About.com Rating

Funny, the Fodor's Guide to Mayan Sacrifice didn't mention anything about this place... The Ruins, based on the Scott Smith bestseller, is a welcome shift away from Asian ghost stories and relentless "torture porn," although the film ultimately provides its own brand of gruesome torture. With plot elements reminiscent of Cabin Fever and The Mist, it focuses on a malevolent force -- in this case, carnivorous vines -- attacking a group of friends, causing fear, paranoia and in-fighting.

Indeed, the film is as much about group dynamics as it is about the killer plants -- a high-minded intention that only partially works.

The Plot

Two American couples, conveniently paired by hair color -- brunettes Jeff and Amy (Jonathan Tucker and Jena Malone) and blondes Eric and Stacy (Shawn Ashmore and Laura Ramsey) -- are sunning it up at a Mexican resort when they run into German Mathias (Joe Anderson), who invites them along on a visit to see his brother at an archeological dig.

As they approach the unchartered Mayan ruins tucked away deep in the jungle, trusting that their taxi driver will return for them when they call (A man driving a pickup truck with "TAXI" handwritten on the side carries a cell phone?), a group of armed locals shows up. The Mayan villagers aren't pleased about the tourists' presence and kill their Greek companion Dimitri -- whose only purpose, it seems, it so to die -- to make their point. They don't kill the others, though, so it's not apparent what they want, but the group takes it as a sign that they should head up the stone pyramid.

Bad move.

At the top, they find Mathias' brother's gear and from the depths of the shaft leading into the temple, they hear a cell phone. A comedy of errors ensues as they attempt to lower themselves into the ruins to retrieve the phone to replace the one they conveniently lost. Mathias ends up incapacitated, Stacy is wounded and it becomes increasingly evident that the local vegetation is just as unfriendly as the villagers.

The End Product

Due to its literary origins, The Ruins has a bit more depth than your average horror movie. It focuses as much on the group's interpersonal relations and their attempts to cope with the crisis as it does on generating scares -- an admirable strategy, but one that doesn't help the entertainment value of what is still at heart a horror movie.

Although conceptually killer vines sound like fodder for camp like The Day of the Triffids, they're actually a fascinating nemesis, displaying abilities beyond merely crying "Feed me, Seymour." But after introducing their full potential, the film puts them on the backburner and never fully returns to them. The most impressive, frightening scene -- that of the two girls inside the chamber encountering the wrath of the plants -- carries the weight of a climax, but comes only half way through the movie. The rest of the way, there isn't enough sense of immediate danger from the vines to generate a palpable fear. The group camps on top of the pyramid, several yards from the closest plant, and as long as they don't die, the foliage more or less leaves them alone. Leaves. Ha.

That said, just because there aren't many scares in The Ruins doesn't mean it doesn't contain abject horror. In fact, the vacationers are forced by circumstances into some of the most cringe-worthy cinematic scenarios in recent memory, right up there with Misery's infamous hobbling scene. Does the phrase "backwoods surgery" bring up any imagery? In essence, the second half of the film becomes a gruesome survivalist tale with the sensationalistic gore of torture porn.

Whether you prefer scares or gore, however, questions remain unanswered and inconsistencies unresolved. Perhaps because of the need to condense the material into a 90-minute screenplay, the vines' behavior isn't as well defined as it should be. At times they seem all-powerful and capable of swooping down upon the party, but they never do so. Plus, their other abilities -- such as affecting the mindset of their prey -- aren't as fully explored as they are in the novel.

The Mayan locals likewise remain a mystery. Initially, it's unclear whether they want the group to go up the pyramid or just leave, and if they think the vacationers have been infected somehow, why not just kill them on the spot? Is this all some sort of sacrifice to their plant gods? And how do they know when the final person dies, not being able to see the action at the top of the ruins? Mayan surveillance cameras perhaps?

Further questions arise from the actions of the group members. For the entire film, I kept waiting for somebody -- anybody -- to somehow fight back against the vines. Why not set them on fire? Not only would this kill the plants, but it would also send a smoke signal for rescue parties. Instead, though, the tourists remain helpless victims -- sort of like the audience in the theater.

The Ruins is one of those frustrating films that has great elements but never fully puts them together, right down to the tacked-on Hollywood ending that departs from the novel -- which is even more perplexing given the screenplay was written by Smith himself.

The Skinny

• Acting: B- (Solid "horror movie acting" -- e.g., yelling, crying, screaming "What are we gonna do?!?" -- but nothing stellar.)
• Direction: C+ (Leaves too many questions unanswered, particularly in relation to the villagers' intentions.)
• Script: D+ (Lacks scares because the focus isn't on the vines. Pat ending.)
• Gore/Effects: A- (Impeccable gore scenes succeed in making even the most jaded viewers squirm.)
• Overall: C+ (Some excellent moments don't add up to a stellar final product.)

The Ruins is directed by Carter Smith and is rated R for strong violence and gruesome images, language, some sexuality and nudity.