The trailer for “The Strangers” is terrifying. For an entire minute, the audience was ripped apart by the horror on the screen. It was the only time I was scared during the entire viewing of “The Ruins.”
It’s harsh to imply that the scariest moment in a horror movie was a trailer for a different scary movie. But it’s true. There wasn’t a moment in the rest of this film, directed by rookie director Carter Smith, that felt remotely frightening. There were, however, plenty of ridiculous moments.

Greatest of all of these moments was when, at a point when the audience had yet to abandon the idea that this movie could be scary, a vine sings. Yes, sings. The vines, which are the villains in this particularly bizarre movie, manage to emulate the sound of a digital cell phone ring by twirling their petals. How do they do this? We’re apparently not supposed to ask.
But more unfortunately perhaps is that the movie doesn’t take the opportunity to fully lose its mind. Once you make flowers sing and talk, you might as well go all the way and become supernatural. Throw in the ghosts, scary mists, and maybe even the soaking wet dark-haired girl that’s required in all new scary movies. But no, this movie decided to stay concerned with science and germs and medical procedures rather than go all paranormal.
And that is another odd part about this movie. It follows the path of the “Saw” films by forcing unnecessary violent gore on us. But instead of the usual torture, these victims are slicing and dicing themselves to stop their spreading infection. The way their bodies started to deteriorate was strongly reminiscent of “Cabin Fever,” but thankfully the decay in this movie stayed a little more sensible. No one unnecessarily shaved their rotting legs. But instead of that oddness, we were treated to a weird obsession with medical procedures. The most gruesome scenes in the film were of the characters amputating their limbs or slicing up their flesh in an effort to stop infection.
There was one positive aspect of the movie. The cast, made up of a B-list version of Young Hollywood, was surprisingly good. There was Joe Anderson, the older brother from “Across the Universe” and Shawn Ashmore, who played Iceman in the “X-Men” films, as well as Jena Malone from “Saved!” So at least the audience got to watch an attractive cast muddle its way through this mess.
In the end, the audience is left with plenty of questions. Why didn’t they try to burn the evil vines? Are the vines inhabited by the angry spirits of ancient Mayans as the film loosely implies, or are they just really angry plants? There is no answer provided, and by the end it’s more amusing than frustrating as the vines become ever more animated. At some points the vines become so over-the-top that they seem like comedic relief, which was probably not their intended effect. But then again, it’s a scary movie that didn’t scare, so nothing the filmmaker intended really occurred.
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