STUDIO: DreamWorks
RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2008
STARRING: Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey, Jonathan Tucker, Shawn Ashmore, and Joe Anderson
WRITTEN BY: Scott B. Smith
DIRECTED BY: Carter Smith
FEATURES: Never-before-seen alternate ending
Original theatrical ending
3 deleted scenes
Behind-the-scenes featurettes
Commentary by Director Carter Smith and Editor Jeff Betancourt

As much as I loved Scott B. Smith's thrilling novel The Ruins, I knew it would struggle in translation to the big screen. First, the basic conceit - killer plants - was going to be a tough sell. Even more damaging however was the reason that Smith's Ruins was so great - it gave the reader NO hope whatsoever. The minute those poor tourists stepped into the wrong area of the world, the reader knew they were completely f-ed. Could the dark nihilism of the book translate to film? Smith wrote a slow burn of a novel, something that's very hard to recreate on-screen, where the viewer requires more instant and more intense gratification. Would The Ruins be turned from painful thriller into cut-rate horror? Yes and no.

The basic lesson of The Ruins is a simple and common one in horror - When the local says "This place? No good." Pay f-ing attention. The set-up is spectacular in both the book and film. A group of American tourists run across a friendly German by the pool. Their new friend tells them that his brother went out on an archaeological expedition and never came back. He must be having so much fun, let's join him. When the gang gets to the site, they're immediately confronted by angry locals. At first, they think they want money or to not have their photos taken, but when one poor bastard gets shot with an arrow and then a bullet, they realize they're trapped. But not by crazy Mayans. No, the locals are just defending themselves, for when one steps on this plot of land, they don't step off because the Mayans don't want them to bring what's there back. They hear what they think is the sound of a cell phone coming from within the ruins and make a series of really, really bad decisions. They're the foundation of horror movies - the mistakes us stupid humans make.

The Ruins is an interesting movie, especially for people who have read the book and know all the twists and turns to come. The first act is surprisingly, faithfully slow. The problem is that the ensemble of young actors aren't interesting enough to maintain as much of a set-up as Smith and director Carter Smith (no relation) need to employ for their story. Unless he had changed it drastically, The Ruins needed to be a slow burn of a movie too - there are no Jigsaw Killer set-pieces like your average horror movie - but that kind of material works in a novel for two reasons - character and imagination. In the book, Smith defines the poor people stuck in this awful situation just enough that we come to care about them and wonder what we'd do in their situation. There's no time for that in a 93 minute movie, but the "action" isn't enough to make up for it. And, even more damagingly, some of the over-the-top dynamics at play in The Ruins (at its core, it's about killer plants, people) are much more effective in the mind's eye than the camera's. When a vine burrows its way into a poor girl's gaping leg wound, it's tense on the page, but a little goofy on film.

It's possible that The Ruins as a movie never could have worked. (For example, we all knew the ending would be changed and, in fact, there are three reported endings out there - the theatrical, the unrated, and an alternate on the DVD.) And there are elements like paranoia, especially that of Stacey's character, that are far more effective on the page. However, the end of Stacey is still something to behold and reason enough to see The Ruins. To be completely fair, both Smiths make a lot of very smart decisions with the movie, staying loyal to some of the best twists and only occasionally overplaying their natural hand. Maybe it simply couldn't have been better, but it definitely could have been significantly worse. Considering the sad state of the horror genre, that's saying something and more than enough to warrant a rental recommendation for genre fans.

Of course, if you're gonna rent or buy The Ruins, the way to go is Blu-Ray. And the way to go is Unrated. Why water down a man getting his legs cut off and dragged away by the vines? DreamWorks has always been an excellent DVD house and the work they did on The Ruins proves they will be in Blu-Ray as well. A lot of The Ruins takes place in darkness and the picture on the Blu-Ray disc is mastered perfectly. For a film like this one, sound is vital too. No complaints here in that arena. As for special features, the featurettes - "Making The Ruins", "Creeping Death", and "Building The Ruins" - are all pretty straightforward but well-done. Viewers will also find deleted scenes, including the aforementioned alternate ending (which you should watch once and then forget it ever existed - it's horrible),and a commentary by the director and editor. It's too bad the other Smith couldn't stop by for a track. Maybe he knew that he done all that he could do.