Yikes! It’s A… Spoiler Alert
The Ruins follows what I would call a clichéd path. Several young, good-looking adults, are out on a vacation in Mexico and on their last day, decide to take a hike to find a hidden temple in the jungle. This temple is hidden and unknown to most that come there, but a local helped them find their way here. Low and behold, as soon as they get there other locals pop out of the jungle and don’t speak a word of English, and our frightened crew doesn’t speak Spanish worth a darn. In the turmoil, one of the tourists gets shot dead, and the rest realize very quickly that they’re in deep – the locals will not let them leave, they’re forced to go up to the top of the temple and they must remain there.
A large opening at the top of the temple, next to a couple of abandoned tents intrigues our tourists and the temple investigation begins. They never get more than thirty feet inside of the temple before the laughable villain is revealed – it’s a freakin plant, or massive vine really. Yes this flesh-eating vine means serious business, man. This “villain” is cleverly disguised in the trailer and for good reason – it’s silly. I couldn’t help but think of that old cartoon about the giant tomato, whatever it was called.
So what we have then is a group of people, scared and stupid, trying to figure out how the heck to get out of here. They can’t come down from the temple, the locals are standing by with one six shooter and several bow and arrows. From what they can tell, the inside of the temple is just completely covered with these vines. So, they stay on the top of the temple and simmer in the sun and in their own panic and tensions. Relationships evolve and change a bit while they sit and wait for rescue, and each of them dies off slowly but surely until finally two remain. The entire affair was really uninteresting, especially after we find out it’s a plant causing all this trouble.
Presentation
The Ruins is a new film and as such you would expect it to move to Blu-ray well. This is the case here, The Ruins showcases some good transitions between the darkness of the temple to the bright sunshine exterior. For the most part, the film looks very good but it’s not a show-stopper. Essentially, The Ruins looked as good as I expected it to for a good movie, with minimal technical issues and an overall technically sound look.
The audio doesn’t disappoint either. Outside of some screaming, this is a pretty quiet film, the villains are loud, but the whistling is a nice aural touch that adds some much needed intensity. Dialogue comes across clearly too, so all in all, Paramount did a nice job here.
All That And A Bag Of These…
The Ruins features a total of about fifty minutes of extras, all in HD. There is also an audio commentary track with director Carter Smith and editor Jeff Betancourt, talking about the book (which this film was created from), and typical making of back stories. The deleted scenes, I believe there were three of them and then an alternate ending, add a bit more to the experience and value of this release. Three making of features, two clocking in around fifteen minutes and the other around five minutes, go over the special effects used in the more violent scenes, as well as set creation and other challenges they encountered.