The Ruins, 2008

Based on the 2006 novel of the same named by Scott Smith, who also wrote the screenplay, The Ruins was Carter Smith's (no relation) feature directorial debut. Since 2008, Smith has directed two more feature-length films, Jamie Marks is Dead and Midnight Kiss, which was an episode of Hulu's Into the Dark series. Scott Smith knew he would be making a film of his novel before the book was even finished because Ben Stiller's production company Red Hour Films purchased the screen rights based off an outline (Rodriguez, 2008). The Ruins is set up with the typical slasher formula where a group of young people are picked off one by one, but the killer is not human. In this case, the group goes to Mexico for a fun vacation, but once they go hiking and veer off the main trail, they not only find some Mayan ruins but also an ancient, inescapable danger: killer plants.

The Ruins follows a long line of plant horrors in cinema, films like The Thing from Another World (1951), Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Evil Dead (1981), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989), Little Otik (2000), The Happening (2008), The Girl with All the Gifts (2016), Annihilation (2018), and Little Joe (2019), among many others! While Smith's film falls a little short on character development and dialogue, The Ruins remains a tense ride with solid gore and an interesting (even if dilute) premise, one that can still be utilized for deeper examination.

The Ruins does an alright job setting up a critique of our privileged, white travelers who go to another country and mess around with something they don't understand. The character's ignorance of the dangers of the landscape and of the warning signs provided by the people who live around the ruins is the cause of their downfall. There is also an ecological analysis here. Their ignorance is not only one caused by their class and racial privilege, it is also a product of their human privilege. Human-species privilege can be defined as a system of advantage based on species that affords unearned preferential treatment and benefits to human animals while oppressing more-than-human animals and the more-than-human world.

In a world filled with examples of species privilege, it's evident that the natural world doesn't receive the care or respect that it deserves. Robin of the Ecocinema, Media, and the Environment blog echoes these thoughts in her own writing about The Ruins. She states:

Set in and around a secret Mayan temple, The Ruins primarily cautions against disturbing ancient ruins, applying a standard horror film motif. But the juxtaposition of vacationing Westerners with native Mayans protecting and, when necessary, quarantining the site introduces a potentially environmental message: colonizers who exploit the environment and its indigenous populations may face dire consequences in the eco-horror film. As an adaptation of screenwriter Scott Smith’s novel, it may also draw on contemporary environmental concerns (Robin, 2018).

I would argue that The Ruins taps into more than just "environmental concerns." The film is an illustration of nature's active revenge against human animals who have, in large part, exploited the more-than-human world as a resource instead of respected it as a knowledgeable entity and a valuable equal. Let us not keep making this mistake. If The Ruins makes anything clear, it's that it's only a matter of time before nature bites back.

References

Robin. (2018, June 25). The Ruins as Tree Horror: Or When Humans Exploit the Natural Environment. Retrieved October 28, 2020, from http://ecofilmmediaenvironment.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-ruins-as-tree-horror-or-when-humans.html

Rodriguez, R. (2008, April 4). The Ruins: Scott Smith's Novel Comes to the Big Screen. The Miami Herald.

Tobias, S. (2018, July 20). The Ruins. Retrieved October 28, 2020, from https://film.avclub.com/the-ruins-1798204074