Review of The Ruins (2008) by Dale W — 13 May 2010

The Ruins is a horror movie that spends its first act looking and behaving no differently than your good old average run-of-the-mill idiot teenager slasher flick but then blindsides us midway through by graduating into something else. It is an unexpected and thrilling transformation, because by the end of it we have been treated to that rarest of gems: a horror movie with real tension. It is a monster movie from an older era, but I'm not talking about stuntmen in rubber suits. This is something more akin to Carpenter's The Thing, and while this movie doesn't come close to ascending as high as that film, the fact that it keeps it in sight is a breath of fresh air these days.

Reader, I cannot begin to tell you what a coup it is for me to finish a horror movie, particularly one with such a young cast, go to sleep afterward, and wake up still able to remember the names of the characters. It is not that I am forgetful, but that the characters -- and usually the actors who inhabit them -- in let's say ninety percent (to be conservative) of horror films made are so forgettable that the only thing that most people remember about them are their deaths. And that's okay, honestly, if I am just looking for a geek show or some cheap thrills. I watched The Ruins expecting just that, and I got something more, and that kind of surprise is precisely what being a fan of horror is all about. Not all of us are squeamish, not all of us are easy to get a jump out of, and so to actually be scared or disturbed or thrilled by a film is to be reminded of why we even bother with movies to begin with.

Eric (Shawn Ashmore) and his girlfriend Stacy (Laura Ramsey) join Jeff (Jonathan Tucker) and his girlfriend Amy (Jena Malone) on a trip to Mexico for, I don't know, spring break or something of that ilk. (The movie doesn't specify.) We open on the usual banal dialogue by the pool, and eventually the beach where the group encounters Mathias (Joe Anderson), a German tourist who is searching for his brother Heinrich, who went missing after joining an archaeological dig at a Mayan pyramid in the jungle that isn't on the map. The group, bored of all the same old touristy stuff, decides to go with him. Let me ask you, would you go with him? Of course you wouldn't, but then you do not exist specifically to fulfill the plot requirements of a horror movie.

After some mild debate they go, and we learn their personalities along the way. Jeff is in med school and is trusted by the others as a source of care should anything go wrong. Amy is the timid complainer who tends to get a little too, erm, friendly with other men when alcohol is involved. Eric is the quiet stud who was probably good looking enough to remain popular without having to play sports, and Stacy, though slightly paranoid, is seemingly the stronger and sharper of the two women. In any slasher movie that isn't titled Halloween and wasn't made in 1978, these archetypes would have meant absolutely nothing. But in The Ruins, the writer (Scott Smith, adapting his own novel) uses these characters' personalities to actually affect the decisions that they make and determine their behavior in ways that make sense, even when their decisions don't. Here's a writer not afraid to have imperfect characters that are neither geniuses nor imbeciles, who sometimes make bad decisions and have to live with them. Huh. How about that?

The two couples and their new friend arrive at the pyramid, after some obligatory Ominous Signs, of course, and find it encircled in sand and covered in vines. They get about twenty or so seconds of admiring it, though, before they are forced onto the top of the pyramid by gun-wielding Mayans, who refuse to get close to the ruins, and who are clearly afraid of the vines that cover them. The group is forced to watch as the Mayan intruders set up camps and force them to remain on the top of the pyramid, where the bulk of the movie takes place.

If you do not want to know the identity of the monster, then it's best for you to skip this paragraph. Ready? Okay. The monster of The Ruins is a killer plant. See how dumb that looks on paper? Believe me, I know. I rolled my eyes just as hard as you are when the movie sprung it on me. And, truth be told, there are people for whom this will never work. Leaves just aren't that scary. But let me be clear. The parasitic, ubiquitous vines in The Ruins are one of the smartest movie monsters since the shark in Jaws. They are used not to create violence, but fear. And, boy-oh-boy, do they do it well. They are the creeping death that surrounds this group and, eventually, infects them. How brilliant is it to have a monster that forces characters to inflict well-intentioned violence on each other and themselves? Pay attention horror fans, this is a gory movie, but almost none of the violence visited on these characters comes from the monster or from the superstitious Mayans. It's an ingenious manipulation of genre conventions, and is far more unsettling than watching a bunch of young people get eaten or shot or stabbed or whatever.

Earlier this month, I caught M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, which is a movie about plants trying to use the wind to kill the world. It was a laughable, unbelievably stupid movie that tried to frighten me with shots of wind blowing through wheat. The Ruins proves that botanical terror can work, if you seed it right. I am not saying The Ruins is a masterpiece. The writing, though clever and thoughtful, needed a little more seasoning. The direction by Carter Smith, though not astounding, is to be praised in how old fashioned it often is, as he eschews the conventions of the music video and seems more interested in actually making a movie than showing how much he can shake his camera around. But the real salesmen and women of this story are the cast. There is an abundance of energy in these performances, and they never overplay their hands. Each transition is visible, with disbelief turning to panic, then to anger, then to despair, and so on. It works, and it works well.

What a nice surprise this movie was. It kept its face straight, and its aim steady, and while I didn't think it was perfect, I was always entertained. This is no small task for a movie with basically one setting and a faceless villain. Take any scene from this movie out of it and play it separately and you'll have people snickering. Sit down with it, though, and see what happens.

It got its vines around me, that's for sure.

SCORE: 8 / 10.