Rites of Spring

If Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) and The Creeper (Jeepers Creepers) were to have a baby, Wormface would be the result. It's a low-budget slasher/creature movie that didn't knock my socks off, but didn't leave me gagging either...Well, not too much.

If you're not too anal retentive about your horror movies, the film in itself is not as bad as the others I've seen where I wanted to pour bleach in my eyes after seeing the first 5 minutes, sometimes less. You just have to understand that this movie is not up to par with the great horror classics. It's unoriginal, cliché-ridden and there are numerous flaws as you go along.

However, the actors are good and the cinematography is not bad either. Their shots of the corn field reminded me of Husk, which is an excellent film, by the way. The ending would probably leave you scratching your head, thinking WTF just happened. There are some loose ends left in the story that attempted to add some mystery, but failed.

In short, it's like an appetizer film that would be good to watch on a lazy night. It's watchable, if your expectations are not that high.

Current IMDb-score on this is 4.6. Now, this is maybe not the greatest movie ever, but it is not that bad.

I saw this at Frightfest Glasgow some years ago, and I thought it wasn't too shabby. Now, my score might be a little high because I saw it at a film festival, and that leaves a different impression than seeing it at home. (Maybe I'll yank it down a star, later some time)

Rites of Spring is like two movies in one. Kind of. I knew very little of it beforehand, which is a good thing, and it kept me guessing for a while.

I seem to remember the gore being pretty decent, not that it was that much of it, but it was good.

Didn't scare me, but kept me entertained.

This film reminded me of "From Dusk Til Dawn" in that it had two different stories - one a crime drama and the other a supernatural horror. However, it failed to reach an interesting level in either category. Simply put, it was weakly executed.

Either story would have been OK on its own as a TV movie, and a decent film if pulled off correctly - but, alas, they both left much to be desired. The crime drama had a weak plot, not too believable or well thought out, and the horror was not horrifying nor was it gory. Nothing about this movie will keep you up at night, unless you're a film producer wondering how these people were approved and given a budget of more than $5. The monster is laughable, and the ending was rushed and truly half-cheek.

Low budget slasher, that copies most of it's ideas from Jeepers creepers 1 & 2.

It takes at least 20 minutes to even get going (and by that I mean for something.. hell anything interesting to happen!) I watched this film because of the reviews on IMDb which said said the gore was cool.. Where? when? Two badly done fake blood splatters and one comical rubber finger slice later any hope I had Rites of Spring being any better than a bad student film project left.

Better films (..as in the plot, acting or effects) in this genre are..

Husk [2011] Triangle [2009] Summers Blood [2009] The Collector [2009] Amusement [2008} Kill Theory [2009].. If you haven't seen one those films I suggest you do over Rites of Spring.

Even the ending sucked big time.

Avoid!

Two girls are kidnapped in the parking lot of a bar by unknown assailants. They are taken to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and strung up as sacrifice to a local deity that comes out in the spring. One escapes, stumbling onto a group of kidnappers right in the middle of a ransom plot gone wrong, and about to be made worse when a large, ugly beast out of a Party City costume log comes after them.

"Rites of Spring" is your definitive mediocre, boring slasher trying to be an homage to classic seventies horror. It's not bad, and those that say it is bad clearly haven't ever seen the films this is trying to remake. No horror slasher is good. Some are simply more exciting than others. This is not one of those films.

Our heroes are nonplussed actors who are not very good at what they do. But they represent the film in that they are not bad. Perhaps it is because the script has about as much life as a decorative plastic rock made to cover up blemishes in one's lawn. It's not ever particularly interesting. But it's not bad.

"Rites of Spring" is not a bad film. But it's not a good one.