Scott Smith's novel The Ruins was the feel-bad beach book of 2006 - it was merciless and unrelentingly grim and I couldn't put it down. Nothing about it struck me as unfilmable...until I actually saw the film that was made from it. The fact that The Ruins was not screened for critics last week should have been the tipoff, but every once in a while the studio execs don't realize what they have on their hands. This time they did, and they're washing it off as quickly as possible.
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