While on vacation in a resort in Mexico, the Americans Jeff, his girlfriend Amy, her best friend Stacy and her boyfriend Eric befriend the German Mathias in the swimming pool. Mathias invites the group to visit the ruins of a Mayan temple with his Greek friend Dimitri in an archeological field where his brother Henrich and his girlfriend are camped eighteen kilometers far from the resort. They hire an old taxi and when they reach the spot, they are surrounded by Mayan villagers armed of revolver, rifle and bow-and-arrow that kill Dimitri and do not allow the group to leave the place. They climb a construction covered of creepers with red flowers, and remain under siege of the locals. When they hear a cell phone in the bottom of a well, Mathias decides to seek the apparatus using a rope that breaks and he has a serious accident breaking his back. Amy and Stacy go to the bottom of the mine to rescue Mathias and they find many corpses covered by the climbing plants; further, they realize that they had been lured by the plants that are vibrating with the sound of a cell phone. When they are attacked by the carnivorous creeping plants, they understand the reaction of the Mayan villagers.
Genre(s): Horror, Thriller
Runtime: 90 minutes
Rating: 6.0/10 (20,242 votes)
Release Date: 2 April 2008
Country: Australia, USA
Languages: English, Maya, Spanish, German, Greek
Company: DreamWorks SKG
Sound: Dolby Digital, SDDS, DTS
MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and gruesome images, language, some sexuality and nudity.
Director(s): Carter Smith
Producer(s):
Gary Barber – executive producer
Chris Bender – producer
Roger Birnbaum – executive producer
Stuart Cornfeld – producer
Trish Hofmann – executive producer
Jeremy Kramer – producer
Ben Stiller – executive producer
Writer(s):
Scott B. Smith – (screenplay)
Scott B. Smith – (novel) (as Scott Smith)
Cast:
Jonathan Tucker – Jeff
Jena Malone – Amy
Laura Ramsey – Stacy
Shawn Ashmore – Eric
Joe Anderson – Mathias
Sergio Calderón – Lead Mayan
Jesse Ramirez – Mayan Bowman
Balder Moreno – Mayan Horseman
Dimitri Baveas – Dimitri
Patricio Almeida Rodriguez – Taxi Driver
Music: Graeme Revell
Tagline: Terror has evolved.
Recommended Links
Archives
I had been so looking forward to this movie ever since Stephen Kingstarted raving about it (it's on his Top 10 Movies of 2008 list) that Ialmost felt cheated when it started out as though it would be yetanother gorgeous-college-kids-doing-stupid-things-that-get-them-killedhorror. But while the movie does come dangerously close to that line afew times, the actors and characters manage to generate enough sympathythat I felt bad for them, as opposed to wanting to hasten their deaths.
Killer plants can either sound really cool or really silly, dependingon how much of a horror fan you are (or at least, how much of anoptimist you are). I'm a huge horror fan and I'm glad to say that theplants don't disappoint. The effects are solid and the creepy creepersget in some good scenes, with one particularly memorable one beingabout its flowers and the kids down a deep, dark, temple shaft – Ishouldn't say more.
There is gore, and it's gross, but not in a bad, gratuitous way, likewith torture porn. It's appropriate gore (lol) for the premise, andit's disturbing to look at but hard to turn away from.
The actors are really hot, which isn't necessarily a good thing forhorrors as it might lead to stereotyping the movie as "B," butsurprisingly, the two leads had just come off solid turns in acclaimedmovies (Jonathan Tucker, from In the Valley of Elah, and Jena Malone,from Into the Wild) and I can't help but to wonder why they took a stepbackwards in their career (well okay, it was probably for the money).
I could guess how the movie would end long before it did, so that waskinda disappointing. Maybe that's what Stephen King likes, since I knewexactly how The Mist (which he wrote) would end too. Predictableconclusions are so deflating; I always think one should come out of amovie with a high but such endings pretty much reduces the high to"meh," and it takes a bit more effort to remember why I liked the movie(if I did).
