by Robin Canada

Created on: April 13, 2008

Highly captivating, The Ruins is surprisingly realistic even though parts of it could not happen in reality. It brings you to a place in your mind where you could believe that there are places out there where no one goes and bad things happen that no one talks about. What are these mysteries? Young adults in this movie, somewhat predictable, are on vacation and decide to take a day trip to some ruins in the mountains of Mexico. Before their trip, the movie starts off a little slow but the little things that they do are important to the rest of the movie. There is not enough planning in their trip and when they arrive at their destination, they are met with hostility by the local tribal members. This brings that oh so wonderful shocked out of your seat feeling followed by bewilderment as you wonder what on Earth are they going to do now.

Up until this point, things seem fairly realistic. That is, until you come to the ruins themselves. Needless to say, there is something eerily wrong with the looming mountain of rock and vines. They are about ready to find out just how bad it really is when they transverse the steps and meet their doom. They hope to find someone up there but instead find that there is something not of this earth watching them instead. No other humans are anywhere to be found, other than the ones patiently waiting at the bottom of their new prison with no walls. However, up here on this mountain there is something watching, something waiting for the right moment to snatch them up into its clutches.

The movie is great by some standards. It has some suspenseful moments that take you to the edge of your seat multiple times and anyone who loves bloody scenes will absolutely love it. The grotesque moments on the lonely mountaintop are not for the faint hearted, or for children for that matter. There are plenty of those moments when you can predict what is going to happen just like in any good horror flick but most have that element to some extent. The amount they have or don't have seems to be what sets them apart from each other. This doesn't seem to be copied off anyone else's ideas and just might be one of the better movies of the year.

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