An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2017’s Ruin Me
A group of strangers enter a horror scavenger hunt billed as “the ultimate horror experience” but quickly discover they’re in real danger as they’re targeted by killers.
Is Ruin Me (2017) Scary?
Nah, there’s a few jump scares but only one real good one. Since the movie is part scavenger hunt the “scares” aren’t good and the movies starts to focus on it’s story halfway through, ignoring the horror.
Overall you won’t be scared by the end of Ruin Me unless you tend you like going to scavenger hunts where they actually kill you.
Plot Synopsis:
The film opens with couple Alex and Nathan (played by Marcienne Dwyer and Matt Dellapina) on a drive to the “ultimate horror movie experience”. A part haunted house, part scavenger hunt, 36-hour game called Slasher Sleepout. Alex falls asleep and we see flashes of her nightmare that looks like she’s experiencing a drug overdose as a man tries to help her.
The two arrive at what’s supposed to be the start of the game but it’s just an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere. As Alex gets out of the car, she hears something banging in the trunk and doesn’t investigate it. Alex and Nathan then meet the rest of the players.
Couple Pitch and Marina (played by John Odom and Eva Hamilton) have done several of these games before and consider themselves experts, though Pitch is extremely focused on winning. You can also tell their goth because she’s wearing an ouija board shirt and he, well…
Alex heads into the bathroom where we see her take some medication. Leaving the bathroom, she bumps into another player, Larry (played by Chris Hill) who is the comic relief of the group. You can tell because his jokes are bad. The final player, Tim (played by Cameron Gordon), joins the group but he’s the quiet loner type so he barely talks to anyone.
We learn that Alex only agreed to join Nathan on the trip and game after his rich friend Graham got sick and dropped out. As the group introduce themselves, a van screeches into the station and the driver demands they all stand in a line.
Turns out the weird dude is the host and he explains the rules of the game, adding that the point of the game is to “ruin you”. He says they must follow all instructions for their own safety, no bags or phones allowed, they must sign a waiver, and the actors in the game can touch them but the players can’t touch them.
They do have the option of yelling out a safe phrase, “Aloha, Welcome to Hawaii”, once that happens, the game is over for that person.
After everyone signs off, the host “brands” everyone by writing a number on their arms. Alex remembers she has her meds in her bag and rushes to get them out as the host yells out, “They’re all set.” Several men in masks jump out of the van and place bags over everyone’s heads. Luckily Alex is able to grab her meds before they grab her.
The group is packed into the van and dropped off further into the forest. Pitch quickly finds the first clue, a board with the number 321 pinned to a tree. He also spots a dumpster bin, searches it, and finds numbered backpacks corresponding to each individual’s brand number.
Going through the bags, they find a Slasher Sleepout shirt, a granola bar, toilet paper, glowsticks, and water but, they also discover that each bag has one or two unique items. Alex’s has a condom, Nathan’s has a flashlight and a key that he puts around his neck, Marina’s has a gun with only two bullets; possibly blanks, Pitch’s has a hammer, Larry’s has a newspaper article and handcuffs, and, finally, Tim’s has a compass.
Larry reads aloud the newspaper article which details a group of escaped mental patients and Pitch believes the object of the game must be to capture them.
Pitch directs Tim to set his compass to 321 and after some time hiking, the group find a locked chest with the word ‘betrayal’ written on a board above it. Alex runs off to go pee somewhere in the woods and spots multiple numbers and letters pinned to two trees. She calls over the rest of the group and they debate what the puzzle means.
Alex figures it out and it gives them the combination for the locked chest. After trying the combination, it works and Pitch since he wasn’t the one who solved it. The chest reveals a fake severed hand pointing them in a new direction.
Several hours later, night has fallen and the group is still hiking through the woods. Nathan’s flashlight suddenly goes out and the group resort to using the glowsticks. Larry makes a dumb joke but when lifting his glowstick, in a jump scare, a man in a mask appears behind him.
Everyone screams and runs, they bump into another masked man but evade him as well. They eventually run to an already set up campsite complete with tents, a campfire, and a cooler filled with food and drinks. The group celebrate their first complete night of the game.
