Film Filter: Off - The Ruins

Film Filter: Off- My fiance had read the book, and was intrigued by the thought of the movie, so we decided to give it a whirl.

Pros- Props to them for trying to make this film feel as realistic as it could.  Character interactions and situations were, for the most part, pretty believable.  Going off of this concept is the implementation of bad situations during the day time, which again, made the movie feel more real.  Especially in instances of a curse, where there is no tangible threat per se, it seems more believable that time of day or daylight wouldn't really be a factor.
   Visually, the setting was very picturesque, which you may think is irrelevant to a horror movie.  When characters are trapped in one location for nearly the whole movie experience, it's nice to have something pretty to look at.
   I really liked the ingenuity of the idea.  I don't think I've ever seen a movie quite like this one, and that is something in itself, as they garner some points for creativity.  Granted, it was a book first, so the movie can't take all the credit.

Cons- In general the timing and events in the story seemed a little rushed.  It's evident that, yes, they can't survive for much longer than a few days without food and water, but the events leading up to some of the death scenes seemed almost unnecessarily rushed and out of sequence.
   Although I haven't read the book, I have researched it a bit, and it seems that (not unlike many film adaptations) the movie deviated.  I found it interesting though, that with such a downer storyline already in place, that they opted for this moderately up-beat ending, as opposed to the downer ending in which the book resulted.  I also feel that some of the points in the movie that were brought up didn't necessarily have as much meaning or depth because of the lack of development.  Granted, movies don't have as much time as books to develop some of these ideas, but the viewers shouldn't be confused or misled for this reason alone.  The adaptation may require more tweaking, or removing some parts, and I would imagine it's probably got to be a tough call to decide where to draw the line in that regard.
   It's also interesting to me that they switched roles/genders in a lot of the fates of the characters.  My hypothesis is for sex appeal to have the girls featured more often, but part of me wonders if the movie might have been different (in a good way) if the right characters were in the right situations, from the book's perspective.



Wrap up- This film is not bad, and is definitely unique and interesting.  I have to put it in the "mildly forgettable" category, however, as it is just that.

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