A bunch of vines that eats people...
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this movie and having not read the book I was surprised to find it to be pretty decent. It starts off just like an original horror movie but shift as you get further into it. The Ruins takes place in Mexico with four college-age kids (Tucker, Malone, Ashmore and Ramsy) and another guy (Anderson), the latter who takes them to a Mayan temple where his brother is working supposedly on a dig. When they get there, a bunch of angry Mexican-Myans attack them, they scurry up to the top of the temple, and are basically quarantined with a host of virulent, monster-type plants and vines, who in typical horror fashion kill them off one by one. That's the basic premise, anyway, and if you know that and have seen the trailer you probably took a guess whether this is up your alley.
The film really came through for me and I was pleased with the outcome. The cast was pretty respectable and I really came to love Stacy's (Laura Ramsey) character in the...
A complete and utter disappointment.
The Ruins (Carter Smith, 2008)
Scott Smith's novel The Ruins was either a love-it-or-hate-it book, so when the film version was released, I kind of half-assumed that the people who were reviewing it all came down on the "hate" side where the book was concerned. For some odd reason, despite my extensive experience watching really bad film adaptations of novels, it simply never occurred to me that Smith, who adapted his own novel, would make so many absurd changes to the book when writing the screenplay. But, oh, for the love of Pete, what changes he hath wrought. And not a single one of them does anything other than take a very interesting novel that focused on the psychological states of the people trapped at the ruins and make it into a stupid hungry-plant movie.
The plot: four friends-- Jeff (Jonathan Tucker), Amy (Jena Malone), Stacy )Laura Ramsey), and Eric (Shawn Ashmore)-- are on vacation in South America. They meet Mathias (Joe Anderson), who's going into...
What a nice way to end a holiday
I enjoyed this film. Sure it had some terrible reviews but it is one of the most entertaining horror films this year.
Not overly scary, but ultra violent. This film is based more on the psychological ramifications of horrific events. The film left me wanting to read the novel, mostly to elaborate on scenarios that seemed shortened for low attention spans. How often do wish a horror film could be longer? Quite rare.
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