The Ruins

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)
[1.5
stars] [IMDb Link]

I read the book before I saw the movie. I liked the book better. The book was written by Scott Smith, who also wrote the movie's screenplay. There are some major differences between the two, though. (This may have been explained in the DVD special features, although I didn't look.)

The basic idea is the same: four twenty-something American tourists on the Mexico coast befriend a German guy; he talks them into going to look for his brother, who has wandered off to a "archeological dig" in the interior. And things turn very bad, very quickly.

The movie features a bunch of young actors you may have seen before in other roles. But they could have been picked off the street; there's not a lot of acting involved here: vapidity and and drunkenness at the beginning, yelling and screaming and wide-eyed terror for the remainder.

The unrated-version DVD we watched primarily has more gore than the version released in theatres, but this site also claims an alternate ending.


Last Modified 2024-02-01 5:28 AM EDT