Toronto - I haven’t watched a lot of action horror movies since the Descent (which by the way was very good). The Ruins deals with 4 Americans who live up to the adventurous reputation of their forefathers. At the invitation of a German stranger, ja? They went up to an uncharted Mayan ruin, ja. The usual police tapes in horror film applies here, hints and premonitions of all sorts were ignored, and they end up in a bad bind on top of a step pyramid, surrounded by blood-thirsty natives…

I don’t want to give away the key element here - since that’s the entire merit of the film and everything else, I thought, basically sucked. The actors do look great and fit all the stereotypes - which was all the more disappointing. I mean, if you’re not going to expand on the scientific side of the story (it was fine that the Rage was never fully explained in 28 Days/Weeks Later), at least explore the characters a little? Great horror stories give you the chills even after you figure out what ate away at your mind, either the characters are inherently prone to feats of psycho-ness or flaw or whatever. The good ones render you in a state of helplessness. This one sadly doesn’t. Once you understand what you’re dealing with, there’s nothing to further the story since you can imagine the rest, clear through to the ending credits. But the photorealistic (or were those animatronics?) gory effect are cool. Credits have to be given to bloody tendons, limbs with gangrene, sliced muscles and boobs. I’d recommend this as a Friday night sleep over flick… just tuck in and let it roll.