The Horror Show
Ruin Me
by Preston DeFrancis
Ruin Me is the type of movie that should resonate with any hardcore horror fan. It should effect us in a very guttural sense. These actors are supposed to be portraying us, the super fans. The ones that eat, sleep, and breathe the genre. Ruin Me tries to do that. Tries being the key word.
Ruin Me is the tale of six people looking for a true horror experience so they all sign up for Slasher Sleepout, an overnight excursion that is described as part haunted house, part scavenger hunt, and part escape room. It's all a game until it starts to get too real for the players and people start turning up dead. I'm not going to lie, I would love to do something like this in reality with my friends. Well, without all the actual death.
We're introduced to our thinly veiled horror stereotypes as each one arrives at a shady af gas station. We have spooky goth couple, weird quiet guy, fat nerd guy, and our main couple, mister overprotective and Alex, our fragile, damaged, final girl. They are blindfolded and shoved in a van and then dumped in the woods. The spooky couple tells everyone that this isn't their first rodeo and everything is a clue. Stuck to fat nerd's back pack is a clipping about an escaped patient from a mental hospital. This is the mysterious story line for the sleepout! They are then tasked to solve puzzles to get to their camp. Alex is constantly having to pee. She seems to stumble upon clues when she goes potty. She does it twice, it's kind of ridiculous. After making it to camp we have a lot of weird “character building” and it feels out of place. After a very uncomfortable hand-job scene, a crazy hobo shows up and cuts the overprotective boyfriend's arm. Oh no! Was he an actor? Was he real? Nobody knows! The next morning another puzzle shows up. Let's split up! More of Alex peeing. The first person gets killed and after that it just snowballs into one unbelievable death after another until all is revealed at the end with an added twist!
I really enjoyed this film back in 1986 when it was called April Fool's Day. I figured out the ending too quickly. I didn't feel for the main character. The acting was really shoddy and some of the lines made me uncomfortable. One of the co-writers is a woman and I really hope she didn't write lines like “oh, I thought I was the only girl” or “hands on the car and spread your pussy.” I usually have no problems with off color lines. The words don't bother me, it was how they were delivered. It made my skin crawl. Some were so nauseating I've blanked them out. There was a couple of period jokes too. Why? So, you can make a ham fisted Carrie reference? Then I realized the other co-writer is also the director, so that answered my question of why they were left in. It was super icky.
Ruin Me is on Shudder right now. It's not a terrible film but it isn't that great either. If you can’t find it, just watch April Fool's Day instead. The characters are great, the twist is funny, and the end is kinda heartwarming in a sick way. That's just my suggestion.
Robin Thompson, HMS
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