The Ruins (2008)

The Ruins. I've read the book, now i've seen the film. The film version of Scott Smith's The Ruins is fairly faithful to its original source. Due to the nature of the media, it's obvious that some differences between the book and the film are bound to happen. In the film, although most of the characters were intact, not all of them had the same treatment as in the book, some of them had their roles altered to compensate with the running time but as psychological horror films go, this film manages to keep its tension throughout, made its viewers actually cared about the characters, and doesn't flinch away from the gore that ultimately saved this film from having a measly rating of PG-13. Therefore, if you can't stomach an R-rated gore film, this one is not for you.

Amy and Stacy were best friends, Jeff and Eric were their boyfriends respectively. On a last day of their holiday in Cancun, they met Mathias who planned to visit the Mayan ruins which is not-even-in-the-map to pick his brother, Heinrich who has been gone that way with a girl from an archaeological team that did an excavation survey on the ruins. Jeff, an established de-facto leader of this group by mutual consensus, urged his friends to a one last adventure to the unknown for their last day holiday outing. Eric, who had always seems to look up to Jeff, reluctantly agrees, Stacy, a dedicated goof-ball, a film's clown also agrees because well, she's too goofy to disagree, and Amy, even if she's initially refused to go, she's simply too weak to resist Jeff's insistence. Together, the five of them, with Dimitri, another tourist they depart to the ruins the next day.

The ruins is a pretty sight for any tourist. It looks like some sort of a Mayan pyramid with a flat top, a visible stair on its side, and green-colored vines all over. The moment our party reached the clearing that led to the pyramid, a score of Mayan sentries appeared threateningly shouting and yelling and when Amy stepped into the ruins, the sentries become more agitated that they doesn't hesitate to blow Dimitri's head off. Panicked, the party were ushered to the top of the pyramid by the Mayans and they were later found out that the Mayans intend to keep them on the pyramid until whatever fate (which the Mayans known for sure what it would be) befell upon them.

Unlike slew of many horror films that came out this year, The Ruins made its audience actually cared for its characters even if that's a little bit of over stretching if you haven't read the book. In the film, the characters were toned down, and ushered into a hasty introduction that merely scratches the surface of the real character described in the book. Since i've read the book, the hasty introduction worked although i would think that it wouldn't nearly suffice to the audiences who had never read the book.

The film was well paced, it doesn't waste too much time on introductions, and although there are few old standardized horror scare tactic (that lady with a phone in the beginning of the film, and that dog who held no significance whatsoever), once things get ugly there's turning back. This film is rated-R so it doesn't stay away from the gore, and even a seasoned horror fans would flinch in some of the scenes and it's something that once more added the plus point to this film as many of the horror films that precede it merely settles for a timid PG-13 rating and aimed at scare tactic that most of time induced by sudden-movement. When a horror film made you look away from the screen, that's how you know that it worked and if you seen this film without even squinting your eyes during the amputation scene, then i'm really sorry to say that i don't want to know you as clearly you're a freako-psycho and i wish to live for a little bit longer, thank you.

Granted, as always, the book version is always better, but aside from understandable trimming and modification here and there, there's no substantial difference between the book and the film. And it kept the dark ending (in a way) intact. This film is one of those rare novel adaptation film that complimenting the original work.

My rating: *** / **** - Easily the best horror film in 2008. Rated-R for gore, profanity, and nudity.