Musing on: The Ruins

(WARNING: spoilers abound)

This movie fascinates me. What a graphic, disturbing piece of film. My personal genre leanings rarely take me toward horror, mainly because it's so often equated with slasher. Here lies an under appreciated movie with enough gore to satisfy the most jaded of horror junkies.

Typically a review uses its length to argue an opinion of whether the movie is good or bad, should be seen or left alone. I'll skip the foreplay and just come out with it: the movie, in my opinion, is good and is worth seeing (although perhaps this advice should not be applied to everyone, depending on preferences and level of gore tolerance). But the quality of the film is not what I want to focus on.

The Ruins follows a handful of young people vacationing in Cancun who fall victim to a truly heinous plant growing among the Mayan ruins. I'm fascinated by the aspects of the movie that have nothing to do with the plant or its demonic powers (although that in and of itself is fascinating as well).

Imagine what this story would be like if it took place in present day, maybe an urban environment. Same youths, same relationships and interactions, different setting. Instead of dying off, the characters just leave or move away. Instead of an actual set of vines carnivorously and parasitically picking off their victims, the characters are strangled by an abstract concept. But what is it? My best guess is the pressures of their transition to adulthood.

First, let's explore some of the topics touched on, and see if they don't appear elsewhere in the movie in a more subtle manner. Near the beginning of their entrapment atop the Mayan pyramid, Jeff rationalizes to the rest of the group that they will get rescues. He says, with some certainty, "Four Americans on vacation don't just disappear." His sense of entitlement comes through quite clearly: they're not meant to be in this situation. They're Americans. This doesn't happen to them. Just like magical realism. That doesn't happen, in real life. Plants that eat humans don't really exist. Plants that can mimic sounds don't really exist. But they do. They do exist, just like Americans can get trapped on the top of an old Mayan temple and get picked off, one by one, with no retribution. No law applies, nothing can save them.

Another thing that leaps out in the film is that Mathias, paralyzed early on, is rarely spoken to. They do not include him in discussions or decisions. They do not check on him to make sure he's not uncomfortable or lonely. When they make the decision to amputate his legs, the people who don't want to only seem to not want to look at the carnage. It's too dirty of a deed, nevermind he might die otherwise. Mathias, it seems, is merely a catalyst in the story. Though he is a conscious character he has no development or interaction. There is no one pining after their love Mathias, or mourning their good friend Mathias. Mathias is a burden, representative of the responsibility they inherit in their transition to the reality of adulthood. Woken up from their feelings of entitlement (as discussed before), they now have to face the hard decisions that come with life.

And with this transition to adulthood comes reinforcement of gender roles. Though the film makes no overarching statement about this, it does touch on the topic every so often. The women (Stacy and Amy) can't work the crank, can't watch the amputation. One of these women, Amy, is the only one to live through the ordeal, per Carol Clover's final girl theory. But she's not a tomboy, supposedly not a virgin, and furthermore, it is implied that she's been unfaithful to the boyfriend that eventually sacrifices himself for her survival. Not keeping with the theory in its totality, but an interesting deviation.

The way Jeff distracts the Mayans from Amy's "dead" body is to talk to them about his identity. They don't understand him; he could be reading the phone book for all he knows. And yet, he chooses to tell them about his name, his life, his hopes and dreams. What does it matter? In this sea of sameness that he sees in front of him, the world of adulthood, his individual identity is threatened. His last act of individuality is to sacrifice his life, choosing not to move forward into the next level of maturity that comes with such assimilation.

What struck me about this movie is the relatively short amount of time spend within the pyramid; most of the run time is spent on top, out in the open. Horror movies have the tendency to use confined spaces to enhance claustrophobia: the secluded hotel, the boarded up school gym, the spaceship (I was thinking Psycho, Carrie, and Alien respectively, but there are hundreds more that use these settings). The characters in The Ruins are forced to spend most of their time outside the pyramid. Expectations would lead to an exploration of the ruins, perhaps unearthing some sort of sordid history that long ago set the events of the movie into place. But there is no such exposition; neither the characters nor the audience are aware of how the vines came to be so abnormal.

And yet there is always a sense of confinement present. They are surrounded by the vines on most sides, and by the Mayan villagers at the bottom. The only way out is straight up. Why does this atypical setting work so well to create terror in much the same way its opposite does? It's because what is surrounding them so entirely is nature. Nature and its aspects suffocate in their own way, from the side, just as well as a full claustrophobic area would.

There are some questions left after viewing: Why did the vines not suffocate them from the beginning? Why did they wait for the characters to attack each other? Why did they leave the steps open for them to walk down?

Leave further questions, answers, arguments, refutations, or complaints in the comments. I love debating movies.