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Plants? Seriously?

There was a time when killer plants were considered the lowest of the low as far as cinematic monsters go. Mamie Van Doren was fighting them back in the 1960s in Navy Vs. the Night Monsters for goodness sake. What happened? Seriously, what the hell happened that convinced Hollywood that vegetation was a good villain for not one, but two big budget theatrical releases this year? Not only did we get the latest “epic” (and I use that term with full sarcasm invoked) The Happening from M. Night Shamalamadingdong (don’t even think about bitching about spoiling that one; if you wanted to see it, you would have already), but we get this heap of mulch, The Ruins.

A cross between the torture porn junk we’ve been forcefed as horror fans over the past year along with the “something ancient and scary” stuff like The Descent, The Ruins tries its damndest to be good, and fails every step of the way.

The plot never really makes sense. A bored couple meet up with some friends who are exploring old Mayan ruins. They find an old pyramid and get trapped there by locals who, apparently for giggles, keep the kids from bailing by surrounding the temple and shooting those who try to escape with arrows. The ruins themselves hold a dark secret, as the plant life there appears to be sentient, attacking the heroes and occasionally infecting one.

So what does the film offer? Well, a lot of gore. A lot. There’s a scene where a girl flays her own leg after going bat-guano crazy. There’s also…okay, truth be told, that’s about it; a few T&A scenes can’t save it. The actors are generic, the setting gets old after a while and the general “we don’t have to explain things” attitude grows thin and tiresome.

Special features on this Dreamworks disc include three making-of docs, including one in which they spend way too much time discussing the physics and science of the killer vines. Four deleted scenes are included (pointless) as are two different alternate endings. Oh yeah, if you saw this in a theater, be prepared as the ending of the DVD version is different; the theatrical is one of the “alternate” extras now. Director Carter Smith and editor Jeff Betancourt contribute a running commentary that has its moments and would be enjoyable if I didn’t have to watch the whole movie again to hear it.

The Ruins is aptly named. It’s a mess of a film that does nothing to salvage the genre. It’s goofy and stupid and bloody and completely useless. But….at least it’s not The Happening.

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