The Ruins

[Toy Ranch]

I read the book a while back and liked it quite a bit, but when I heard they were making a movie I was immediately skeptical.  While it is a very good book, the characters are written as vapid and while they are put into an unfair situation, they don't engender a great deal of sympathy.  The story is also pretty easy to predict.  Doesn't sound too good does it?  But it is, because of the well-developed thoughts and efforts of the characters as they slowly descend into greater and greater terror.  For a horror tale twinged with a bit of supernatural, it's not entirely unbelievable, and the way the characters deal with their dilemma is realistic and told very well.  When I heard they were making the movie, I figured it would be pretty awful, as the things that made the book good would be hard to translate to film, and what is left is not enough to make a good movie.

Today I had some time free up in the middle of the day and it was playing at the $4 matinee down the street so I decided to give it a try.

I was really surprised to see that the characters, the scenes, the sets, everything was exactly as I imagined it would be as I read the book.  That's really a credit to the author as much as anything, as he did paint a picture in the book.  The actors portrayed the characters just as they were in the book also.  There are 2 basic sets in the movie, and the first part is mostly character development.  In the book, this part dragged a little, but in the movie it moved pretty well in it's abbreveated form.  The second part is where the action really starts and I'm not giving anything away by saying that, as there is no suspense in the beginning that anything is going to happen. 

The complaint I have about this film is that they spent too long on character development in the beginning to reveal aspects of the relationships between the characters that were simply not material to the story due to the changes they made in the second part....  which is what the viewer is waiting for through the first part anyway.  There were several scenes I really looked forward to seeing on film that didn't appear in the movie.  The thing that really frustrated me is that they COULD have made a good movie out of this, as all the elements were in place, but they pandered to "the masses" as they imagine them to be and the result is disappointing.  I've heard reports of people walking out after a particularly brutal scene, and indeed there are a couple of very brutal parts that send those "masses" they pandered to running....  that being the case, the fact that they didn't just make a terrifying horror film out of this and went to great lengths to soften some of the harder edges of the book is doubly irksome.  Either do it right or don't, but this unhappy medium fails as a film on it's own and dishonors the book on which it's based. 

Pass on the film, but do buy the book!

[Minion]

Having read the book and also seen the film, I disagree with you. LOL!
I enjoyed both the book and the film, but I can't help but think at some point the author read "Flowers of Evil" by Robert Charles.



The film managed to keep my attention (I wasn't thinking about how uncomfortable the seat I was in was, or counting dimmed lights on the ceiling as I find myself doing in other films). I went in expecting crapola and was pleasently suprised to get good horror film instead (as far as modern horror films go).

[Iloz Zoc]

I enjoyed it, though it's brutal gore scenes can be nauseating.

My review is posted at http://zomboscloset.typepad.com/zombos_closet_of_horror_b/2008/04/the-ruins-2008.html. I think they could have added more from the book. The aspect of the mimic plants is really interesting, but they toned that down in the film. The plant appears more sentient in the book, also.

John

[Minion]

I think they toned down those aspects in the film, and completely left out a couple others, because translating them to film just would not have worked

[Iloz Zoc]

Thanks Minion for reading my review and correcting a mistake I made regarding Pablo and Eric. Pablo stuck in my mind for some reason.

I wonder if they're going to do a sequel, considering how they left it in the film?

John

[Toy Ranch]

I noticed yesterday that the guy who wrote the book also did the screenplay, so whatever damage was done to the story was done by the author of the book.


***SPOILERS***
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One thing I really loved in the story was the guy who had the vine inside him and he kept cutting himself open every time they turned around. In the movie it was reduced to the medical student doing it first and then she finished herself off in one big hackfest. The frustration and horror the rest of them experienced when every once in a while they turned away from focusing in their situation to having to deal with this guy cutting himself open again was one of the great tension builders of the book and they could have had the same thing in the movie but they toned it down.

Also, I don't remember them throwing a chunk of vine onto the kid and the villagers killing him. After that scene they realized it was all about the vine, but they didn't start heaving chunks of it on all of the rest of the villagers. I would have been cutting that tent nylon into slings and start using that vine as a weapon against the villagers, just heaving it all over the place and get away while they are all shooting each other and doing vine containment.

And then the end when the girl did get away.... I liked the book ending when they all just died.

[Mego73]

I saw a making of feature on HBO where they showed some of the prop legs they were going to use for what was probably for the scene that some people couldn't take. Pretty grizzly. It awakens my inner Fangoria lover.

I love gore but not as much as I used to. I usually wait for these movies to hit DVD or cable and I fast forward to the gore effects because I don't want to spend 90+ minutes submerged in the tone of most of these movies.

[Toy Ranch]

I saw a making of feature on HBO where they showed some of the prop legs they were going to use for what was probably for the scene that some people couldn't take. Pretty grizzly. It awakens my inner Fangoria lover.

I love gore but not as much as I used to. I usually wait for these movies to hit DVD or cable and I fast forward to the gore effects because I don't want to spend 90+ minutes submerged in the tone of most of these movies.

Well, it's not a "most of these movies" experience....  if you are thinking it's Hostel or something it's not that at all.  There are some brutal scenes, but it's about a group of college kids trying to survive against an alien or whatever plant.  It's not a "see how cruel people can be" contest entrant.

[Mego73]

Yeah, I heard this movie might be better then the Hostel type movies.

[Crazy1van]

My son likes monster movies, and my daughter prefers gore, so maybe this is a movie my whole family will enjoy.

[Mego73]

It's good to go to family movies