The Ruins

** - This film is the absolute epitome of the cheesy clichéd modern horror flick. Start off with a scene of a scared woman in the dark screaming who is then dragged away by some unseen force. Then roll the credit sequence and immediately cut to a sunny beach in Mexico where four hot college-aged kids are frolicking and gamboling around with nary a care in the world. Enter a mysterious German stranger who cajoles them into going to a secluded Mayan ruin in the jungle to help him find his missing brother. The eventually find the ruin – which is a grandiose Mayan step pyramid – after encountering some weird little kids who just stare at them creepily. They notice a tent set up at the top and begin to scale the ruin only to notice a bizarre type of acidic vine covering it. Then a bunch of indigenous villagers run out of the woods and surround the group, forcing them to retreat to the top of the pyramid after shooting one of them in the face. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away here, but as you might imagine, while stuck at the top of the pyramid, all sorts of marginally spooky and not-too-terrifying stuff occurs that results in numerous deaths. I think one escaped, but then again maybe not, and then the film closes with another group of starry-eyed tourists wandering innocently toward the cursed pyramid. Nothing to see here; move along.