I read The Ruins when it was first published, or at least I tried to. I think I took the advice of some columnist, say Stephen King's rant on the back page of Entertainment Weekly, and I bought a copy of the book. I might have even read it for a Hollywood Jesus review. I'm really not sure. But I remember fastforwarding, or at least turning to the end, to discover what happened so I could rid myself of the book in my hands. I actually do read quite a bit, but I thought the book was rather dull, and (spoiler) it involved a giant mess of vines that apparently had a mind of their own.

So, what possessed me to watch The Ruins, you ask? Well, it was free, and I thought that a book like The Ruins might be better in live-action. Maybe a giant mess of vines could be better depicted by someone else other than my Veggietales image of killer asparagus or runaway ivy. I mean, seriously, Poison Ivy makes those tendrils look downright deadly to Batman, doesn't she? So, I figured I'd give it a spin and see what happened.

The short answer is not much. But the longer answer revolves around sketchy acting, lack of character attachment, and yes, the movie is still about a killer vegetable. When your leads are Jonathan Tucker and Jena Malone, and it's not a comedy, you've probably missed the mark of greatness. But when the main "character" of the movie is a giant, "evil" vine, than you have to wonder how far you can run this until it's played out. (The answer is apparently not too far, because the movie itself didn't last terribly long in its theatrical run.)

Still, the greatest flaw of The Ruins is still the story. As with many things, a story can take bad acting, awful casting, and horrible editing and make you care. So can great stunts or excellent action. But The Ruins doesn't hook us with the characters from the very beginning, and so I felt little when, one by one, they bit the dust. For the record, it's a tie for me whether the giant vegetable as villain or the lack of characters who seemed to possess souls caused me to deep six the book. Jeff's monologue to the jungle vine people about how they should care about his and Amy's names right before they deep-six him is like a desperate cry from Scott Smith. Unfortunately, I only heard the vines mocking him back.

The "close knit group of college friends," per the DVD packaging, description doesn't seem that close in light of their backstabbing, and all we see them really do is get it on and drink themselves into oblivion&ellips; before setting off into the jungle with some guys they just met. It defies common sense if you ask me, but it doesn't make us go, "Wow, I really hope that the single mother who's been forced to work minimum wage doesn't die," or some such caricature of the human experience. Instead, you watch a bunch of people you either were (and wish you hadn't been) or hated in college get aced by a plant that's basically dealing with survival of the fittest.

So, yes, that's my sarcastic and somewhat demeaning take on The Ruins. I'm not a huge "horror" guru, but I find something like The Ring or The Grudge both scary and somehow engaging. Both pull scary stunts and both have elements of character that make you hope the protagonist or hero of the tale succeeds. The Ruins didn't achieve that, or its end task as a horror film of scaring me. Seriously, I'm going to roll over and dream of dancing cucumbers while Larry sings me to sleep: "Where, oh where, is my hairbrush?"