Pajiba

Oh don't you try and sneak this in, McSneaky! You KNOW you prioritized His Holy Clooneyness before this piece of cinematic vomit.

Not that I blame you...

The Ruins is moderately well-done horror which accomplishes what it set out to do - thrill and shock, and then be promptly forgotten.

Damnit, when the hell is someone going to make a horror movie that is actually GOOD?

So it's not totally asstastic, then? I mean, I would've seen it anyway (because c'mon, killer plants!) but the fact that it's tolerable will help immensely.

Damnit, when the hell is someone going to make a horror movie that is actually GOOD?

It makes it tough to sell to friends, however. "Pajiba said watching it wasn't like making out with a hobo's ass, let's go!!!"
sigh... I haven't seen a movie that really scared me in a long time...

I have to say that this is much more positive than I was expecting. Although I never read the book, I just assumed this was part of that whole J-horror series. Flashy, with big names, and shrill screams...throw some blood and gore in and something foreign as the culprit...and voila! You have pop horror! None of the real meat, no depth or characterization...but hey! What do you need those things for?

Well, I may have to give this a try now...since it's not as bad as I thought. But just tell me this...it doesn't have any tentacle rape, does it? That's the first thing I thought of...I just don't know if I can handle that. At least Eli Roth didn't direct this...then I'd know for sure it would.

"Pajiba said watching it wasn't like making out with a hobo's ass, let's go!!!"

HAhahaha...I'm using that.

Damnit, when the hell is someone going to make a horror movie that is actually GOOD?

For some reason I hear Toht saying "that time...is past".

I wish you luck in your quest, though.

Hell, nothing's scared me like "Witchboard" or "Prince of Darkness".

Yes, "Witchboard". There was every possibility Malfeator's Kenny Rogers lookin ass was gonna delurk from the shadows by the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I never cared if the movie was good or bad. I have no intention of seeing it. I just wanted to read the review. It wasn't a bile-fest like I'd hoped; but thank you anyway, oh, thank you for finally posting it. Now I can sleep.

I have seen two good scary movies in the past 6 years: "The Ring" and "Descent." The first had me terrified of my closet for two years and the second was so claustrophobic that I left the theater with a migraine.

Somehow I doubt this movie would amount to anything more than a big meh. Not to mention the previews were effing stupid. Mayan ruins...ruins of one of the bloodiest civilizations in the history of the world...and the scariest premise they can come up with is pissed off vegetation?

Mel Gibson would be ashamed.

"...I have no intention of seeing it..."

WHAT!!! After all that complaining? I don't think so...you're getting your ass to a theatre and watching it, young lady. I never...

I just feel I have no need to spend $12 on a movie ticket to see this when I'm quite certain I will see it in the 'shit no one will buy' rack at Blockbuster in a few months' time...

I'm all for bad horror, but the trailer was so asstastically bad I couldn't even feel my usual bubbling of masochistic fervor. But thank you for the review, nonetheless.

Here's an idea: instead of ranting about how 'meh' this movie is, let's reminisce about horror movies we have seen that were actually honest-to-god good. I'll start: in no particular order
The Descent (as Dingle pointed out)

aaand I'm out of movies that came out within the last five years.

Oh, God, Dingles, "The Ring" still haunts me. I can't ever turn off the light before I turn of the TV, and I'm sometimes convinced that she's going to crawl up over the end of my bed and crouch on my chest, her hair stringy and dripping on my face oh my god ::cowers and cries::

Shadows: It wasn't the movie I'd been awaiting with bated breath; it was the review.

Geetch: If the stupid American The Ring had that effect on you, never watch the original Ringu if you ever want to feel at peace again in your life. This advice is a free favor I am doing for you.

Haha, thanks, Jerce, but I've already seen it. When the American version came out on DVD, my friends and I rented it to have a "Ring" party. The American one still freaked me out, but I thought "Ringu" was funny. The only part where I jumped was when the girl was very abruptly clubbed over the head and dumped into the well. Otherwise, meh.

It takes a special kind of film for me to misbehave in the theater, and The Ruins is that kind of film. It's easily the worst horror I've seen since the When a Stranger Calls remake, which is no small task considering I've voluntarily watched everything from The Messengers to I Know Who Killed Me.

The enemy in the film is an outdated horror cliche that should have stayed buried with the Amicus Production Company that insisted on that brand of horror in every anthology they ever did.

I couldn't help but think the easy solution to every problem in the film was throw the idiot down the shaft. Didn't matter which one: male, female, Mayan, German, Greek, and American alike. My visions of a swift end to the film were color and gender blind. This compulsion to see everyone die a horrible death was an unprecedented (and unappreciated) negative blood lust I don't wish to return to outside of watching really dated indie slasher flicks rife with (more offensive than usual) stereotypes.

At least the colors were pretty. And the fake Mayan temple plopped down in the middle of New Zealand looked real enough. Shame that the performances, screenplay, direction, and editing couldn't match the pretty, pretty colors.

no mention of SWEET NUDITY,there has to be some skin in the ruins right??

The American one still freaked me out, but I thought "Ringu" was funny.

Er...

To each his own, and all like that; but I have to say I think you're weird.

as for SWEET NUDITY, we do get a brief ass 'n' tits shot of laura ramsey.

and may i say, it's too brief.

I don't know if The Orphanage has come out in the US yet (I live in the UK), but if you're looking to be TERRIFIED OUT OF YOUR SKULL, you can't do better. At the showing I went to, there was one moment when everyone in the theatre screamed. Out loud. In a room full of strangers. I didn't want to go to sleep that night because I was sure when I woke up, there'd be a masked child standing at the foot of the bed. Brilliant movie.

The original Ringu is in no way scarier than The Ring. It's the same damn movie.

The American remake has better special effects. That's it. Beyond the cosmetic changes of a blonde protagonist, moving the setting to America and excising the bits about the aftereffects of the Hiroshima bomb, it's the same film. Same plot, same scares.

Now they're both decent, if overhyped, horror flicks but Ringu won't make you shit yourself any more than The Ring did.

I read and actually very much enjoyed The Ruins. The pervasive sense of dread Scott Smith maintained throughout the novel made for an unsettling and enjoyable read. I saw the movie last night, and I was really disappointed ***SPOILER WARNING*** that they let a character escape from the ruins. The whole point is that these are RUINS, fer chissakes. They are ruined. If you go there, YOU are ruined. They are not called The That Was A Close Ones. If they are able to be escaped from, why don't we just build a Starbucks up there? I'm tired of Hollywood assuming that certain endings are too "dark" for audiences to handle. I mean, four people dying horrible deaths is okay, but five is pushing it? Anyway, I was disappointed by this movie but I guess I expected to be. As long as Hollywood continues to believe fear needs to be tempered by hope or happiness, they will never really frighten me.

Melissa, from what I've read about the film, the test screenings did not go well at all with the original book ending. People found it too depressing. So they backed down and changed it. The book's ending was filmed and will most likely appear on the DVD. Apparently there are other filmed endings as well that fall somewhere between the two. Doesn't make the final cut of the film any better, but it does explain why the changes were made.

Went and saw it..never wanted a girl to die more than I wanted the glasses-wearing girl to die.

...*sigh*

And Joe Anderson, why does Jim Sturgess get "good" films and I'm forced to watch you fall down a shaft and be used as a human jump rope by two stupid girls? All with a bad accent? Joe I EXPECT MORE from you.

Robert-
I had a feeling test screenings were to blame. And I totally understand how people could've found the original ending too bleak. Myself, I found the original ending just bleak enough. The characters chose to enter the ruins, ignoring warnings both subtle and overt, and were doomed because of that choice. But you can't really eat popcorn to damnation, can you? I'm glad to hear alternate endings were filmed- it'll be worth renting down the road.

'Utilize' is a pretentious English back-formation that means the exact same fucking thing as the word 'use.'

Speaking of Jim Sturgess movies, why do I keep combining or swapping death-wished Jena Malone with Evan Rachel Wood? And am I the only one? I'm sure it's unfair to at least one of them.

And does anyone recommend "The Go-Getter"?

Jay! I'm with you, man. I had almost managed to completely block out the permanent stain left on my pre-pubescent psyche by Witchboard, but just last week my husband's grandmother busted out an old family photograph and stern, spooky preacher-man great-great-grandpa looked EXACTLY like that evil bastard Malfeitor. I may never be able to sleep again.

"no mention of SWEET NUDITY,there has to be some skin in the ruins right??

Posted by: PASADENAMIKE at April 5, 2008 12:19 AM

Skin in the ruins? Would that be The Skruins? Because I would see that movie.

Yikes! At that point the 16 Horsepower would kick in on your personal soundtrack as we zoomed in on the piercing eyes and then cut to a hand opening the door of a dusty old crypt.

(that was a scary ass band, ladies and gentlemen)

MELLA, skruins, assuins, vagiuns, brestiuns, if it`s not scarey at least keep our intrest one way or another....SO ANY ONE HEAR FROM BARBADOES SLIM LATELY??

The Ruins is moderately well-done horror which accomplishes what it set out to do - thrill and shock, and then be promptly forgotten.

Having subjected myself to about 40 percent of Scott Smith's book, I'm going to skip straight to step 2 of this description and start promptly forgetting the movie exists.

And wakeful, in answer to your question of when someone's going to make a horror film that's good? 1960, and it was called Psycho.

Oh god, when I saw this movie, I thought it was SO bad. Seven people (I counted!) walked out within the first forty minutes or so.

However, I found it entertaining. It was so bad that it wrapped around and became good again. It was hilarious, saturated with unintentional comedy by way of dialogue that was, at best, awful and almost cartoony visuals. The Smiths should be commended for this truly impressive feat.

Laura Ramsay? She's a cutie, I'll say that.

I could never get with Jena Malone*. She's too much the Indie Girl for me to take her seriously. I always confuse her with Evan Rachel Wood. Not a compliment to either of them.

*Isn't Jena Malone the one who's trying to have a career as an indie singer, and yet has never heard of The Pixies?

I actually did enjoy this movie.

Yes, the whole "evil vines" theory was fucked up, and the fact that the flowers talked made me laugh, but the whole psychological part of it really scared the shit out of me.

I did feel a lot of pity for the German guy, because he definitely got the shittiest deal in the entire movie.

And I just want to clear up one thing- they didn't just jump down the weird-ass tunnel for shits and giggles, they climbed down there because they thought they heard a cellphone ringing. Unfortunately, none of them have evidently seen a horror movie and don't know not to climb down into the dark scary hole, but that's beside the point. They had a semi-reason.

I do agree with the whole meh-factor, but I think that it was a better movie than most we're going to see this year.

only because the_wakeful asked for good horror movies am I mentioning that I JUST watched Hard Candy, and man do I ever love Ellen Page. Girl is hard core FANTASTIC in it. And it's just my cup of tea for horror genre too; suspenseful, creepified, full of 'what the F??' moments. Even if my DVD player ate about 10 minutes out of the middle of it.

With all the Laura Ramsay and Taylor Kitsch love, I'm surprised only a few people saw "The Covenant". It was ridiculous, granted, but the eye candy makes up for most of its many faults.
I can't see Jonathan Tucker as "an alpha-male know-it-all" when my retina is scarred with the image of him getting butt-fucked by Josh Lucas (ha!) in a little movie called... wait for it... "The Deep End".

The whole point is that these are RUINS, fer chissakes. They are ruined. If you go there, YOU are ruined. They are not called The That Was A Close Ones.

Heh heh, I liked that.

