A Monster Vine?...Really?

WARNING: If you haven't read The Ruins, this will be a spoiler in the worst possible way.

I've just completed the first and only bit of novel-reading-for-pleasure since Summer of 2005, when I started studying for my prelims. Hearing nothing but rave reviews for Scott Smith's The Ruins, and knowing that I would want to have read the book before seeing the new movie, I picked up a copy and settled in with high hopes of being scared to death.

Yeah...not so much.

A vine? Really? That's all you can come up with Mr. Smith? I'm sorry, but the entire premise threw me off for two reasons:
1) there were never any damn ruins!
2) a talking, blood-sucking, really smart monster vine = Little Shop of Horrors without the music

I mean really...there were times I wanted to just giggle at the images being drawn. And for Stephen King to say it's the scariest thing since Silence of the Lambs? King is clearly smoking crack; step away from the pipe Stevie Boy!

I think my reaction is based on my belief that the scariest, most evil things usually come at the hands of Man (in the universal humankind sense). That is, while I really love, love a good scary ghost/monster story, the things I fear most are things other human beings could do (i.e. Hannibal Lector, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, etc.) I make the frequent exception for religious-based fears, such as demon possession (a really good exorcism story is fantastic), because I genuinely believe in forces of good and evil. But the whole vine thing is just too sci-fi for me. Objects of horror, for me anyway, need to be rooted in the realm of reality, some sliver of possibility.

I guess it wasn't all for nothing though; at least I know better than to waste my money on the movie!