Review of The Ruins (2008) by Justin T — 26 Apr 2012

**1/2 out of ****.

"The Ruins" has some of the clearest cinematography I've seen in the dark, dark places of any horror movie in some time. While most genre pictures contain nighttime scenes in which most things on-camera are nigh impossible to see, everything here looks absolutely crisp. When a character descends into a pitch black abyss, we see only what we need to see; and that's plenty. When night falls, the torches of the secondary antagonists light the way, and even then, our eyes don't need to do much adjusting before we get to see a lot. But, given all this great nighttime and dark place photography, I found myself wishing that so much effort could have been put into a better, more satisfying movie. But you know...win-win situations, in cinema, are not exactly scarce these days.

A duet of young American tourist couples (not nameless, yet not worth naming) meet up with a charming German played by Joe Anderson to explore some long lost, uncharted Mayan ruins somewhere in Mexico. They make it a day trip by bus and by foot, but upon arriving to the site, things seem terribly wrong. Some Mayan villagers come out of nowhere, kill one of the German's local friends who was traveling with the group by bow and arrow, and basically trap the others at the top of the ruins. On the tip top, there are some tents, a deep dark shaft, and some odd looking vegetation that the Mayan villagers appear to be quite afraid of. When a cell phone is heard from the bottom of the shaft, the German goes to investigate, gets stranded down there with both his legs broken from the fall that he endured, and the others are, well, scared.

But why are the villagers so afraid of the flowery vines? Why is it that, when a clump is thrown at a little Mayan boy, he is shot dead on the spot? And why, oh why, is the cellphone broken but the ringing sound present? "The Ruins" is, above all, a movie about evil plants that can reproduce the sounds that they somehow hear and grow inside of a host body once they come into close contact with it. Such a premise makes way for many stomach-churning and disgusting scenes; such as an amputation, an all-out skin removal by knife, and a head being blown clean off. This is all standard horror fare - and it won't shock me, most of you, or just about anyone with experience in watching what some would call "extreme horror" - but I won't deny that it's pretty damn gross most of the time.

But I know that such graphic violence and gore can serve a purpose in the medium of film. Here, it's just there to evoke a simple reaction rather than one of more emotional complexity. The filmmakers were obviously bent on making a horror flick free of force-fed moralism and heavy-handed message making, which I respect. But when the violence kicks into full gear, it's like nothing is achieved. There isn't so much a psychological reaction than one of the stomach. Did I ever care about the characters? Did I ever care about the story? Ultimately, the problem with this movie is that - no matter how much blood is shed - there still isn't a sufficient sense of danger in even the most gore-filled sequences. I'll say this much of it: the film is entertaining from beginning to end, but at the same time, too shallow to really recommend. It will be appreciated by some and surely loathed by others; yet I find myself on the edge. To be entertained is not necessarily the same as to be completely engaged.

So my final verdict is that "The Ruins" is more style than substance. There's beautiful cinematography and colorful scenery, eye-opening gore effects, and there are even some decent performances from Jena Malone, Jonathan Tucker, Laura Ramsey, and Shawn Ashmore among others. But the dramatic elements, which eventually come in full swing, are pretty weak. Yes, the film is stylized like an elaborate and very different slasher picture (with plants!), but it ends up being less creative and engaging than I would have wanted it to be. Still, it was competently made enough for me to have some good fun with it, if nothing more. With luck, I'll have no trouble forgetting about "The Ruins"; as it only momentarily crawls under your skin and screws with the ever-delicate nerves. It's kind of a mess, and kind of not; all I know is that I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to utter an "ew" a minute.