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The underrated eco-horror film The Ruins joined Paramount+ on March 1st, and it’s a horror movie definitely worth revisiting. The movie was directed by Carter Smith in his feature film directorial debut and based on Scott B. Smith’s 2006 novel of the same name. It centers around a group of American tourists in Mexico whose vacation turns into a fight for survival when they are lured to a remote, unmapped Mayan temple and trapped by hostile locals and hunted by man-eating, parasitic vines. The movie was neither a commercial nor critical success and largely missed out on “best of the decade” discussions, but it’s a genuinely unique and terrifying take on the creature feature genre.
The Ruins Delivers Terrifying Botanical Horror
The Ruins isn’t your typical creature feature. There’s no towering lizard monster smashing buildings or ravenous shadowy figures lurking just beneath the surface of the water. Instead of a rampaging beast, the threat is an intelligent, fast-growing, carnivorous plant that can mimic sounds – and it’s absolutely terrifying. Rather than a more traditional monster movie, The Ruins plays out like a slow-burn survival horror that gets under the skin, literally. Focusing the horror on a sentient, man-eating vine that lures its victims in transformed the movie into a tense study of isolation, paranoia, and survival. The characters being trapped by the villagers who won’t let them leave builds a relentless sense of claustrophobia. And the burrowing nature of the vines, which trap characters in intense scenes of self-mutilation and desperation, results in some pretty gnarly body horror elements.
