The Ruins

Watched a DVD of The Ruins last night, which was an interesting horror movie that at 86 minutes certainly didn't outlast its welcome. It's about a small group of young Americans who are invited by a German they meet to visit an archeological site in the Mayan jungle that his brother is working on. Near the end of their Mexican holiday, the friends take a taxi with him on the first leg of their journey, the rest of which is on foot. After a short trek they come upon a Mayan pyramid covered in vines. Which is when things start to go wrong. Inexplicably at first, after having taken a brief look at the pyramid, they are confronted by a group of armed locals who refuse to allow them to leave the temple. When one of them tries he's shot dead and the rest are forced to retreat up it. The locals make no further attacks but surround the temple, besieging the friends. It is only now that, gradually, the true horror of their situation becomes clear. The locals have in reality not besieged them; they have placed them under quarantine. The true evil are the vines that are both bodily invasive and carnivorously intelligent. There are some quite gruesome scenes: leg amputations using a rock to break the bones and a knife to sever the flesh, and operations to remove cancerous growths of vine that slither beneath the flesh. The grim situation the friends find themselves in is played out straight, relentlessly, with a mounting feeling of claustrophobia atop the pyramid on which they are trapped. Enjoyably grim and, though far from perfect, better than many horror movies I've seen over the past year.