Four teenagers vacationing in Mexico travel to the abandoned ruins of an ancient Mayan pyramid and encounter a serious shrubbery problem.

THE RUINS shows signs of genuine promise throughout, but never completely delivers on sheer horror goodness. I did appreciate that despite the potentially cheesy premise, the movie took itself seriously and created a genuinely tense and frightening atmosphere for the majority of the time. For that reason, it reminded me a lot of Neil Marshall’s (superior) THE DESCENT, both in tone and execution. But as far as scaring or thrilling me, it probably won’t make my regular rewatch list.

The young actors all work well together and their relationships are handled realistically. Jena Malone continues to be an actress worth watching, though her character makes some really stupid decisions. Jonathan Tucker does a great job showing us his serious face. And Laura Ramsey does nice work with her random nudity. (Okay, she also handled her more gorey scenes well.) That being said, I’m all for character development and caring about who you’re watching, but thanks to the pacing THE RUINS doesn’t really pick up until nearly an hour in—far too long a wait for a thriller.

A couple scenes are effectively hard to watch thanks to some fantastic prosthetics work (though nothing that made my butthole pucker). I will give director Smith and his team credit; some of the graphic gore shots are so fluid and well pulled off it makes you wonder how they did it. (Some of the vine in the skin stuff, for example.) I also liked that they didn’t try to explain the proceedings with a lame back story, but at the same time potentially effective stuff like the flowers ability to mimic their surroundings didn’t feel used to their maximum potential. And unfortunately with things like talking flowers and living vines, the movie borders between scary and silly.

Video: 2.35:1 widescreen. The transfer is good enough that you’ll appreciate the amputation scenes so much more.

Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital surround. Creepy crawly vines and primal screams never sounded so good.

The Unrated version contained on the DVD has a darker ending than the theatrical cut, and what I’m assuming are a few more gore shots.

Commentary by director Carter Smith and editor Jeff Betancourt: The guys are on the quieter side for a lot of the track. When they do talk it’s more of a Q&A style where Betancourt just asks Smith various questions, which gets a little old.

Making THE RUINS: (14:22): Some nice behind the scenes material with plenty on the gore effects and shooting on location in Australia (not Mexico).

Creeping Death (15:03): A look at how they designed and created the killer vines. There’s also some cool stuff with the amputations. And sadly, no Metallica.

Building The Ruins (6:18): There was really only one set, but they had to build it from scratch.

Deleted Scenes (11:54): Three cut scenes, a second alternate ending, and the original theatrical ending are included.

Theatrical Trailer and Previews.

Decent thrills and chills for horror fans, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that THE RUINS could’ve been a lot better.

Extra Tidbit: Ben Stiller produced this movie.