Later everyone sits around the campfire and Tim discovers Nathan’s flashlight has a micro receiver embedded in it allowing the person running the game to turn it off remotely. As the group discuss their favorite horror movies, Marina starts rubbing Tim’s shoulders and sits on his lap. Despite her saying that it’s okay since she and Pitch have an open relationship, Pitch does not look too happy.
After some eye-rolling comments from Pitch that the real horror movies are movies like Dirty Dancing, everyone heads to bed. In their tent, Nathan and Alex discuss their relationship as Marina and Pitch have very audible sex in the next tent. We find out Nathan and Alex have been together for 13 months and Alex feels like it’s sometimes difficult to express her feelings.
Nathan gets turned down for sex but Alex offers to give him a hand job. He happily accepts but they’re interrupted by someone outside the tent. Opening it, a crazed man yells at them and everyone jumps out of their tents.
Larry saves the day by offering the man a granola bar and Pitch tells Larry to get the handcuffs but Alex points out that they’re not supposed to touch the actors. The crazed man lunges at Alex but Nathan steps in front and stops him. The man pulls out a knife and slashes at Nathan’s arm before he runs off.
The group is confused as to whether it’s part of the game as Nathan yells out that it’s a real cut. Luckily Marina is a nurse and patches him up, stating it’s not a deep cut. Alex starts to yell out the safe phrase but Nathan stops her, saying he’s fine and wants to keep going.
The next morning the group wake up to a new 5-digit lock on the cooler, some fake bloody fingers nailed to a board, and discover Tim is gone. Nathan points out the fingers are numbered based on their own branded numbers and Tim’s is missing. Larry suggests they’re being picked off one by one as part of the game and that Tim was a plant.
Looking at the fingers, Pitch realizes the fingers are pointing in a direction and tells everyone to follow the fingers.
Marina and Alex head off in their direction together and after some cringey dialogue, we learn that Alex overdosed on heroin. This is probably the scene she keeps seeing in her dreams although we still don’t know who the man who was with her is.
Marina finds a tree with her number on it along with a plastic finger with a letter and runs back to camp. Alex continues searching for her tree but when she finds it, there’s no finger. Confused she decides to pee and while peeing, blood drops from the tree above her. Looking up, she sees a dead Tim. Do things only progress in this movie whenever Alex has to take a piss? I can’t say for sure yet.
Alex runs back to the camp, and tells the group, but when they all return Tim’s body is gone and a fake finger has been placed behind the tree. Back at camp, Nathan urges Alex to take her meds, implying that she might have been seeing things. Alex takes her pill but reminds Nathan they’re antidepressants, not antipsychotics.
With everyone back with their respective fake fingers, Alex figures out the code to open the cooler which enrages Pitch. Inside the cooler, they find Tim’s compass with a bloody fingerprint. The crazed man from the night before is heard yelling in the distance and Pitch pulls out Larry’s handcuffs. Larry accuses Pitch of breaking the rules since he must have stolen them while he was sleeping.
Pitch responds that there are no rules but I clearly remember a scene where rules were discussed. Pitch angrily walks away but Marina stops him and suggests he stop playing to win and start playing to have fun like everyone else.
Pitch goes full psycho, accuses Marina of sleeping with Larry, and pulls out the gun, pointing it at her. Alex sees the crazed man behind Pitch and Pitch demands she points to where he went. He heads off and returns moments later with the crazed man handcuffed. The man escapes the cuffs, elbows Pitch in the stomach, and then slices his neck open.
As Pitch bleeds out, the man drags his body away and everyone… just stands there. Sure the man yelled out that if they chase him they’ll die too but he was using both hands to drag Pitch, they could overpower him or at least follow him. Marina checks to see if the blood on the ground is real and determines it is after smelling it.
She breaks down and starts yelling out the safe phrase but nothing happens. She runs off into the woods and no one follows her, they just stand there as the girl has a breakdown and runs off into the woods screaming about Hawaii. As Marina runs out of sight, Larry, Alex, and Nathan hear her voice cut off and what sounds like someone stabbing her.
A cell phone rings and Larry reveals he has a backup in his sock that he says he forgot about. Kind of hard to forget you have a phone in your sock but okay. The three run off and call the police but the 911 operator hangs up after Larry insults her. He gets a call back from a voice asking if he wants to die now or later and it instructs him to break the phone.
Nathan tells him not to as the voice counts down and a gunshot is heard nearby.
