The Ruins is yet another tale of vacationing teens with a map which promises to take them to a secret place off the tourist trail but actually leads them into a whole world of trouble – in this case a Mayan temple covered in man-eating vines and surrounded by hostile natives.


Directed by Carter Smith, origin­ally a fashion photographer, The Ruins never veers far from the superficial and formulaic, but it’s a decent-looking, effective genre piece which maintains interest throughout.


There are flaws aside from cliché: the characters are irritating, the vine flowers mimicking voices is one silliness too far, and there are plot annoyances such as why the vine lets them survive so long, or why they don’t attempt any of the seemingly obvious escape plans the audience will have thought up within 10 minutes of their entrapment.