A Conflicting Mess of Entertainment

I’m not a real big fan of the horror genre, in all honesty. I think my biggest hang up is that I really appreciate _good_ horror movies. Films like Session 9, Ringu, and The Exorcist rank among some of my favorites. I’m also a fan of campy horror films, like Scream, Saw, and the Nightmare on Elm Street’s. However, I have to draw the line at cheesy horror films. I’m not a fan of unnecessary blood and violence and I seem to really appreciate a horror film which takes itself seriously, aims at scaring you fundamentally, and doesn’t rely on CGI to make you think twice before falling asleep with the lights off.

And it is for these reasons that I’m still on the fence regarding The Ruins. At its core, it aims at being a sophisticated look at the emotions, turmoil, and doubt humans can go through when left alone in a horrible scenario. Scott B. Smith is a talented and gifted writer and his first novel-turned-screenplay (A Simple Plan) is easily one of my favorite films to show to those unfamiliar with it. However, he fails to bring the same realism to The Ruins that he did with the latter, and it turns this would be horror-thriller into yet another cheesy, horror film.

I don’t really think I can review this film without going into spoiler territory, so I will warn you now that if you choose to read any further, the film will be spoiled for you. Proceed at your own risk.

Plot: Four friends who are traveling through Mexico happen to meet another tourist, Mathias (played by Joe Anderson) who tells them that his brother had gone to see a temple not located on any map. Mathias is headed there the following day with his pal, Dimitri, and invites his new friends to join them. However, upon reaching the temple/ruins, they are forced to hide atop it after a local tribe kills an unsuspecting Dimitri (see; redshirt). Stuck on top of the temple, the group soon determines that because they accidentally touched giant vines that grow alongside the temple, the tribesmen are attempting to quarantine the situation. If the friends try to leave the temple, the tribesmen will kill them. If they stay on top, they will surely die. The question becomes; will the plants kill them or will they do the job themselves?

And yes, this is honestly the plot of the movie. Four friends, stuck on a temple, surrounded by killer plants and killer local tribesman. The movie fails for the same reasons that A Simple Plan succeeds: realism. You’re immediately sucked into the story of A Simple Plan; it revolves around three men who find a million dollars that appears to belong to no one. Do you keep it? Do you turn it in? What would you do? But this same realism is lost when you include killer plants as antagonist.

It’s clear that Scott B. Smith attempted to tell a similar story, but for some reason he’s included the concept of killer plants and written it as a horror story and tossed aside all forms of realism. If you’ll indulge my brief rant: there’s absolutely nothing creepy about plants that want to kill you. Especially when handled with mostly worthless CGI. It’s also conflicting when at one point in the film, two torches are made to help make the interior of the temple visible. Now, I’m no genius, but if you can use alcohol to wet an improv-torch and light it with a lighter, why can’t you set fire to the creepy plants that want to kill you? I mean, these are plants. They’re vines. They may want to eat you, but one would think that the humans could put up a pretty good fight. One would think they’d at least try.

Jonathan Tucker is, as always, the best actor among the cast. While Tucker has done quite an extensive amount of television work, his silver-screen resume is unfortunately covered in bad horror films, including the likes of Pulse and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. For those who missed out on The Black Donnelly’s (with Tucker in the starring role), I highly recommend you go back and catch every minute of that hour long drama. It was certainly Tucker at his best, though he puts up a good effort here, even though he was dragged along as Jena Malone’s boyfriend. I haven’t liked a single film in which Jena Malone has had a significant lead. She constantly plays the same character in each and every one of her film roles and I’m confused as to if she’s type-casted or if she’s type-casted herself. I’m pretty confident that you could remove any character she’s ever played in a film, switch it with another role of hers, and you wouldn’t know the difference. Her one saving grace is Donne Darko, to which she also played the same exact role she’s always played. She’s been stuck as Margie Flynn since the release of Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys with no end in sight. Shawn Ashmore gives yet another mundane performance here as Eric, and he will continue to give mundane performances until a director asks for more out of him. It’s clear his role is worthless here. Every scene he occupies is a waste of time and his character has little-to-no development at all. Laura Ramsey, whose resume actually includes worse films than that of Tucker’s, gives a performance on par with his. In fact, she did so well in her role that I truly wished that her character had been switched with Malone’s in order for her and Tucker to have more screen time together.

In the end, the film is a total mess of ideas which never come together. The horror aspect of it is cheesy, the suspense scenes are a waste thanks to talentless actors, and the directing is only mediocre. There’s really no way to recommend this film, though if you’re a fan of A Simple Plan it may be worth to watch just to see how similar the storylines are. Minus the whole ‘plants-that-want-to-eat-you’. That’s just dumb.