Horror fans should see "The Ruins"

Just came back from a show, and I was really pumped by this film. It's not a home run, but I'd say it's a solid RBI double.

I don't want to say too much - like most horror films, the less you know going in,the better. It is essentially a survival horror film, in the vein of Night of the Living Dead, The Thing, or Cabin Fever - A group of people get trapped, shit happens, some die, and the rest try to find some way to survive long enough for help to arrive.

And I won't say that this is a terribly scary film. I hate that. As a horror vet, it takes quite a bit to scare me, and whenever someone throws "scariest movie since X" it puts my guard up. It's like I'm daring the film to scare me, rather than enjoying the ride. So I won't make that promise because I don't think it's the scariest thing ever, but I can say that it does have some solidly creepy moments, and some "fun" deaths (though nothing in the F13 vein).

Really the best reason to see it is that it is actually a good film (not great - it's not The Thing or The Exorcist). The acting is decent, the directing solid, and the writing is tight; characters are believable, and no one does anything remotely horror-movie stupid - that is, there is no scene of them being told "those are the mysterious cursed ruins! No one ever goes there!" and then running off to see what the fuss is. When characters put themselves in danger, it makes perfect sense.

I like is that, while playing with perfectly familiar horror conventions (including the old "boo!" harmless animal scare), it still pulls out some surprises. You can probably figure out which of the six hapless tourists die first, but may be surprised by what happens after that.

If being good isn't enough to get you to go, consider that it is not more torture porn (like Saw, Hostel, and the god-awful Touristas), and it is not yet another in a long string of needless remakes. If you like good horror, and want to see more of it, supporting The Ruins would be a nice way to send Hollywood the message.

If it's at all like Cabin Fever I'll pass. That movie was awful. Actually, I would pass anyway. In the past when I saw virtually everything at the theater I would have seen this. Now that I have to worry about bills and have to be more prudent when it comes to what movies to pay for, this kind of movie would never rate as being worthy of my money. I'll watch it when the Blu-Ray comes out at some point.

It's like Cabin Fever only in terms of the basic premise - group of people, middle of nowhere, totally screwed. And if your the kind of person who passed on Saw 1-4 and Halloweemake in theaters, the need to get you into theaters for this is a bit diminished.

I wonder how close it is to the novel it's based upon?

Ah, but I thought Saw was better at home in the dark, especially when the spider that made it's way inside my television crawled up the screen during the climax. Pretty freaky seeing this black shadow scurry across the picture like that. That might have been Saw 2 though.

Supposedly the ending has changed.

Hmm.... ok, reading the Wiki summary...

SPOILERY WARNING
...not warned away by taxi driver (though he was reluctant to take them)
...ruins are above ground
... no corrosive sap
...the fates of some characters are switched to other characters
...no Molotov cocktail
...no getting drunk atop the ruins
....the ending -is- different
...the... things... are not as clever as the summary makes them out to be, though there are elements of it.

Looked decent. I'm kinda interested in reading the book though

If I hadn't already read the book, I tend to prefer to see the movie first.

Beyond other differences, a book tends to go into more depth. If I watch the movie first, reading the book gives me a different appreciation for what I saw. If I read the book first, I get annoyed at the stuff they leave out.

What!?


Lately, there have been so many movies based on comic books and normal books and I didn't even know it. Is there anything that is truly an original studio creation anymore?

Yeah, like The Godfather, Wizard of Oz, and Gone With the Wind!