The Ruins Unrated Blu-ray Review

The Ruins Unrated

Blu-ray Review
Paramount Home Video
DreamWorks
Release: July 8, 2008

Paramount Home Entertainment is apparently in the mood to bring some horror to your Blu-ray player this week, as they have released The Ruins for the Blu-ray format. The film has been released in an unrated version, which was apparently “too intense for theaters,” according to the studio. So are they lying, or is this really crazy stuff on Blu-ray?

The Ruins tells the story of two couples who go on a vacation in Mexico. The great young cast is made up of Joe Anderson, Jonathan Tucker, Laura Ramsey, Jena Malone, and Shawn Ashmore.

These couples head to an undisturbed Mayan ruin, and find that they may have made the wrong choice in exploring. You can tell as soon as they start to head out there that something is wrong, as you see these strange Mayan children watching them from a distance. Things end up turning into a disaster, as they realize that they may not be able to leave the ruins.

The Ruins certainly has some high points and low points to it. This is not your typical horror film to say the least, as instead of making it all dark and gloomy, the director and cinematographer give it a far different feel. You actually get a sense of what these characters are going through, which is a huge plus to the experience.

The biggest flaw of the film, like with any horror movie, is that the characters really do not develop all that much. Overall though, the premise of it, which I won’t ruin for those who really want to see it, takes some time to believe. It is nothing too over the top or special for the horror genre, but fans who want a little fright will find enjoyment in this.

The video quality for the Blu-ray release is presented in 2.35:1 VC-1 encoding, and looks pretty impressive. The film is drenched with sun and bright scenes due to the fact hat it takes place in the Mexican jungle. The opening prologue scene looks great with some strong blacks and low-lit scenes.

Once you get outside in the forthcoming scenes, the colors from the panning shot over the jungle will have you in awe, as it looks fantastic. The video quality on Blu-ray is definitely more colorful and has more pop than the DVD release, great stuff.

The audio is presented in 5.1 Dolby TrueHD lossless audio track and will not really blow you away. It has a very subtle nature to it as everything comes across more to create a quiet atmosphere than a more over-the-top experience. This works in some scenes, but not so much in others.

Where the sound does do well though is with the great dialogue from the characters, as well as with ambiance that fills up your home theater.

Starting things off with the extras you get a series of quality deleted scenes, along with an alternate ending to the film, which to be honest, is not as good as the one in the original movie.

On top of that, you also have some great behind-the-scenes features. The first runs for around 15-minutes and is called Making the Ruins, which is your standard making-of featurette. Beyond that, you also have a 15-minute feature called Creeping Death, which shows how they created the vines, which make up the monster of the movie.

There is also a 6-minute feature which focuses on how they created the ruined pyramid, and how it all came about.

Rounding out the extras is a great commentary track with director Carter Smith, as well as editor Jeff Betancourt. Unfortunately all of these extras are carried over from the DVD release, as there is nothing in terms of Blu-ray exclusives.

Despite the fact that Blu-ray fans do not get anything extra in terms of content over the DVD version, this is still a great release for the format and one which horror fans will enjoy, as it is a very fun film to watch.

Film: 7.8 A very respectable horror film with some high and low moments, fun to watch.

Video: 9.2 The video looks great on Blu-ray, awesome colors and brightness.

Audio: 8.0 The audio perseveres when it has to, but will not really blow you away.

Special Features: 8.0 The lack of exclusive Blu-ray extras is a bit disappointing, but still some fun stuff to watch.

Final Score: 8.2

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Interested in picking up this release? Head over to Amazon at the link here The Ruins (Unrated Edition) [Blu-ray]