"The Ruins" more preposterous than horrific

By Kirk Honeycutt

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In "The Ruins," fun-loving youths on holiday in Mexico make a day trip to an ancient Mayan ruin where they become trapped by flesh-eating vines. While not as silly as it sounds, it nevertheless is silly (as are most horror films), and while certainly different, the payoff isn't there.

The film stems from a novel by Scott Smith, which has its enthusiasts, so the concept possibly works better on paper. Give neophyte director Carter Smith and Scott Smith, adapting his own novel, an A for making an effort to evolve a fresh horror flick, but a C for execution and D for too many cheap thrills. That leaves you with a C-minus exploitationer that will be out on DVD very soon. It opened at No. 5 at the weekend box office with estimated earnings of $7.8 million.

Amy (Jena Malone) and Stacy (Laura Ramsey) are soaking up rays and cervezas on sun-blasted beaches with their boyfriends, med student Jeff (Jonathan Tucker) and fun-loving Eric (Shawn Ashmore). A chance encounter with German tourist Mathias (Joe Anderson) and his Greek pal Dimitri (Dimitri Baveas) leads to the decision to trek to a Mayan ruin, where Mathias' brother has gone missing.

Upon arrival, local Mayans, whose language they don't speak, are extremely upset by their presence at the vine-covered pyramid. Strangely, the Mayans force them to climb hurriedly to the top by killing Dimitri. It gradually dawns on the remaining five that the Mayans are "quarantining" them because of their contact with the vines.

In "Ruins," the horror comes from within the group. The man-eating plants are a mere gimmick to force a series of confrontations and decisions among the tourists. The human reactions range from fear and denial to suspicion, accusations, madness and murder along with several grotesque surgical procedures and plant invasions of bodies that give the prosthetics designer free reign.

If anything, the film is too timid in these developments. The protagonists come by their paranoia honestly, and most decisions make sense at the time. With one exception, the external pressures never really warp the minds and spirits of these people.

Also the rules of engagement are never clear. At times, the vines act like second cousins to the bloodthirsty plant in "Little Shop of Horrors" -- they just crave human flesh. Yet the Mayans seem to feel mere contact with the vine infects a person. So what would happen if they did walk out of the jungle? There also is a sci-fi element in which the vines' flowers mimic sounds and human speech, a thing likely to provoke laughter rather than screams.

In the end, the gimmick is too risible and its effects on the characters too forced to sustain either suspense or horror.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter