YMMV / The Ruins

• Harsher in Hindsight: The central conflict around the Final Girl is that she may or may not be infected with the vines, but still thinks she deserves to escape the ruins. Naturally, most people would consider that not only selfish, but dangerously selfish that she tries to still escape the ruins when she could infect everyone else and cause the end of the world. Then the 2020 pandemic happened and her mentality became painfully accurate to the way some people behaved when infected with the coronavirus (blatantly ignoring the deadly nature of the virus, believing they deserve to still operate normally while sick instead of being isolated, being so self-centered that they don't care if they infect other people). The film inadvertently became prophetic after 2020.
• Nausea Fuel: The extremely graphic leg amputation must be one of the most disgusting horror film scenes ever put to film. If you don't feel sick to your stomach after watching someone's bones being shattered with a rock, followed by his legs being sawed off with a tiny pocket knife without any anaesthetics, you either have prior experience from a medical or military profession, or you should seriously consider seeing a shrink.
• Nightmare Retardant: The vine is scary when it is more mobile and tricky than vines should be. It is imitative, learning from its victims. And then it gets silly when it demonstrates its ability to speak multiple languages and somehow know (and generate) the smell of apple pie a la mode. Mind you, this is if you see it as a simple plant, instead of an Eldritch Abomination (Or perhaps an Eldritch Location). See Wild Mass Guessing page. Besides, the scariest part isn't the bloodthirsty plant... it's what the plant gets the protagonists to do to themselves.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Both the novel and the film are made of this trope. Some college students are vacationing in Mexico and after finding their way onto some Mayan ruins, are trapped there at arrow-point by local natives. Meanwhile, some vines on the ruins are not only carnivorous, but also intelligent. The first third of the book somewhat averts this trope as the protagonists try a few different things to make the best of the situation. The second third of the book is essentially them giving up, bickering with each other constantly, and constantly suffering. In the final third, they all die. Bonus points are when it's revealed that the vines are basically godlike in power and knowledge, and could have easily killed them at any time, but preferred to torture them For the Evulz.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: A plant that takes people over, causing them to behave in bizarre ways and to hurt their friends. Once it's got its hooks in you, you'll never be the same. And, it has a distinctive five-pointed leaf. Growing on a Mayan ruin, for bonus points. Especially if you're confusing the effects of alcohol and marijuana.

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