…yet made of stars

United States, 2008
Directed By: Carter Smith
Written By: Scott Smith
Starring: Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore, Laura Ramsey, Joe Anderson
Running Time: 91 minutes
Rated R strong violence and gruesome images, language, some sexuality and nudity
2 out of 5 stars

If the cynics in Hollywood can market Shutter using its executive producers (“From the executive producers of The Ring and The Grudge!” as the poster so eagerly tells us), then it only seems fair that I should be allowed to tell you that The Ruins was executive produced by Ben Stiller. Yes, that Ben Stiller. I’m kind of spoiling the ending here, since you don’t find this out until the final credits roll, but don’t worry—this isn’t quite the funniest part of the film. Thanks to pedestrian script writing, inept directing and some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen, it’s actually quite a challenge to pick the funniest part of The Ruins. But I’ll just start writing at see if I come up with an answer…

First, here’s the vital stuff you need to know: The Ruins is the film adaptation of the horror novel of the same name by Scott Smith, who adapted his own book, making The Ruins both his second novel and his second screenplay. His first of each was A Simple Plan, which he published as a book in 1993 and adapted into a screenplay for Sam Raimi in 1998. This is all news to me, since I just learned it all from that veritable font of wisdom, Wikipedia—but here’s the real surprise: his script for A Simple Plan actually got nominated for an Academy Award. The upshot is, apparently, that Smith has, in a short decade, gone from being a respected writer to being a purveyor of cheaply made exploitation horror. Now, to be fair: for all I know, the novel version of The Ruins could be fantastic (Stephen King reportedly called it “The best horror novel of the new century”), but if this is the case, then it’s all the more shameful that the movie is so bad.

Jonathan Tucker gets upstaged by a plant

Okay, now I know you’re clamoring to find out just how bad it is. Well, here’s the only thing you really need to know: about ten minutes in, Laura Ramsey (whose film debut was in that celebrated classic, The Real Cancun) gets naked. Why? Who knows? The filmmakers apparently thought it was important that the audience saw her changing clothes, instead of using the screen time to, you know, establish the characters a little bit. And quite honestly, these brief, early scenes are really the closest thing we get to character development in this film. It opens with our four heroes (laughably played by Ramey, Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, and Shawn Ashmore) on spring break on the Yucatan peninsula (for some reason, horror films always have to open with disgusting displays of American excess—cf. the suburbia of A Nightmare on Elm Street), and fifteen minutes later they’re all off to discover Scary Things and get mutilated for your viewing pleasure. We know that they’re college students; about halfway through the filmmakers decide (on a whim, I’m sure) that one of them is pre-med; this is about all we ever learn about them. Now ask me if I care whether they live or die. A film that treats its characters like piles of meat (in every possible sense—if you follow me) hardly makes for compelling viewing. (A rule of thumb: gore suggests the filmmakers lack faith in their movie’s substance; nudity proves it.)

I’d clue you in more as to what the story is, but the only real pleasure of the film is watching the horror slowly reveal itself. Smith’s come up with quite a frightening creature here, but I doubt I would have felt the same way if I had known what was coming—which explains why the trailer is so misleading. If you’ve seen it, you might think that The Ruins is something of an action-packed horror epic; you should be warned, though, that it’s really quite a slow, brutal, claustrophobic death march. This is the sort of film you’ll want to see if you think emergency surgery with a hunting knife sounds like a good time.

And...cue the scary thing.

That said, the overall badness of The Ruins takes mough fuuch of its edge off. I, for one, had enn laughing at the characters (who, inexplicably, switch at breakneck pace between making flip, sarcastic comments, starting unnecessary cat fights, and mumbling doomy things while they mutilate themselves—apparently whatever the filmmakers thought would add to the terrifying-ness) that I couldn’t really take much of it seriously. If you’re a fan of painfully bad horror movies (litmus test: Did you enjoy The Last Slumber Party?), you might eat this stuff up. Otherwise, the best thing you can really say about The Ruins is that it’s slightly better than Shutter. Slightly.