Sunday, August 25, 2013

The Ceremony (2008)

This film opens with a nice young man and near-collage graduate coming home after a good run, who immediately proceeds to do laundry, wash dishes, vacuum, talk to family, wash the car, cook dinner and even get's a job offer over the phone.

How is this horror? (says every woman out there).


And then, of all the dumb luck, he stumbles upon his roommate's book on Satanism. Why fate!? All he was trying to do was Saturday chores! Well, as we all know from any movie about Satanism, curiosity and dumb luck = eternal damnation for you.

Although at first I thought The Ceremony might have been mis-categorized and was actually a comedy-fantasy, it was quickly made apparent that this was a traditional/not traditional movie on traditional/not traditional Hell.

With a small and smart use of cast and budget, this movie did wonders for getting the heart racing, jumps jumping, and the breaths a-takin'. The dialog felt very fraternity-sorority age appropriate but it worked well for the film. The moving shadows and even moving furniture was sharp, crisp, creepy, and clean. Two thumbs up and an awkward black slap to whoever came up with my new favorite most-creative-weapon-against-demons: a Supersoaker full of bleach. I'd like to think that idea came entirely from the imagination, but I worry that perhaps it was derived from an actual college campus party gone wrong (and still talked about).

All that said, even though the movie began on a strange beat for me, it migrated to horror at a nice rate and ended with a big fat rotten cherry on top.

Excellent film for Saturday night gatherings. Will go well with beer and pizza. If possible, watch with someone who failed their religious studies course.


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