The work of novelist Scott Smith is as limited as it is brilliant. In early 1999 I saw a great film called A Simple Plan, starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, and the film has stuck with me ever since. It’s a quiet, disturbing, challenging thriller. Last Christmas I finally picked up the book written by Scott Smith and received one of the most thrilling reading experiences I’ve ever had. Even though I knew many moments that were to come while reading the book, there were also many differences (including a terrifying final chapter), and it left me wanting more. It excited me so much that I immediately bought the film and looked at it again. It hasn’t aged a bit, and in fact, it’s better than how I remember it. Smith writes stories that make really good films and exactly the kinds of films that I want to make. He introduces dynamic characters with strong relationships and then throws them into the most harrowing, life-threatening situations that get worse, not better, as the characters make one wrong choice after another.

Such is the case with his second piece of work, The Ruins. Released in 2006, the book tells the story of four college students on vacation in Mexico who find themselves traveling away from the beaten path and toward a Mayan ruins to locate the friend of someone they met at their hotel pool. What they discover there is something truly horrific that they never could’ve imagined even in their scariest of nightmares. And the terror that awaits them is easily one of the most original ideas for a horror novel in a long, long time. What would be the obvious people/animals/creatures that would be awaiting the four students after nightfall in this mysterious place? Smith goes against all cliches and creates a killer that lacks arms, hands, and legs but makes up for them with stems. I read the book in 2006 since after hearing about its release, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I knew a movie version was inevitable, and I hoped that the movie would be at least half as good. While it’s not perfect, it is a terrific adaptation with a handful of very scary scenes and a fantastic performance by Jena Malone. It also marks a great debut from director Carter Smith.

I like horror movies that build, not ones that just thrust you into the action from minute one and there’s no time for a breather (unless the plot really calls for such a device). The Ruins starts slowly and builds over the course of a half-hour. We’re introduced to the four college kids at a hotel pool and everything is going well for them. They are two couples–Jeff and Amy, Stacy and Eric–and it’s almost time for all four of them to go back home. When they meet a German nearby, he convinces them to come with him to go look for his friend who hasn’t returned from an ancient ruins temple. The most heartbreaking aspect to the impending journey is that Amy doesn’t want to go. She outright refused the morning of. But her boyfriend finally talks to her into it. Nice going Jeff. We know already that something horrible is going to happen to these people, but the knowing of the upcoming menace makes the movie work even better. We have to sit in anticipation that makes breathing more erratic the longer it takes.

By the time they reach the horror, we’re in for the ride. A lot of the great material on the page translates here beautifully, with pitch-perfect casting, some amazing gross-out moments, cool scares, and a surprisingly semi uplifting ending that deviates far from the book. Most astonishing is just how far the film goes in the gore department. There were moments in the novel that had me itching my body all over just in imagining what these unpleasant (to say the least) scenes of bloodshed might look like. Well here we get to finally see them, and director Smith should be commended for not always going the CGI route. There is some CGI in the film, and some looks better than others, but some bloody scenes toward the end look authentic and true, and I couldn’t ask for anything more. The movie doesn’t exactly push the limits in gore, but it pushed it just far enough without going overboard and being too cheesy in the effects. While many of the effects are well done, the best may be the first, when a young man gets an arrow through the stomach and then a bullet through his brain. CGI? Probably. But it looks sensational.

Casting was crucial in getting this story right, and Carter found four competent actors who aren’t annoying and instead interesting their respective roles, especially for a horror film. I recognized three of the four actors. Jena Malone came off the best here, and that’s surprising given that I don’t really like her very much in anything else. In the early part of the decade she played the same character in three movies in a row–Donnie Darko, Life as a House, and The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys. Find me a difference between her acting in these three films and I’ll bake you some cookies. The Ruins, on the other hand, gives us a new look at the actress because, while she’s still playing a similar character, she offers a whole new range of emotion and some quietly chilling dramatic moments in the third act of the film. Jonathan Tucker, excellent as a closeted gay teenager in 2001’s The Deep End, gets the ultra macho leading role here and does an excellent job. He is especially effective in his very last scene. Shawn Ashmore, from the X-Men movies, plays easily the most annoying character, but he gets his share of good scenes as well. Newcomer Laura Ramsey is easy on the eyes, and she too does a tremendous job in this. A scene late in the film where she goes a little bit crazy is possibly the most hard to watch in the whole movie.

My only complaint with The Ruins is that I wish it had been longer. Just about 90 minutes, I felt like another 20-30 minutes could’ve been added to heighten the suspense and tension even more. The movie seems to build for a good chunk of the first half, and, while the action in the later half is good and all, I feel like even more could’ve been done, especially with the giant villain at the heart of the film. It could’ve been more creepy, more menacing. I wanted a couple more scenes showing just how far this villain will go to make the group go crazy. And then there’s the ending, the last ten minutes. While I agree that it was very important for Scott, who wrote this screenplay as well as the novel, to go in a different direction for the end of the film because the novel’s ending is so fucking bleak. And I even agree with the movie’s ending. But it feels rushed. It doesn’t feel like it was shot six months after principal photography to appease the studio, but there is a sense of urgency to the end of “let’s… get… this… movie… finished,” that I couldn’t shake. The very last scene of the film is a cliche and pretty stupid, but I can look past that as well.

It infuriates me when an awesome R-rated horror film like The Ruins goes practically unnoticed and then the PG-13 snoozefest Prom Night opens to big box office a week later. Are audiences afraid of an original scary movie? No, they’d rather see yet another remake (more like retread) of an 80’s movie that’s been watered down to play for as mass as audience as possible. The Ruins is a brave horror film that isn’t exactly daring by any means, especially put alongside a lot of great indie horror of the last few years (like Hard Candy, High Tension, and The Descent), but it’s easily one of the better mainstream horror films of the last year or so. I want to be shocked and surprised and titillated and mortified every time I go see a horror film, and The Ruins delivered all those emotions and more. This is a great film that’s worth a look when it comes out on DVD, since by the time of this writing the movie has already been pulled from theatres. It’s a shame. This is the strongest movie I’ve seen so far in 2008.