The Ruins

The Ruins is a delightful cautionary tale written by Scott Smith, which I happen to think was the best book of 2007. I would highly recommend reading it prior to seeing the film. He adapted this screenplay from his own book, and 10 years ago he wrote and adapted a book titled A Simple Plan into a great little film.

The premise of the story is that a group of college friends are vacationing in Mexico when they hear of an ancient Mayan temple off the beaten path, and they decide to make the journey to it. Once they arrive, they discover that this is no ordinary temple, and their struggle for survival ensues.

The cast is mostly unknowns, but some may recognize Ashmore from the X-Men movies, or Malone from her impressive resume of independent film work. The strong protagonist is Jonathan Tucker from the Black Donnelly's, and Laura Ramsey is the eye candy. Overall, the acting was average at best. The women were annoyingly helpless and weak, and Tucker seemed to lack any real emotion in his expression. The only strong performances were by Ashmore who took a backseat role, and added some occasional comic relief, and Joe Anderson, who plays the unfortunate Mathias with a great German accent (he is English). Anderson was the centerpiece of one of the more squeamish sequences in the film, and he did great. The star of the film is really the story, and that carried both the absurd premise as well as the mediocre acting.

It was well done for a minimal budget, and was obviously filmed entirely on location. I could not shake the anticipation of knowing how it turns out, and the film was surprisingly faithful to the book. There were some minor details overlooked, but the adaptation translated well onto the screen and conveyed all of the eeriness and suspense that would be expected.

I had intentionally not read any of the reviews beforehand, and as it had not screened for the Seattle Times, I thought it would be a bust, but I was pleasantly surprised. There were minimal special effects, and much of the suspense and tension was psychological more so than visual. The effects that did arise were well done and realistic, mostly dealing with amputations, blood, and things of that nature.

I enjoyed the film despite the wildly vivid preconceptions that the novel gave me. Scott Smith is an incredible storyteller, and I am very much looking forward to his next piece of work. 7/10, with extra style points for not cutting out some of the more graphic sequences.