Larry agrees to break the phone but before he can, he gets shot in the chest and dies. Damn it Nathan! Sure, Larry was the useless comic relief character who was not funny at all and contributed nothing to the group or the movie in even the slightest bit but…
The voice on the phone tells Alex he knows everything and two men appear behind Alex and Nathan, placing bags over their heads. Sometime later Alex wakes up on the beach chained to something in the ocean. Nearby she finds Jared (played by Sam Ashdown) who is the same guy she’s been seeing in her dream/memories of her overdose.
Jared is confused and says the last thing he remembers is being at a bar. He then notices Alex’s sobriety necklace and we find out Alex has been lying… a lot. Turns out Alex is still using drugs and is cheating on Nathan with Jared.
Jared realizes he also has a wire tied to his ankle leading into the ocean and when pulling on it, it pulls on Alex’s.
Alex swims out into the ocean and discovers they’re chained to a large rock. When she returns, Jared tells her he can see the key some distance away surrounded by some metal spikes and they realize one of them has to go into the water while the other runs for the key. So there’s some Saw-level shit going on right now.
Jared agrees to go underwater and Alex reaches for the key but when she puts it into the lock on her ankle cuff, it gets stuck. Seeing it’s attached to its own wire, she pulls on it and it turns out it’s attached to Nathan several yards away. With time running out Alex has to either let Jared drown or pull Nathan into the spikes so she can run back to the beach.
She chooses Jared. She also yells “I’m sorry” to Nathan and I’m sure that’s a huge comfort for him as he rolls towards possible death. Alex jumps into the ocean and swims to the rock, only to find Jared gone.
Swimming back to the beach, Alex hears Nathan screaming for help. Luckily for him, a spike only pierced the edge of his leg and Alex says it’s not as bad as she thought. Sure, who doesn’t walk around with a hole in their thigh?
Nathan questions why she pulled him down into the spikes and Alex says she was pulled by an unknown man who was bound to her. By “says” I mean she lied her ass off. After removing Nathan’s restraints Alex realizes the key that was in Nathan’s bag is the key for the lock on her ankle cuff.
Nathan says he didn’t see anyone else attached to her and asks if she took her pill. Alex reminds him he watched her take it that morning but he says she never did. Alex grabs her backpack and takes her pill.
Also, her backpack appeared out of nowhere, it wasn’t in any scenes from the moment she woke up on the beach. When Alex finds Nathan, there was only one backpack with him and it was his but now there are two. This feels more like a continuity error rather than a magical backpack.
The two plan their next move but Alex doesn’t need to pee so it’s up to Nathan to figure it so we can move the story along. The two discover Nathan’s backpack has the gun, flashlight, and compass.
Nathan says that this is all his fault and admits that Graham, his friend who was supposed to be on the trip, is not sick. Instead, Nathan asked him to let Alex takes his place because Nathan felt Alex growing distant and feared she would relapse while he was gone. Buddy, I got some news for you.
Nathan says Alex is everything to him but he repeats it twice so it’s a bit weird. He asks for her forgiveness and when she says she does, he reiterates for her to be honest. She then says she loves him. I can’t tell if it’s bad acting or bad dialogue that is annoying me the most.
At night the two are wandering through the woods and find the same mask and clothing the people who chased them at the start of the movie were wearing. Nathan is grabbed by someone and pulled underground as Alex tries to help him. Although she can’t see anything in the hole, blood spatters on her face so he’s dead.
Another killer in a mask chases after Alex and she eventually loses him. The killer continues searching for her and finds a glowstick hanging from a branch. Turning around he sees his other masked partner and asks where Alex went. Turns out the masked killer is Alex and she knocks the killer down with a piece of wood.
The killer takes off the mask, reveals this is all part of the game and is confused why Alex thinks it’s all real. Alex says she saw them kill everyone and he points out that she didn’t see the bodies which is literally only true for Nathan and Marina. Alex saw Tim’s body, watched Pitch gets throat-sliced, and saw Larry shot in the chest.
The killer/employee says he’ll prove it by taking her to base camp which he points to. Alex looks over but gets tackled by the killer/employee. They struggle and Alex pulls out the gun. He mocks her thinking she won’t shoot but she does and it turns out they’re real bullets.
