Beware the foliage?

If Hollywood were a travel agency, it certainly wouldn't be mailing copies of The Ruins as incentive to visiting Mexico. Instead, seeing the film will give travelers another reason to stay poolside at the resort and drink frozen margaritas.

Movies such as Hostel and Turistas made many moviegoers think twice about traveling to Eastern Europe and Brazil. The Ruins is sure to do the same for those heading south of the border.

The screenplay was adapted by Scott Smith, who wrote the 2006 novel of the same name. While the film version harbors the psychological horror that the book described, it does not forget to rival even the most gruesome of modern horror movies in terms of blood and gore.

Casting four young, attractive American tourists in lead roles, the story follows the small group into Mexico as they travel off the beaten path in search of ancient Mayan ruins. Needless to say, they find more than just beautiful scenery in the mysterious foliage growing on a Mayan temple, which holds an ancient and deadly secret.

Breaking the horror mold, it's not ghosts or goblins that will strike fear into the hearts of audiences, but creepy crawly vines that will leave some a little squeamish.

The Ruins is extremely graphic and not ashamed of showing what the audiences' minds have already reluctantly pictured. Very little is left to the imagination and some moviegoers will be startled by the film's upfront intensity.

While The Ruins has the look of a clich?(c) American horror movie, it never gets completely trapped by the typical nonsense the genre usually bears.

In the beginning of the film, audiences will feel they are being lead down a very familiar and overdone path, but The Ruins partially saves itself by remaining true to the story throughout its comfortably light, 90-minute running time.

That being said, the film is not completely without fault, as some of the acting and dialogue seem absurd at times. The best and worst cases in point of this are exemplified in the two main characters Jeff and Amy, played by Jonathan Tucker (In the Valley of Elah) and Jena Malone (Into the Wild).

While Malone does a fantastic job playing the frantic girlfriend forced to live through a nightmare, Tucker isn't very convincing as the role of 'leader.' He's just too calm when facing imminent death and horrific circumstances.

Understandably, Tucker's character is a medical student and therefore used to blood and guts. His calm detracts from the realism of the scene though, when panic sets in for those around him.

The dialogue at times does reach rock bottom, the typical American horror movie beginning to break through the seams of an otherwise decent film. This is more or less a formality, as no horror movie would be complete without a few quips and bad humor.

Well-directed suspense, thanks to up-and-coming filmmaker Carter Smith (Bug Crush), is the reason The Ruins turns out to be a somewhat satisfying film.

There are many scenes that will make audiences jump and squirm, but it is the build-up to these moments that will have moviegoers on the edge of their seats.

A few scenes may even cause slight nausea and force the faint of heart to simply turn away. Fans of horror movies may encounter the opposite effect; they will probably smile and cheer after hearing the gasps and cringing of fellow audience members.

The music and art direction for the film are not superb, but they fit into the horror movie easily. And while seclusion and jungle locales can make a bad horror story manageable, the greatest feat of The Ruins is that almost the entire movie takes place in broad daylight.

Forget darkness and the fear that the absence of light brings - this movie is frightening even with the sun at high noon. The characters not only have to worry about the ancient ruins, but also the deteriorating sanity of those around them.

Being the horror movie that it is, The Ruins does become absurd and very predictable at times, but that's a near-inescapable downside of modern horror films.

While it will be pure entertainment for those wanting blood and gore, for those who don't care for such things, it may be best to look away and sit this one out.