THE RUINS

This hike in the jungle will literally make your skin crawl (gross!).

Scott B. Smith adapts his own novel (a fun beach read) and strangely alters and in some cases streamlines his characters... but most annoyingly changes the inevitable and appropriate ending of his book to a cop-out ending in the movie. What? Was it studio pressure? Do movie audiences, especially American horror audiences, require a more dumbed-down predictable ending (see the US cut of The Descent vs. the original British ending, for example)? Three out of four of my pals who went together to see The Ruins had read the book and all agreed that the film ending totally blew. I'm just saying.

The Ruins, the book, was a tasty summer beach book, lite on the highbrow, relentless on the intensity and gore. There were no chapters to allow you to take a breath, and there was a scene so gross and appalling (kept in the movie, but with a different character) that made me throw the book across the room in disgust (before scampering to pick it up again).

Two college-aged twentysomething American couples are vacationing in Mexico, and on a whim, take up an invite from a German tourist named Mattias to go check out some ancient Mayan ruins deep in the jungle. Mattias' brother is there, having hooked up with a hot archaeologist, but he's late coming back, and the brothers have a plane to catch. The Americans are unsurprisingly trusting, but then again, I can count on both hands how many times I met someone while backpacking in Europe and decided to change my plans to travel with them on a whim. After a hard night of drinking, the group of them, plus a Greek pal named Dimitri, take a bus then a rickety cab ride down a dirt road following a map that Mattias' brother left behind.

Many signs point to this being a bad idea. Their ride first refuses to take them, a dog freaks out barking at them, X-marks-the-spot is at the end of a road NOT well-travelled, and spooky jungle kids emerge from a distance to stare at them when they start following the trail. But Biggest Bad Sign, when they emerge into a clearing and see the temple, just like it says on the map, a bunch of Mayan locals come out of the bushes screaming at them, then blow Dimitri's head off when he touches the temple's foliage. Hm.

Freaked out, the kids flee up the temple, and, well, are stuck there. Empty archaeologist tents are camped out at the top, and the site seems to have been deserted recently. What to do? No cell coverage for a pick-up, and the locals are waiting for them with guns and arrows at the bottom of the temple stairs. But that is nothing when they slowly figure out that something is amiss with the vines. Without giving anything away, things quickly go from bad to worse, much worse, in this Survivor-gone-wrong tale.

Writer Scott B. Smith tweaked his own story and consolidated some of his characters (which actually helps, I thought) and switches some of their untimely, errr... demises (oops! did I give that away?). The character of Stacy (Laura Ramsey) gets the opportunity to stagger around in her underwear for most of the film, and the pretty boys (Jonathan Tucker, Shawn Ashmore) get the opportunity to show some skin as well. Jena Malone is probably the most recognizable cast member, and is also probably the most annoying (unsurprising to some), but the rest of the cast does fine with what they have. Compared to the book, the film seems a bit rushed, and the ending (cop-out and all) is way too abrupt considering all that has built up. But as a horror film, The Ruins isn't all that bad... I've certainly seen a lot worse.

  DVD NOTES  

The Unrated DVD cut of The Ruins offers a little more character development, and those few extra seconds of gross-out that are just too much for the MPAA. There is feature commentary by director Carter Smith and editor Jeff Bettancourt, and the typical behind the scenes featurettes (including bits about the production designer talking about the sets; cast and crew interviews; and a discussion of the menace of the film—the creepy vines). The deleted scenes are mainly interesting for the alternate ending. Let's just say, for readers of the book the alternate ending will still not satisfy. However it does allow for an amusing commentary, as the filmmakers realized how hard this ending would be to justify when even Smith couldn't come up with a good explanation.