The Ruins

Husband wanted to take me to a movie for my birthday. The current movie offerings are pretty dismal, so we almost skipped on the movie altogether, but finally, we settled on The Ruins, figuring if it was as bad as we expected it to be, at least we'd have something to make fun of for a while.

Sometimes it pays to set your expectations really low, because then if they're not met you get to be pleasantly surprised.

This movie was both better than and different from what I expected. I guess it's a sign of my older-gettingness that I really wasn't looking forward to a movie about barely-out-of-their-teens twenty-somethings getting eaten or slaughtered or whatever horrible thing was bound to happen to them, and I expected a lot of mediocre acting. My hopes on that front raised when I saw Jenna Malone and cutie Shawn Ashmore, and the other kids all held their own pretty well. That the characters tended toward the idiotic can't really be blamed on the acting, but I don't think it's a flaw in the writing, either, since it made for some pretty darkly funny scenes. I wasn't sure whether the dark humor was intentional at first, but seeing that it was produced by Ben Stiller convinced me.

My only real criticism is that it stuck to certain horror movie conventions so much as to be predictable in its outcome, but then again, those conventions have been played around with so much in the last two decades that it's actually kind of surprising when they're adhered to so faithfully.

At any rate, it was a refreshing change from torture porn and J-Horror remakes, and with plenty to make you squirm, gasp and jump out of your seat, it's a nice little addition to the horror fold.