Ruins

Apr 24, 2008
By Marge Tubaalkain-Trell

Director Carter Smith

Well it scared the bejesus out of me. But maybe I’m not the best person to ask. I still have nightmares about an episode of X-files I saw years ago.
This is young director and former fashion photographer Carter Smith’s first feature, and as debut’s go it’s pretty good. That’s if horror is your thing.
For what it’s worth here’s what happens. A group of young people are having vacation in Cancun, Mexico. On the last day they accidentally meet a guy who invites them to see an old Mexican temple. He also mentions that  a research group was there before.

When  they get there the are confronted by  the locals  who are guarding the temple  and the ensuing chase leads them into the belly of the temple. The temple is one of those places you see in National Geographic, old, epic and  covered in green vegetation. Plants, it turns out, are one of the main characters in the movie.
The research team that was there before had vanished. Cell phones don’t work, which means they can not get help,  but  then they hear a phone ringing down in the temple. What they find is of course is a broken phone in the hands of a corpse.  From then on events really take a turn for the worse as  they try to dodge crazed Atzecs and killer plants.

The camera work was beutifully done and  the way the director built suspense would have had me hiding behind my chair if I had a chance to.
At one point I was ready to walk out of the cinema and I probably would have  if I didn’t have to write  this review.
The film didn’t just give shivers on my skin, but  beneath it too. What’s  really clever about the film is, that nothing is explained, things just happen in the way they do. It achieved  what it set out to  achieve with minimal  resources.

I won’t be seeing this movie again any time soon and I guess that makes it a good horror movie.

Now showing in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

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