Ritual (2002)

 Ritual (2002)

Sometimes I wonder, why the hell I watch such terrible films, don't get me wrong, I do like most of what I review, but once in a while I come across something that is such a load of shit that I wish I could bury it in the sand like a cat when it finished taking a nasty dump.  That is the case with Ritual from 2002, AKA Tales From The Crypt Presents: Ritual.   This film is based on the 1943 film I Walked With A Zombie, and honestly go watch that instead of wasting your time on this crap.  So the film is about a doctor who has her license to practice medicine in New York suspended for 2 years, in the meantime she takes a job in Jamaica working for a wealthy white plantation owners.  Paul Claybourne hires Alice to be his brother Wesley's personal doctor.  He has contracted a mysterious disease, and he thinks that he is a zombie.  She tries to discover the truth behind his mysterious disease, she his helped and hindered by various people on the island as she discovers that there is more than meets the eye, and discovers that secret behind Wesley's illness is tied to the fact that his brother wants to sell the land and move off the island, and various locals will get rich from this land sale, but Wesley would never sell the land.  

Ritual was directed and co-written by Avi Nesher, Rob Cohen was the other writer on the screenplay for the film.  The film was loosely based on the 1943 film I Walk With A Zombie.  Ritual was produced by Dimension Films and Silver Pictures, and distributed by RKO Pictures (yes the same RKO that brought us King Kong back in the day).  The film was released theatrically in 2002 internationally, however was not seen in the USA until 2006 when it was released direct to home video.   The film is the third film in the Tales From The Crypt film franchise, which also included Demon Knight (1995) and Bordello Of Blood (1996), the films were inspired by the popular Tales From The Crypt television series aired on HBO.   The film is also from the same producers that brought us the terrible House Of Wax remake, and the absolutely terrible film Gothika, so with that as a sales point this film promises to be absolute garbage, and on that it delivers. 

Ritual stars Jennifer Grey (who might be best known as Ferris Bueller's sister in Ferris Bueller's Day Off) as Dr. Alice Dodgson, Craig Sheffer (who might be best known as Keith in One Tree Hill, or from the film Fright Night) as Paul Claybourne, Daniel Lapaine as Wesley Claybourne, Kristen Wilson as Caro Lamb, Gabriel Casseus as J.B., Tim Curry as Matthew Hope, Ron Taylor as Superintendent Archbald, Erick Avari as Dr. Peter Winsford, Dorothy Cunningham as Violette, Kathy Owen as Dr. Shaba, Jessica Collins as Jackie, Stephen Tobolowsky as Dr. Javitz, Natasha Budhi as Dori, and John Kassir as The Crypt Keeper.   I honestly don't think that the actors are bad actors, what I think is that they have the director is completely inept at directing, and that the writing is just embarrassingly bad, so even a good actor like Tim Curry can't fix this train wreck. 

So what is so bad about this film you might be asking yourself?  Oh boy, where do I even begin.  Maybe the racist elements that mock Jamaican people (especially by the Crypt Keeper with his "deadlocks", it is honestly unwatchable).  Then there is the exploitative element of the film, I mean if it wants to be a porn film, then it should be a porn film, it would be much better as a porn film rather than whatever this was.  The film loves to show its female characters either naked or very scantily clad.  The plot has potential, if it was written or directed by anyone with a shred of competency, even the highly sexualized nature of the film COULD actually work if again the filmmakers had even a shred of competency.   The film quality looks really poorly made, like something you might see on late night cable TV, a weak attempt at a horror film, as a poor excuse to show "T&A" (tits and ass), which again could actually work IF the filmmakers were competent.  This film just comes off as a cheap amateurish film, which one might expect from a first time film director, but this is definitely not Avi Nesher's first film.  Really if you haven't seen this film, do yourself a favour and don't change that, matter of fact actively avoid this film, it is toxic waste that should never have been made. If you come across a copy of this film, hide it so no poor fool accidently buys it.  This is not the worst film that I have ever seen, but it isn't far off from it.