The Ruins

A kind blog reader gave me this recommendation. I had already seen it twice and read the book but completely forgot about it for one of my craptastic reviews. The Ruins, to put it mildly, is a seriously fucked up and disgusting movie, and the perfect thing to watch if you have had your fill of Eli Roth films. Compared to the book, the sequences of events are the same as are the characters, but the main difference is that the characters roles are switched about in the movie. I assume this is done for creative purposes or some rubbish.

So, it’s spring break or summer holiday or whatever and a bunch of Gen-Y kids are partying it up on their parents dime in Mexico before going off to their respective colleges. The group consists of two best girlfriends, Amy and Stacy and their boyfriends, Jeff and Eric. While partying by the pool they meet a German guy who is visiting Mexico with his brother who met a beautiful archeologist and went to visit some ruins with her. Leaving the directions with his brother, Mathias asks the four teens to join him if they are looking for adventure.

Of course they are, because they are stupid and it can’t be helped. So the next day the girls put on inappropriate hiking flip-flops and the boys put on some chin stubble and they head out with Mathias. Once arriving at the last town before heading into the jungle, they are warned that the area is “bad”. But since these kids are technically invincible and one of them is going to med school, they are positive that they are going to beat the odds. So they set out and find the temple ruins to be hidden and deserted. Suddenly they are descended upon by a fat guy on a horse who speaks no other language than his jungle tongue which just makes it difficult to tell the dumb tourists that this is a dangerous place and they need to leave.

Retreating to the vine covered temple, the natives begin to surround the group, ready to shoot them if they attempt to leave. They find the camp left by the archeologists and Mathias’s dead brother wrapped in the red flowered vines. After this, everything gets wicked nasty. There are flesh eating plants, amputations, self mutilation and paralysis, your typical Mexican holiday without the dysentery.

This was the most frightening thing I have seen involving the human psyche and the survival instinct. Perhaps not as gory as the Saw Franchise, but I still get flash backs about some of the actions the characters take during this movie. I never would have thought your garden shrubbery could get so pissed off, I will only own silk plants from now on.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, you quickly need to see this flick. If you are feint of heart then I would recommend watching Pretty Woman again. .