The Ruins
Directed by Carter Smith
DreamWorks SKG
Written by Scott B. Smith, The Ruins was the huge horror novel of 2006. I first heard of it through my dedicated reading of Stephen King's Entertainment Weekly column. When King says a horror book is worth reading, I run out and take a look. In fact, my favorite column of his all year is the Top Ten Books of the Year...books he's read that year, not necessarily published that year. It's how I found No Country for Old Men and This Book Will Save Your Life, to cite some examples. So off I went to check out The Ruins. I was hesitant when I read the book flap, but trusting his opinion, I bought it and read it...
...and HATED it. I read a good chunk of the book before I discovered what the source of horror was and was okay for a while -- supernatural, perhaps? Maybe ancient Mayan ghosts or something...but no. I was exceedingly disappointed in the "horror" as I'll call it so as not to give things away and forced myself to finish the book. It simply got worse for me.
When I saw the movie trailer, I was annoyed. All I heard in '06 was how fabulous this book was and the hype continued into 2007 with the paperback copy. NY Times bestseller and all, this book was on the fasttrack to Hollywood. Being the resident horror geek - which you might've noticed by now - I felt it my duty to check out the film.
The Ruins stars Jonathan Tucker as Jeff, Jena Malone as Amy, Shawn Ashmore as Eric, and Laura Ramsey as Stacy. These four college-aged friends leave their Mexican-paradise hotel on their last day to visit some ancient Mayan ruins not on the tourist maps. They hear of it from a very nice German guy named Mathias (Joe Anderson) and with a sixth, Dimitri, off they go into the wilderness to search for an archaeological dig where Mathias's brother has supposedly disappeared. Once they reach it, they encounter locals - supposedly Mayans...this is never answered - who attack them. In the chaos, Dimitri is killed and the rest of the bunch scurry to the top of the temple for safety. This is where all the horror takes place. It's difficult to review a horror movie when part of the kitsch is to surprise you with what the cause actually is. You've seen the trailer which shows something going after the two girls and something moving inside Stacy's head (at the very end of the trailer). Unfortunately, this movie looks a LOT better than it truly is.
What works for the film is that Smith adapted his own novel - that always helps when making a book into a film. However, he took quite a few liberties and quite a few things are changed. Did it improve the story? Not for me. The major issues are the same and visually, this is a squirmy movie. The gore isn't the kind of gore you'd expect...especially from the sources here. It certainly will make you react, though. The acting is good, especially from Tucker, whom I've decided is really underrated. He was very good in The Black Donnellys and in an early episode of Masters of Horror called "The Dance of the Dead" (co-starring Robert Englund!), as well as the new version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Surprisingly, Jena Malone didn't irritate me as much as she usually does (maybe because I keep mixing her up with Kristen Stewart) but that could be because Laura Ramsey's character was really, REALLY annoying. Ashmore and Anderson were simply supporting characters and they did very little to actually support much.
My issue with this film is that I can't decide if I disliked it because I hated the novel or because the adaptation really did nothing to improve it. Probably a little of both. In general, I was bored - and not just because I already knew the story, either. Mystic River is one of many books adapted very well to film and I was riveted to Clint Eastwood's vision of it. I'm very interested to know what the average viewer thought of The Ruins so I can get an objective feel...I thought it was boring, and goofy (the cause of the "horror" mind you, is just ludicrous to me), and even the gore didn't faze me. Please comment and let me know if my voracious reading habits have finally Ruin-ed moviegoing for me...at least for this particular film.
The Ruins is playing in theaters now.
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1 comment:
When you deal with the author converting the book into a screenplay, you can both have advantages and disadvantages, I feel.
Some authors adapt the work knowing how film structure works. A book and a film are quite different, and you need a really good author to adapt his/her own work.
Other authors will refuse to negotiate significant changes from novel to celluloid, either because they are stubborn, have grown too close to their own novel/la, or do not have any knowledge of how plot points in a film differ from plot points of a novel.
I think in this case, he grew too close to his own work, and refused outside help when converting. Major no-no.
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