Ceremony (1994)

Admirable film.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The first must-see film of the year.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I found the movie terrifying and realistic. If anything, I'm not a religious individual. Even though the movie has much of it, the supernatural parts is what caught my attention the most. The whole setup was realistic. I've seen a lot worse movies. I give this a 5 because I believe it deserves at least that much credit. If you want to get scared, I recommend watching this because it is quite realistic and suspiciously, makes you wonder if something like this either happened or could actually occur. Not many movies are made up like this. In a way, it has it's own glow like the movie "Dead Meat" which is a zombie horror film. It's not the average zombie movie you've seen in theaters.

This stupid, stupid religious horror film starts out with an arbitrary premise and goes precipitously downhill from there. Evidently there is some sort of demon that has been held captive for thousands of years, and for some unexplained reason it is set loose every thousand years. To stretch its legs, I suppose. One girl gathers together a bunch of devout college age believers to witness the demon and prevent its escape, and what we get is a ludicrous mess of a movie that does no justice to the enticing cover box, which should qualify as false advertisement.Let me tell you a little secret about that demon on the cover box, by the way. It is by leaps and bounds the most interesting thing that the movie has going for it, and it is literally on screen for less than one second. That should give you an idea of the intelligence level of the movie.I made the mistake of watching this disaster two days after watching The Passion of the Christ, arguably one of the most powerful religious films ever made, so when I saw Jesus with fangs in this movie I almost fell over backwards at the sheer, overwhelming dumbness of it all. Even without the fangs the guy who plays Jesus looked like some slob that got up off his couch just long enough to put on some sheets and make a pathetic attempt to play Jesus. This guy blew it that badly and he was only playing Jesus in some girl's nightmare. Then again, he fits right in with the rest of the actors, who deliver some staggeringly bad performances.One IMDb user makes the astounding claim that this movie is beautiful, then goes on to suggest that the acting is not as bad as other reviewers claim. Well, in that regard he's right.It's worse.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*So there was this big, horned demon on the video box. It was singing to me and begging me to watch it: "Come closer sucker. Won't you rent the scary demon movie?" I was helpless in its gaze. Deer in the headlights. Direct hit.I watched it and was ripped off. Again. These horror movies have got the art of the video box down to a science. Too bad the movie making part still eludes some. This movie is a complete yawner. I thought they were saving their money to show us something somewhat exciting near the end. What a joke. It started with nothing and ended with nothing. It was a renter too so I couldn't even bash it to pieces to get some satisfaction. Dang.

"The Ceremony" is nothing less than the cinematic adaptation of the wet sludge that pools as the bottom of landfill. Don't be fooled by the great looking screen grabs on the back of the box; the makers of "The Ceremony" apparently shot the fist four minutes on 35mm, then shot the rest of the film on 3/4" U-matic video... with a $10 Radio Shack microphone... that they probably stole. The "demon-angel" that is released into the world looks like an octogenarian that escaped from an nursing home who just wandered onto a film set. I will never get back the precious minutes spent watching college students blunder around a 2,000 square foot home like it was the Biltmore estate, lost in the dark and unable to accomplish the simple act of opening a door. It's a pitiful attempt. Not even fun-bad... not even bad-bad... just pitiful.