part of the normal tourist attractions. Once they get there things start going wrong, then they get worse. The suspence is held thruout the movie. There is a major element of the story that you just have to accept and once you do you're all set to enjoy the movie.
My fear was that "The Ruins" would be like "Touristas" or "The Cave", it is like neither of these. It's more like "Hostel" in that the people don't really do anything overly stupid to get them into the situation they are in.
Those who have read the book have complained about the ending. I didn't think it was a bad ending at all. I haven't read the book, but the end shown makes sense and leaves the viewer basically knowing what is going to happen next without it being shown.
If the movie teaches you nothing, it teaches you that if you go on vacation bring along some Weed-B-Gone, you never know when it will come in handy!!!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this movie and having not read the book I was surprised to find it to be pretty decent. It starts off just like an original horror movie but shift as you get further into it. The Ruins takes place in Mexico with four college-age kids (Tucker, Malone, Ashmore and Ramsy) and another guy (Anderson), the latter who takes them to a Mayan temple where his brother is working supposedly on a dig. When they get there, a bunch of angry Mexican-Myans attack them, they scurry up to the top of the temple, and are basically quarantined with a host of virulent, monster-type plants and vines, who in typical horror fashion kill them off one by one. That's the basic premise, anyway, and if you know that and have seen the trailer you probably took a guess whether this is up your alley.

The film really came through for me and I was pleased with the outcome. The cast was pretty respectable and I really came to love Stacy's (Laura Ramsey) character in the end. The characters did have their brainless moments at times, but were believable and you could tell they were desperate to get down there. The film has it's shocking moments and those come about halfway throughout the film. There was one scene that stood out and made me at awe.

On the downside of it all I would have loved more character development and transition scenes between the characters. I hear there was a bit more of character development scenes that were cut. Why? Next, I got a very different vibe from the trailer than the actual film. Finally, I'm sure this is the most talked about negative and that would be the ending. It felt rushed and quick. The truth is it could have been so much stronger of a film if it had more of a psychological ending. I was hoping for one thing to happen and something else ended up happening. That's my biggest disappointment for the film.

"The Ruins" do get quite gory and brutal as the teens get infected in various ways and start losing their minds. There's some nudity, too. The story does stay away from some clichés, like a fiery conclusion or the anorexic girl hero who saves everyone by beating the bad guys to death. Perhaps most surprising was the villain of the story aside from that it's a watchable flick.

Four American tourists, somewhere South of the border, on their last day of vacation and open for diversions, allow themselves to be talked into going to view a remote Mayan ruin with a European tourist they meet at the hotel. He is connected to a group who are executing an archeological dig at the ruin and he hasn't heard from them in a few days. So off the tourists all go, without a worry in the world.

Their first clue should have been the hostile reception they get from the native people who live nearby the ruin, who leave no doubt about where they stand on visitors...but by then it's too late to turn back. The group ascends the pyramid to try to find out the fate of the archeological team and to wait for rescue from anyone who might notice they are missing, and things rapidly go south from there.

This is my annual obligatory horror movie, and I have to say it held my interest. Definitely not for the squeamish...but if you're into horror movies, I doubt it will keep you up nights, although there is blood in plenty, some pretty nasty offings, and in a neat twist in the monster end of horror flicks, carnivourous plants that make the one in Little Shop of Horrors look like a well-mannered Pekinese. Well-acted for the genre, it was worth the time, and will leave you with the notion that the water isn't all you should be careful about in that region.

I enjoyed this film. Sure it had some terrible reviews but it is one of the most entertaining horror films this year.
Not overly scary, but ultra violent. This film is based more on the psychological ramifications of horrific events. The film left me wanting to read the novel, mostly to elaborate on scenarios that seemed shortened for low attention spans. How often do wish a horror film could be longer? Quite rare.

The Ruins (Carter Smith, 2008)

Scott Smith's novel The Ruins was either a love-it-or-hate-it book, so when the film version was released, I kind of half-assumed that the people who were reviewing it all came down on the "hate" side where the book was concerned. For some odd reason, despite my extensive experience watching really bad film adaptations of novels, it simply never occurred to me that Smith, who adapted his own novel, would make so many absurd changes to the book when writing the screenplay. But, oh, for the love of Pete, what changes he hath wrought. And not a single one of them does anything other than take a very interesting novel that focused on the psychological states of the people trapped at the ruins and make it into a stupid hungry-plant movie.

The plot: four friends-- Jeff (Jonathan Tucker), Amy (Jena Malone), Stacy )Laura Ramsey), and Eric (Shawn Ashmore)-- are on vacation in South America. They meet Mathias (Joe Anderson), who's going into the jungle tomorrow to look for his brother, who went out to some ruins with a cute archaeologist he met, and hasn't been back since. The four friends decide to head out there with Mathias (sans the Greeks, for those of you who read the novel) and run into some very unfriendly Mayans who, once they're on the ruins, won't let them off again. You find out why pretty quickly (again unlike the novel).

Very little effort is expended on the characters' psychological states, which is the aspect that made the book worth reading. Also, to confuse people I guess, Smith rewrote who was doing what (and who died when-- I guess if you leave the Greeks in town, everything has to change, huh?) so that there will be quite a few cognitively dissonant moments for those who have recently read the novel. And the ending-- oh jeez. Could it possibly be any dumber? At least the ending in the book made a shred of sense. Then, of course, there's the big revelation about the plant. In the book, Smith managed to turn it into a major subplot. Here, it appears as a teaser, then gets pulled out for show, and... disappears. Oh, the humanity (or florality, I guess).

A worse novel adaptation I can't remember seeing in the past five years. A worse novel adaptation written by the novelist I feel quite confident in saying I have never seen. What happened to the guy who adapted A Simple Plan? We want him back. *

I couldn't remember hearing about this movie when It came out. Now I know why. Its no wonder the theaters canned it after the first few days.
One of the worst movies of all time. Save your money.

This movie wasn't at all what I expected. And the problem with that is, I went into it with no expectations. I guess it would be fair to say that I just didn't expect the plot to be vines eating people and singing lullabys. However, I'm a horror movie fanatic, and I don't bash a movie just because it isn't what I expected or wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. It was definitely original, and for a movie that, by the cover and title, looked to be low-budget, it did have a rather convincing character line-up. They definitely could've went more into the story and possibly given the history of the Mayan Temple or whatever it was. The fact that the entire movie took place on top of this temple really played down on the whole suspense factor. And if you haven't seen it, you won't understand this, but why the hell wouldn't they have just thrown balls of the vine at all the idiots waiting down there. There was obviously a clear cut path to the bottom because they went down there numerous times. It was definitely a different type of horror movie, just not something that I was drawn into or enjoyed that much.