Delayed Reaction: The Ruins

Premise: A group of friends visit ruins while on a trip in Mexico and, well, discover why the locals don't go there.

 

I swear I'll get to the actual movie in a moment. First, I want to point out a perfect example of why it's so difficult to get horror recommendations. In the Wikipedia Critical Response for this section, it includes the following two takes on the movie.

• The Rotten Tomatoes consensus is "Despite a solid cast and truly frightening source material, The Ruins founders, thanks to a weak script and an excess of gore."
• The James Beradinelli review says "The Ruins does what a good psychological horror movie should do: rely on tension rather than gore to achieve its aims."

So, The Ruins is both too gory and praised for how it doesn't rely on gore? You don't really see that in other genres. Goodfellas is either violent to a fault or uses violence to make a point. Chris Nolan movies are either overwritten or tightly constructed. It's not like comedies get criticized for having too much slapstick by some then praised by others for how they don't use slapstick. I wish there was a way to weight horror takes going in based on a person's tolerance for common horror elements. Like, if a person rates as a 2 out of 10 for found footage, I know to level-set their Paranormal Activity take. Or if a person is 9/10 for gore, perhaps I should be cautious about that Saw IV rave.

 

OK. Onto the movie. Here's my level-setting going in this movie. Before I even watch it, this is what I know and what I can assume about it as a result. It's a major studio (Paramount) horror movie. It has recognizable stars. I should expect a certain amount of polish on the movie. It'll rely more on visual effects, since they have the money for it. It has an R-rating, which indicates a higher level of freedom. Had it been PG-13, they'd have to more carefully consider the structure of the scares and level or violence. It's really hard (but not impossible) to do your best work in horror with that looming over you. First time director and a journeyman writer, so probably not much of a vision and little ability to fight studio notes.

 

Put that together, and I'm expecting acting that will be able to keep me engaged, even when not much is happening. There will be a couple good horror ideas that they'll probably overuse. I'll like it while being aware of ways that they could've made it more memorable. And that's pretty much what I did get from this movie.

 

Jena Malone and Shawn Ashmore* are ideal 2008 stars. Jonathan Tucker does have resting villain face which messed with me. I kept waiting for him to be more of a dick. He's fine though. There's always gotta be a Laura Ramsey in these too: someone who is perfectly fine but this marks the high point in her career. I really like the idea and visuals of the vines overtaking them. It turns out to be one trick the filmmakers overuse rather than advance, but it works. I'm sure someone could explain to me that this is exploitative of Mayan culture. I was fine with it though.

 

I think the lasting impact of The Ruins will be that it's a movie people confuse with The Descent but aren't that upset when they realize they are watching the wrong one. Overall, there's worse fates for a movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend