One could say that this type of arrogance is sewing the seeds of our own destruction, and if stories like the one told in The Ruins are any clue, then we may be a bit too far out on the branch for our own safety. Based on the best-selling novel by Scott Smith, the film tells the story of two couples enjoying the last days of their vacation. When given the opportunity to travel out to the middle of nowhere to see some ancient ruins no one knows about, with people they hardly even know, they accept. Upon arrival they discover an odd clearing, in the middle of which is a huge Mayan pyramid smothered in vines. Their awe is abruptly cut short as the group is attacked by several panicked local villagers, who kill one of the men the kids are travelling with. Chased onto the pyramid, they soon come to realize that they are not allowed to leave the site and that something very deadly stalks them all.

In the novel none of the characters come across as very compelling; there isn't anything very interesting about the central players in the film, either. Jeff, played by Jonathan Tucker, is the gung-ho one with the itch to do something out of the ordinary. His girlfriend, Amy (Malone), really doesn't want to do anything but vegetate by the pool. Jena Malone gets the unfortunate role of whiney, slightly irritating Amy. The other couple, Eric and Stacy, seem a bit closer and better off than Jeff and Amy, but this may be on the surface only. Shawn Ashmore and Laura Ramsey are perfectly forgettable in their parts, to a point. Any real fault found with The Ruins could be in its uninteresting central characters. The actors do a good enough job with the parts, but there's just not a lot to do with them. Again, this is "to a point" until ... things start to happen.

The main reason to watch The Ruins is not for the internal struggles or any emotional story arcs of the characters involved. No, the reason to go see The Ruins is because it's a monster movie. These kids stumble into a diabolical death trap and find themselves coming up against something so icky, so disgusting, that the trivial personal stuff falls by the wayside in light of it all. We watch in awe as this hellish situation grows and the horror behind it blossoms out in ways that one would never expect. The problem is that this "thing" is cunning, adaptive and deceptive; it is intelligent.

You may be reading this thinking you know what it is that waits within The Ruins. Your guess may be right; yet, I must caution you. This story takes a benign presence and mutates it into an insatiable force that refuses to be reckoned with. The terror that waits within The Ruins is out to do one thing: destroy us. It wants to eat us, and eat us it shall. I watched as the screen was splattered with ghastly, grisly images of human meat; blood, bone, and sinew snap on the screen. At times you almost expect it to splatter across the lens of the camera. The violence is brief, but when it hits, it's as jarring and brutal as I have ever seen. That is when I see these young actors ripen in their performance. With each slash, cut, or gouge we feel their pain; they look and act afraid. I can't imagine what it would be like to smash off a man's leg with a rock, let alone pretend to do it and act the part. These kids make you feel like you are right there, experiencing it with them. I have to admit, for as uninteresting as I found them to begin with, they kind of grew on me.

A lot of credit has to be given to Carter Smith for his choreographing this dance of death. Carter knows how to hold a camera still and let us linger on things. His landscapes are wide. Beaches are blue upon blue, and the jungles are thick and detailed. All of this sits in stark contrast to the images of pain and agony, for which it seems Carter likes to be up close and personal. In the end this juxtaposition pays off well. We get the sense of being in the middle of nowhere, way off the map, but the claustrophobia is there even with the wide open sky above. Trapped is trapped, no matter where you are. He also doesn't shy away from gore and the gristle. When it comes to blood, Carter puts the petal to the metal and doesn't let up.

A few small changes from the book did nothing to keep me from enjoying the film. A bit of careful pruning of some shoddier CGI moments would have made a couple of key "gotcha!" moments a bit better. Personally, I could care less about the quality of characters in a film like this, and any deficit they suffer from comes from the source material itself. Where The Ruins ultimately triumphs is in its grisly moments of desperation. Rarely in movies are we treated to such ferocity, where the killer and the will to survive by its victims are equal to one another.

The Ruins is a great twist on the old favorite monster movie genre. It has enough shock and gore to appease the fans, and at the same time I guess it could be used as a cautionary tale with regard to human hubris. We assume too much and go places that we are not supposed to, even when we are told not to. The best thing to do, in that sort of situation, is to leaf well enough alone.

On vacation in Mexico, four college students (Shawn Ashmore, Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey, and Jonathan Tucker) meet a German tourist (Joe Anderson) looking to break away from the grind of perfect beaches and bottomless margaritas. Their adventure destination is a lost Mayan temple located in the middle of a dense jungle, and once arrived, the group tragically learns they are not welcome by the vicious locals. Trapped on top of the temple, the students quickly grasp they are not alone, finding the flowers and vines that surround them have a taste for blood. Toying with the group, the flora waits patiently as injury and madness soon settles in, leaving the hapless youngsters with no means of escape.

Adapted by Scott Smith ("A Simple Plan") from his own novel, "The Ruins" is governed by one rule: razor-sharp simplicity. There's no undercurrent of absurd social commentary, no extraneous subplots vying for screentime; "The Ruins" is a straightforward exercise in endurance and disturbing imagery. Not having personally experienced the novel, I didn't sense any gaps in the storytelling, which is a credit to Smith, who overhauled his original plot to streamline the agony. It's a triumphant piece of scripting, securing the tension to the front burners at all times and staging sequences not for their jump-scare potential, but for more gut-wrenching results that will surely leave weak-kneed audience members sprinting for the exits.

Director Carter Smith ("Bugcrush") is game to go where Smith leads and he rarely breaks the film's constant haze of dread. "Ruins" dabbles in psychological torment, yet the heart of this beast lies in old-fashioned displays of gore, with the characters digging around in their own bodies with knives in a pathetic attempt to keep the vines literally out of their system. Certainly this isn't high art, but "Ruins" is near-perfect at manipulating its audience, emphasizing physical threat and consequence, with a profound admiration for armrest-squeezing bodily harm on a level few recent horror productions would dare explore.

The acting by the young leads is better than expected, especially the work committed to the screen here by Laura Ramsey, who is the only member of the cast to reach the next level of despair as the vines attempt to find a warm home under her skin. Smith wisely keeps the actorly hysterics to a minimum, preferring visual communication of suffering that's incredibly more effective riling up the audience than bad actors allowed free reign to act badly.

It could be the steady diet of numbskull horror offerings lately, but I was with "Ruins" for the entire ride, delighting in the merciless direction and fantastical botanical twists with eyes wide open. It's one of those strap-in-and-ride-it-out experiences that are all too rare; forgoing elaborate strands of exposition to settle on more direct lunges of terror. It's a marvelous nightmare machine.

REVIEW:
Details have been rather weak when it comes to The Ruins. Some sources have said that it's a movie about flesh-eating plants, some sources have said that there are flesh-eating plants but that the plants aren't the main focus of the movie. Honestly, I was so confused in the end that I didn't even look forward to it anymore, I was afraid that this would be another "Bug" movie where the director tries to be artsy and ends up making nice-looking crap. Fortunately, this is not the case with The Ruins.

Before we get into my opinions on the movie, let me make one thing clear once and for all; it IS a horror movie about flesh-eating plants. Sure, there are other factors as well that are very important to the movie but in the end, it's a movie about flesh-eating plants killing teens. Now for my opinions. Finally I can say what I really felt about the movie and let me tell you, I FREAKING LOVED IT! The Ruins has got to be one of the most shocking horror movies to come out in years. Seriously, this movie had me screaming during the gory scenes, jumping at the scary scenes and it even had me looking away for a brief moment because it was too much to bare. Not gore-wise but emotionally.

See, you instantly root for all of these characters (portrayed by brilliant actors). They are relatable, kind and really feel like a cool group of people that you'd hang out with any day (unlike in most teen horror flicks where the teens are either obnoxious or annoying). The movie doesn't waste any time padding out the story either, it cuts right to the chase and stays strong with a tight pace through and through. It's undoubtedly the theatrical horror hit of the year. The Ruins really has everything a horror fan could ask for and more; it's got gore, suspense, atmosphere, a great cast, a great story and flesh-eating plants!! I mean, come on, how cool is that?

Naturally not all is well though. The ending was way too predictable and felt a bit like an anticlimax instead of the climax that it should have been. I'm sure that they had about 10 different concepts on how the movie would end to begin with but unfortunately they took the easy road and made it utterly clichéd. Why attach such a generic ending to such a brilliant horror flick? I just don't get it. Anyway, I feel like I've all ready said too much, The Ruins is one of those movies were you're better off knowing nothing about it before you watch it as I think that'll give you a more pleasant movie experience. This is no Turistas people, this is real horror. Not campy horror, but gut-wrenching, scary-as-hell, awesome horror! NOT a movie to be missed!

GORE:
There's a fair share of gore in it but I'm not going to give anything away at all this time.

SOUNDTRACK:
Emotional and atmospheric, set the mood perfectly for the movie. Sure, it occasionally sounded a bit recycled but it ultimately worked very well.

BOTTOM LINE:
The best theatrical horror flick of the year by far. I can't wait for this to be released on DVD, hell, I may even go check it out again tomorrow night. It's just a brilliant horror flick, much more so than one would expect from the plot description. Be sure not to miss this one people, it's an instant cult classic.