O Ritual

Attempting to visit an authentic Indian burial ground for research, a group of students partying away at the site run afoul of a demented killer looking to punish them for a past indiscretion and forcing them to fight him off to get out alive.

This here turned out to be quite a misguided effort, mainly because so much of it really doesn't gel together the way it is. The premise of turning a haunted burial ground into a slasher is quite novel and generates much of the positives toward this, but the fact that the killer is absolutely pathetic, generates no fear or suspense from his physical appearance since he's essentially a homeless person for all intents and purposes and runs around with a shotgun, not a true slasher weapon which relegates all the kills to gunshot wounds or merciless pounding with a foreign object, greatly reducing the gore quotient here that could've saved this. The constant drug use allows for a few freaky hallucinations from time-to-time but the vast majority of the time nothing substantial happens during the trip, rendering it quite curious as to why it was featured as it was and why there was a huge furor from the characters to include it, so overall this has way too many problems. Even more ridiculous is the animated talking sock puppet giving the lead advice, a tactic that tries to make this a comedy but fails miserably as it comes off as incredibly lame more than anything, and it really only has a few isolated individual moments where it approaches watchability to make this enticing.

Rated R: Continuous pervasive drug use, Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and Brief Nudity.

I am a returning student at Santa Barbara city college and I was given an extra credit assignment in my marketing 101 class to watch this film which was shot locally where I live. I thought that this movie was better then I expected it to be and it was interesting to see the the locations in which the movie was shot. I have been at many of these places. I think any time a movie is filmed in your home town, it gives you a sense of pride.

The target audience in which this film was intended for was very well chosen. If your going to market out to a specific audience in this town, one of the best one's to market out to is college students. I believe the producer had a very accurate depiction of the local college student life here in Santa Barbara/Goleta area. The movie touches on many areas of the crazy party life styles that is considered the norm around this area. It also touches on certain subjects like the Chumash Indians, and their past (very minimal info on them I agree), drug abuse, sex and the uncertain thoughts of college kids today and where they feel they belong.

Overall I choose to see this movie in a positive light. I have met both the Director and Writer,of the film (Peter Iliff) along with his life long friend Executive Producer and co-writer (Rick Halsey) who partnered up with him for the movie. Both of them are very different individuals and have different life goals, but it was good to see how they can come together with a common goal and make a movie.

To all the people who are angry about this movie, I sincerely believe you guys are misdirecting your anger these guys are in no way attempting to disrespect anyone in any way. Salud!

PS. If you want to reply to my post/review feel free to do so... ;) jcastenetto@gmail.com

What do you get when you add one stupid plot, a huge serving of terrible acting, a bit of sex, drugs, and violence, and a heaping dose of cultural insensitivity?

You get a terrible 2012 movie called 'The Rites of Passage'.

The story may seem like it's trying to be a scary movie, but there isn't really anything scary about it. You don't feel enough for the characters to really care about what happens to them.

You'd think a story about a bunch of horny kids and a couple of psychos out to kill them would make for a very entertaining slasher movie, but no. The execution was terrible. In fact, saying it was unimaginative and predictable is an understatement.

The acting in this movie range from decent to something awful, with the decent part coming from the veteran actors.

This movie makes women look bad and it glorifies sex and drug use at the expense of a certain Native American tribe. You can see it was a cheap attempt to lure people in, simple-minded people to be exact.

This really is painful to watch. The only reasons I could think of to watch this movie is:

1. To rip on it and 2. To learn how NOT to make a movie.

Aside from that: Turn around and walk away.

the notion that people would have issues "unrelated" to the themes portrayed in this movie is invalid. the very fact that this movie chose to capitalize and exploit native culture for a mere thrill factor is reason enough for some people to find it offensive and a poor representation of the native community. just because you got a couple of native people to get on board with the project in no means makes it OK nor does that small group represent first nations community of this country. and in this day and age when native Americans are being misrepresented and portrayed stereotypically left and right it's no surprise that this movie would once again portray native people in a stereotypical misrepresented manner. the problem is this American society that we live in doesn't find it necessary to really educate themselves about our culture or way of life unless it serves them in some way, i.e learning enough to make a believable thrasher film. because if this society did truly educate themselves they would acquire enough respect and dignity that they wouldn't exploit an already damaged culture that has been almost completely eradicated in the name of the American dream. but of course this film represents America, Hollywood, where nothing is sacred. everything is exploited for a buck and entertainment. so while you go ahead and exercise your rights at the expense of others, just remember why you chose to do it. not to educate people about a culture and a people, it was to entertain with blood murder, drugs and Indians.

THE FINAL RITES (aka RITES OF PASSAGE) is a very strange little movie. It involves a group of high school students who are being taught about esoteric Native American drugs by their slick teacher. One of the students has an elder brother who experiments with these narcotics, which turns him into a psychopath. Inevitably a group of the students go away for the weekend for a beach holiday and find themselves being menaced by all and sundry.

There's a definite sense here that the story was being made up as they went along. Certainly it seems to make little sense and by the end it's fallen apart entirely, so the "narrative" consists of characters killing each other off until only the final survivors are left. The first half of the film, which is the build up, is actually mildly enjoyable, so it's a pity that the it goes absolutely nowhere come the end.

Three famous faces are mixed up in this mess. Wes Bentley plays virtually the same likable loner/weirdo character as he did in American BEAUTY. Stephen Dorff shows up as a cool teacher who's down with the kids, and strips off to show his buff body when required. Then there's an almost unrecognisable Christian Slater, hilariously playing a demented psychopath who just wants to kill everybody. His interactions with a sock puppet bring to mind the PG Tips adverts in the UK starring Johnny Vegas and Monkey. It's all very silly and relatively bloodless, meaning there's not much here for the viewers.