Alex hears a police car and runs towards it finding a cop. She begs for help but he thinks she’s an escaped patient and pulls a gun on her. The cop tells her to turn around, put her hands on the hood, and “spread her pussy”. He repeats himself but this time he says legs. So either this is part of the game, Alex is losing it, or things are about to get a whole lot worse.
He then asks if her name is Alexandra and when she confirms, he says he can get her some help but he has to search her first.
The cop goes behind Alex to search her but when Alex turns around she sees him dead and the crazed man from earlier standing above him. Alex runs eventually reaching a building and bangs on the door.
The door opens on it’s own and Alex walks into an empty bar. Alex approaches the bartender and it’s revealed to be the host from earlier. Alex freaks out and it only gets worse when a dead Pitch appears behind her. Suddenly everyone who was dead including the killer in the woods and the cop surround Alex.
As she screams Nathan appears and tells everyone to stop. Everything is revealed to have been part of the game with Larry being a plant. He tells Nathan and Alex this version of the game is called “Shutter Island” where one person is made to believe they are an escaped mental patient. He then asks if they successfully “ruined” Alex.
Pitch shows that the knife they used on him excretes pig blood when it’s pressed on something and they chloroformed him as they “cut” his throat. Marine really did think it was real and lost the game when she said the phrase. We don’t get told what happened to Tim but we see him at the bar alive and well.
A little while later as everyone parties at the bar, Alex notices that she hasn’t seen Jared so shit is still weird. Nathan asks if Alex is ready to leave and the two head out. They stop off at the gas station from the start of the movie and Nathan goes to the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Alex is still wondering about the whole Jared thing and calls his cell phone. Hearing his phone coming from the trunk, she opens it and finds Jared bound and unconscious.
Nathan comes out of the bathroom and we get the final twist of the film. Alex tries to lie to Nathan and say that she doesn’t know Jared but he reveals he knows everything. Turns out Nathan’s friend Graham owns Slasher Sleepout which i feel is something that would have come up in a 13-month-long relationship.
Anyway, Graham let Nathan plan the whole thing in order to find out if Alex truly loved him and would pick him over Jared. He also reveals he knows Alex’s meds are actually oxycodone and tells her to choose between him and Jared. Alex chooses Nathan and he pulls out a knife for her to “prove it” by killing Jared.
Alex refuses to do it and an enraged Nathan stabs Jared himself. He then attacks Alex, ripping off her sobriety necklace, and strangles her. Alex passes out and Nathan prepares to rape her. Alex wakes up and stabs him in the neck with her sobriety necklace. Grabbing his knife, Alex kills Nathan by stabbing him multiple times in the stomach.
The film ends as Nathan dies and Alex screams in frustration.
Review:
Ruin Me is okay. The story is interesting, the pacing and twists definitely keep you entertained but the acting and dialogue are pretty bad in some scenes. The main issue is Alex and Nathan have no chemistry whatsoever, you don’t believe they’re a real couple and it makes all their scenes feel forced.
Every character besides Marina and Tim have some pretty cringey dialogue that will have you rolling your eyes or bored out of your mind. There’s also attempts at crude humor which don’t land. When the players meet the host, Alex accidentally drops a tampon which results in the host making a “joke” about her maybe being on her period.
Later when Alex finds Tim dead, she discovers she has her period. This “plot point” never comes back up so it feels like the writer wrote the period joke, high five themselves and then thought they needed to reference Alex getting her period just to justify the joke. They could have added a plot point where she thought she was pregnant and didn’t know if it was Nathan’s or Jared’s. That at least would have made her getting her period actually have a point in the movie otherwise it feels forced just to make a joke.
Most of Nathan’s dialogue is really bad and the acting suffers for it. Larry is the comedic relief but never says anything funny and having other characters acknowledge he has bad jokes, doesn’t make it okay to make those bad jokes. Pitch and Marina felt like the only characters that were well-rounded and well-acted. Alex has her moments but during the one-on-one scenes with Jared and Nathan, it’s not good.
What saves this movie is the plot. While the ending is pretty predictable especially when Jared shows up, the twists and puzzles along the way are entertaining. There’s also a point where you’re going to question whether Alex really is losing it and those scenes are pretty good, too bad it’s only a few scenes.
Overall I recommend giving Ruin Me a watch but only if you have nothing else to watch and you don’t mind bad dialogue and acting.
Cast IMDB
Stuff to Ignore
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