While watching the previews, I turned to my husband and said "you know, if I was offered a chance to go into the jungle to ruins no-one has seen for four hundred years (or some such), I think I'd remember every horror movie I've ever seen and say 'No thanks, I'm going to stay here on the beach and drink Mai-Tais.'"

Because really. I'm happier with movies that have a more reasonable premise ("researchers" being the favoured mode for jungle horror, I think). Still, I'm staying on the beach.

...of course, then the Zombies would come out of the sea after me, but I can handle that better than talking plants that won't take a head shot.

I too was horribly disappointed in the movie. I loved the book; it stayed with me for several days after I finished it due to its unrelenting darkness. And the ending to the movie just felt tacked on and, as some earlier posts stated, like a concession to test audiences.

Parts of the movie worked, but so much just felt glossed over, like they were saying "Hey book fans! Here's some blood, just like in the book! See? We're staying true to the source material!" But their version of staying true to the source material felt about as true as does The Schmaily Schmow with Schmon Schmewart -- you get what they intended, but really it's just a little kid flapping his tie and going "blah blah blah blah."

And there have been several good horror movies released in the last several years, but the hate-on that most of the self-proclaimed intelligentsia have for the horror genre has put a blinder in most eyes when it comes to good material. The Descent was mentioned above, and is truly a great movie. In addition, smaller films like May, Slither, Roman, Spiral, Hatchet, Automaton Transfusion, Funny Games, and several others I can't call to mind right now are keeping the genre well and truly alive. There's simply too much "well, I haven't actually seen it, but I know it's horrible because I'm above it," attitude flying around for people to see the real gems out there.

And I would add Cabin Fever to that list, but I'm afraid my support of any Eli Roth film would get me strung up and vivisected. Few filmmakers show a knowledge of and love for their chosen film genres/styles that Roth does, but because women occasionally die in his movies (for shame!), he's universally reviled. People tend to overlook the fact that Hostel 2 had a woman as the ultimate protagonist/survivor (no, it wasn't a great movie, but it flies in the face of the too-easily-tossed-around "misogynist" label he's often tagged with).

OK, here's my list of horror movies that were actually good:

1. Nosferatu (1922) version. It's the closest to the actual Dracula novel, and it did it all first. At least Count Orloc looks like how Dracula is described in the book.

2. Frankenstein (1931 or whatever). The book sucks. I'm amazed they pulled a good movie out of the crap Mary Shelley wrote.

3. Dracula (1932) The Spanish Version!!! (This version of Dracula is taken from the play that was hot at the time, and not from the book by Bram Stoker.) The current DVD has both the English version with Bela Lugosi, and the Spanish version, which was filmed at the same time on the same sets with the same script, but a different director and cast. It's the same movie, but better. The Spanish cast would watch the dailies of the English version and then whisper to each other, "We can do better than that!" and then they did. The only thing that would have made the Spanish version better, would have been to have Bela Lugosi play Dracula in both. Whoever plays Dracula in the Spanish version looks EXACTLY like Nicolas Cage.

4. Everything else is just a retread of something from these movies, i.e. creepy un-human dead thing trying and successing to kill you.

Succeeding, successing.

Benny Hill: "Nothing sucks seeds like budgie with no teeth."

At the risk of a digital stoning, i think the last horror movie to give me the creeps was "Event Horizon" by the master of franchise-destruction, Paul W. S. Anderson. This isn't to say that it was the only one i liked, just the last one to freak me out, just that guy holding his eyes out and speaking in latin, freaked me right the hell out. And this is coming from someone who grew up on horror movies and saw the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre when I was 6.

Am i alone in this?

So they basically substituted Mathias for "Pablo" in the "shittiest end of the stick" role? Well, that sucks. I haven't seen the movie, but I just read the book, which generated the first spark of interest I'd had in the movie, because it looked like typical "round up a bunch of young people, because nobody's going to buy a bunch of teens exploring Mayan ruins, don't waste any time on character development, and kill them off as nastily as possible" formulated pap.