Eerie, terrifying, unputdownable—Scott Smith’s first novel since his best-selling A Simple Plan (“Simply the best suspense novel of this year—hell, of the 1990s”—Stephen King). The Ruins follows two American couples, just out of college, enjoying a pleasant, lazy beach holiday together in Mexico as, on an impulse, they go off with newfound friends in search of one of their group—the young German, who, in pursuit of a girl, has headed for the remote Mayan ruins, site of a fabled archeological dig.
This is what happens from the moment the searchers—moving into the wild interior—begin to suspect that there is an insidious, horrific “other” among them . . .
Horror Book Review Blog: The Ruins
I saw the 2008 film adaptation of Scott Thomas’ novel of the same name when it was released in theaters. I have not seen the movie since. But, it left a good taste in my mouth I have been itching to re-watch it again because I remember enjoying the film immensely. Fast forward to ten years later and, finally, about a week ago, I popped in the Blu-ray and gave it another watch. To me, the film still holds up, and I wanted to finally hunker down and read the aforementioned novel by Scott Thomas that was penned in 2006. And that’s exactly what I did.
I started reading The Ruins on a Saturday afternoon, and before I knew it, the sun dropped below the horizon, and I was losing natural light. My first thought was, “How long is this chapter!?” It wasn’t long after I continued to read and rummage through a few more dozen pages or so that I came to realize that there are no chapters in the book, just breaks in between character perspectives and actions. This was interesting because Thomas barely gives us any time to stop, breathe, and take in what we just read before jumping into something new and something even more terrifying. The pacing of the book was fast and it never really let up. I was engrossed in both the action and narrative and was hard pressed to put the book down.
The vine. It is as much a character as our main protagonists: Jeff, Amy, Stacey, Erick, and Mathius. They are trapped atop a Mayan ruin, held prisoners by the local Mayans who keep watch over them from below making sure that they do not flee from the area because once they stepped foot onto the ruins and touched the vine, their fate had been sealed. The story of survival thus begins as our characters struggle against the elements, the threat of the Mayans keeping them at bay, the lack of food, and the “other” thing that is keeping a close eye on them, waiting for their guards to drop before striking.
The story spans a time frame of about three days, and Thomas painstakingly describes, with fervor, the excruciating predicament that our protagonists must endure from their lack of both water and food under a tormenting sun that won’t let up. I grew thirsty and uncomfortable reading this book. I felt the imminent danger, and the impending doom as I too was trying to figure out solutions had I been in the same dilemma and, I hate to admit it, but I was hard-pressed to come up with any good ideas on what I would do and how I would survive. It was refreshing to read what Thomas had in store for us through the actions, and inactions, of the characters. Let’s face it, having seen the movie I had a pretty good idea of how things would work out in the end. But, dare I say it, I was wrong!
The Ruins: Book vs. Film (No Spoilers!)
So which one was better? Neither, I enjoy both equally, and, believe it or not, both the book and the movie were similar but different enough to enjoy them as two separate entities. The book, as one would imagine, was more descriptive and delved much more into character development than the film because of time constraints. The film was a much more condensed version of the book that, in my opinion, was not able to flesh out the characters enough to really care about them. The characters in the film were, for lack of a better term, two-dimensional, whereas we get a better insight into who they are, their motives, and their inner thoughts.
Another thing that differed between both mediums is more than a few role reversals where the actions and thought processes differed and led our characters in different directions. Again, I would think that a lot went into the decisions made for the film based on, again, time constraints and test audience reactions. These differences are what helped me to still enjoy the book after having seen the film all the more because it was not a simple rehash, word-for-word account, of what happened in the novel. For the most part, the gist was there, but the differences were still enough to keep me engaged in the story.
If it hasn’t been clear, I really enjoyed The Ruins – both the novel and the film.
