A Mexican vacation takes a turn for the worse for a group of Americans when they head into the jungle to look for the missing brother of a fellow traveler. A foreboding encounter with a couple locals is only a hint of the evil that awaits them on a patch of secluded hillside.

TRUE DUDES REVIEW:

The book was better. Isn’t it always? I’ve been eagerly awaiting this film. I found out they were adapting the novel as I was reading it and the awesomeness of the book only made my desire to see the movie that much more intense. But, leaving the theater last night I was filled with a huge sense of disappointment and the more I think about it the more pissed off I get.

While the film does deliver in the gore and nudity catagories (so at least it’s not a total loss), it severly lacks any suspense or terror. Where the book was filled with realistic and intersesting characters, the film is filled with generic, boring, and cliched stereotypes. And where the novel was surprising and frightening, the film was predictable and left me checking my watch. The film was such a lean adaptation that many of the elements that made the novel such a badass read are quickly glazed over.

Even though I was disappointed, the film is not a complete piece of shit. The acting was at least not cringe inducing and the special effects and make up effects were surprisingly realistic. I anticipated hating the CGI and was shocked to see how good it looked. So while not the great movie I was hoping for, it’s certainly not the worst horror flick I’ve ever seen. Hell, it’s not even the worst one I’ve seen this year.

True Dudes gives The Ruins 2 out of 5 middle fingers.