I rented this expecting to enjoy a god horror movie. Instead I got atotal waste of time. The concept of a horror movie involving ancientMexican stuff is pretty cool and original. But that's as far as itgoes. You never really know what's going on here. I can't give anyinformation away, but the "evil forces" here in my opinion have nothingto do with ancient Mayan folks. And I ain't no Mayan but anyoneequipped with a brain will agree. I'd stay away from this waste of timeif you're in the mood for a horror movie. I guess I was maybe expectinga horror movie and maybe some crazy people running around like the onesin Apocalypto!! But then again, that's maybe my fault!
I certainly hope the book this is inspired from is better than thispoor attempt at an horror flick. I remember a quote from Stephen Kingon the cover saying this was "the best horror novel of the newcentury". The movie makes me doubt that very much but who knows. Booksare indeed almost always better than their film adaptation. The funnything is that the screenplay is attributed to the writer of the book,Scott Smith. My main beef here was that the characters, particularlythe girls, acted too stupidly. Some of it can be explained away bynerves or growing insanity but still. My other big problem was with themenace of the ruins. I didn't buy it. It felt ridiculous. Perhaps it'sless of a problem imagining it while reading the book, perhaps. Therewere a couple of horrific scenes that worked really well (one medicalinvolving legs) but a few effective scenes do not make for an overallsatisfying horror experience. The acting was mundane with the actorplaying Jeff being way too stiff and unemotional. This is worth arental at best when there is nothing better left to see in the horrorsection.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
Basic plot summary is that 2 American couples decide to go on holidayto party and chill by the pool. One of the girls then somehow managesto lose an ear-ring which is coincidently found by a German dude whojust so happens to be heading off the next day to visit some ancientMayan ruins that hardly anyone has been to before. After talking to theGerman guy for 5 seconds the gang decide what the heck lets go withhim. What could possibly go wrong? Despite being well shot, the film isjust as stupid as the 4 main characters. All the characters arecomplete horror movie staples, such as the smart sensible quiet guy whocomes out of his shell when trouble is a-foot. Other characters includethe guy who is vaguely comic relief, signified by daft hair, the bimboand the whiny useless chick. The situation they find themselves in iscompletely ludicrous and then when you realise what the main evil thingis you just laugh because it is completely ridiculous.
Obviously being a horror movie the hot blonde has to get naked and thenfind excuses to take her clothes off whenever possible and there hasgot to be lots of blood and gore. The movie succeeds with both thesetasks but in the most mundane routine way possible which leaves youcompletely uninterested in the plot and in the characters fates.
In summary, its a below average horror movie that doesn't really makeany sense and you know exactly what is going to happen the entire waythrough which just makes the whole experience feel old and overgrown.
This is Director Carter Smith's debut full length feature and thatinexperience destroys this film.87 minutes is the ideal running timefor a Horror, but in truth there is barely half an hour's worth ofmaterial here. The premise of the story, the eponymous novel by ScottSmith is simple and fine. But Carter Smith is wholly unable totranslate the layered horror of the page onto the screen.
The Ruins follows two American couples, just out of college, enjoying apleasant, lazy beach holiday together in Mexico as they go off with newfound friends in search of some remote Mayan ruins, site of a fabledarchaeological dig.However the characters are underwritten, and theperformances lack depth. Frankly we don't care whether they live ordie.
Once stranded on the Temple, a relatively small pyramid stylestructure, there quite literally isn't anywhere to go, and as thishappens early on in the film this is a problem.Graphic, horror gorequickly replaces plot in order to create any impact or momentum.Thebasic Horror principles that what you don't see is more horrific thanwhat you do see, as is the threat of what MIGHT come, are eschewed outof sheer desperation.
The climax to the story is so clichéd all dramatic tension is lost andthe final frame would have been thrown contemptuously aside by theTutor of a first year film studies student.Lush photography and a finesetting do not compensate for a feature length failure.