31 Days of Horror: The Ruins

Director: Carter Smith, 2008, 93′
IMDB Keywords: Broken Back, Winch, Pretend To Be Dead, Cellular Phone, Gore

Groups of teenagers are constantly getting themselves into bother, I mean, that’s what ASBOS are for right? Well it appears in the horror genre, groups of teenagers get themselves into a little more trouble than necessary. As The Ruins poorly points out.

I’m all for movies about teens being mercilessly and brutally culled in various and exciting ways, but The Ruins just seemed to stretch it a little too far for me.

The Ruins is basically a story about 4 teenagers (2 couples) holidaying in old Mexico before they split for college, they have spent their last weeks sunning themselves and drinking tequila until the last few days where the meet German backpacker Mathias who tells them he is heading out to an old Mayan temple to look for his brother who was on an archaological retreat.

Deciding it would be gas craic, the 4 decide to head out with him for the trek, in between this there is some horrible attempt at humanisation during a party at the beach you are told that one of the girls is insecure because her boyfriend is heading to college to become a doctor (a point that will become useful later on).

Upon arriving at a temple through what seems more like a gathering of small bushes rather than a jungle, they are set upon by a group of crazy Mexicans and one of Mathias’ German compatriots (obviously cannon fodder from the word go) is shot in the head, and pointlessly pierced with an arrow. The group are then ushered up the face of the temple and forced to stay up there by the Mexicans, who set up camp below, seemingly afraid to touch the vines that cover the Mayan temple. (this is further illustrated when a clump of the vines is thrown at a small Mexican child from the achingly dramatic American girl, and the kid gets shot in the head by one of his own).

I could go on about how scared they are, and the injuries they incur, but really all you need to know is the vines are evil, at any attempt they will try and creep into your sleeping bag and worm their way into your open wounds and drag you to a horrible botanic death.

The peak of this movie comes when they are searching for a mobile phone that seems to be ringing deep inside the temple, only to find that the flowers of the vine are PRETENDING to make the noise in order to feast on the teenagers gooey delicious insides.

It’s films like this that you really need to have an overactive imagination to be afraid of, I mean seriously, plants? at their very worst, a nettle is the most evil plant I know, and I’m pretty sure I could take one in a fight.

I didn’t really find anything useful to take out of this film, the teenagers were so annoying that it was like sweet relief to know they were going to get it, but unfortunately the plants themselves were so unbelievable you were kind of wanting a natural disaster to take them ALL out.

Poor concept, poor acting, poor direction, poor movie.