Exploitation Nation

The Ruins (2008)
D. Carter Smith
Paramount/Dreamworks
2.35

I missed this ecological based horror flick in the theaters. The trailers didn’t do a lot for me, and it didn’t make much money, therefor didn’t hang around long enough for me to catch it anyway. My mistake as this turned out to be a pretty solid horror flick with some serious squirm inducing scenes. Color me impressed.

The story follows two college couples in Mexico on vacation. They meet a dude who tells them his brother is an archeologist and is excavating some Mayan temple. And that they all can go meet up with him for some “serious culture” before they head back to the states. Since this dude is seriously fuckable the chicks are all for this rather shady sounding trip, and the dudes are just up for adventure. Naturally they get there and cell phone reception is gone (no towers deep in Mexico you see) and they have to hoof it the last few miles to get to the temple. When they arrive they are assaulted by a group of VERY angry Mexicans speaking what appears to be a Mayan dialect. These swarthy badasses are armed. They kill an extra dude they picked up along the way and force the group up on top of the pyramid like temple. Then the badasses take up camp as they grow in number, intending to keep the kids up there.

Up top the kids find the dead body of the archeologist and keep hearing a cell phone from down a deep shaft inside the temple. What they don’t see is that the plant life that covers the entire temple is ALIVE. Not like all plants, but as in active, squirming around and out to eat your ass. While they are trying to figure out a plan, the plants have eaten the corpse of the archeologist leaving the group next on the menu.

The go into more would be spoiling the fun of the movie. Suffice to say it gets wet and messy. Very messy. The vines have a way of crawling into open wounds and winding their way inside of you. The scenes of said vines having to be cut out of a person will have you hiding your eyes. The interpersonal mayhem of the movie will get to you. A little kid is shot point blank, a character has his legs amputated with a rock and a hunting knife, and a session of rather foul self mutilation all are far more graphic and intense that the usual studio fair. While not more bloody than the average Saw movie, its the personalized intensity that really gets to you. You can FEEL this stuff.

Many modern horror films these days make the mistake of presenting us with characters that are annoying and unrelatable. Usually because the actors are these beautiful model types that seem fake. That almost happens here. The main five leads are all of the good looking glamazons and at first feel like the typical Hollywood model types. But they grow on you as the movie roles forward.  The model veneer wears off as they become more filthy, worn down and tore up. The film becomes a survival horror film, and these kids are looking the part as it wears on.  I also like that the lead girl wears glasses and there never is a scene where she loses them and it is a big deal. She just wears glasses. It is a character trait, not a plot device (and she looks hot in them too!).

The movie is far from perfect. There is some lazy plotting and inconsistency throughout, especially involving simple logic of the situation. But the movie moves fast enough to compensate well. Overall this is a bloody good time.

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