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Author Scott Smith adapts his own popular 2006 novel in this unsettling and surprising horror yarn.

 THE RUINS is cut from the same “body-count-of-young -white -Americans-abroad” cloth as most teen slasher movies where they are killed off one at a time with one escaping so that there can be an even worse sequel. The big difference here is that it isn’t the offspring of a sexual relationship from Deliverance, but rather some strange vine with flowerettes that can mimic human sounds. The other thing different is that the cast does not have the clean, attractive look of the cast of Dawson’s Creek but rather a more unattractive look like the cast of Wolf Creek.

While vacationing on the Yucatan Peninsula, 20-something Americans Jeff (Jonathan Tucker), Amy (Jena Malone), Eric (Shawn Ashmore), and Stacy (Laura Ramsey), befriend German traveler Mathias (Joe Anderson), who invites them to accompany him into the jungle to meet up with his archaeologist brother at an “off the map” Mayan temple. They agree, but once they arrive, angry locals shoot one of their party and refuse to allow them to leave. The Americans and Mathias retreat to the top of the temple, only to find the archaeological camp deserted. Mathias falls into the temple and is badly injured, but that is only the beginning of their troubles, as it soon becomes apparent that the vines covering the temple are alive in a way that goes beyond normal vegetation. It may be tempting to summarize THE RUINS by saying that it’s about killer plants, but that would be undermining its strong points if there are any. The latter two thirds of the film play out like a very grim five-character stage play about survival, with large servings of death and desperation, without resorting to the fake scares that many horror films use as a crutch. The gore, while often quite nasty, is also necessary to the story, which takes on a heavy psychological component as the characters begin to fear for their lives. The movie basically sucked and the book was better.

Rating: 1 out of 5 oscarettes.