THE RUINS : [4/10] : Carter Smith : US 08 : c87m : {9/28}

Despite some pleasingly grisly moments and an inventive basic story, The Ruins (adapted from Scott Smith's well-regarded novel) is ultimately too silly to be scary. As in so many similar pictures, we follow a gaggle of photogenic, holidaying twentysomethings who ill-advisedly venture beyond the confines of their resort. Predictably, this display of independent-mindedness leads only to misery and death, as the remote ruins of a Mayan temple turn out to harbour some very nasty, very hungry forms of plant-life.
   While the concept is promising, and occasional scenes do achieve genuine unpleasantness, the realisation of the evil flora's rapacious, fast-moving tendrils too often provokes chuckles rather than chills. The film's view of the area's hostile, faceless natives, meanwhile, is troublingly old-fashioned – Donkey Punch and A Perfect Getaway remain the most effective recent entrants to what's becoming an overstuffed vacation-peril subgenre.

Neil Young
28th December, 2009

 ¦ DVD, Sunderland, UK, 27.-28.Dec.09  ¦