O Ritual do Livro Vermelho

I'm shocked at how badly this movie is rated. Like most anthologies I've seen, the framing narrative is the weakest part. The individual stories are great looking and genuinely tense. The production value is higher than most low budget horror we watch.

Bea is apparently newish in town and has made a couple of friends who tell her a creepy story about her new house and suggest playing "the red book game". It's a kind of divination game and I'll admit we are totally going to try it because it looks fun. The book directs them to read it, resulting in several short stories that are completely unrelated to each other. Some are stronger than others as you might expect. The framing narrative is a let down but I rarely see an anthology where it isn't.

Side rant, the guy is supposedly 27, looks 40 and shouldn't be hanging out with teenaged girls anyway. I wasn't rooting for him to survive.

We watch a lot of bad horror movies, it's our hobby, so maybe our bar is really low for what makes a decent movie? This one isn't bad by any means and we really liked a couple of the shorts. It's not fast paced, it is aesthetically nice, it had some moments that made us squirm.

If I see one more lousy horror movie in 2022, I am going to move to New Zealand and raise potatoes. What an original plot! A group of morons go to a haunted house and perform a moronic ritual. The other 1000 films of this genre are also pretty horrific, but not in a good way. For every good horror movie, there are at least 100 that are pure crap. This is one of the crappy majority. Every line of dialogue and every scene is predictable. The only original thing in the film is the location of the bathroom, which I am sure was wll-utilized by the cast after severe drinking bouts. I saw this turkey for free, but you can't. So save your money.

I have to admit that I was initially lured into watching the 2022 horror movie "The Red Book Ritual" given the movie's cover and its title. Sure, I hadn't even heard about this movie from writers Ariel Luque and Daniel J. Phillips prior to sitting down to watch it.

However, I must say that "The Red Book Ritual" fell short of entertaining movie. The storyline was just too much of a scrambled and incoherent mess. So it was difficult to get submerged into the movie here. And even more so since the storyline was all over the place, and never felt like anything that was brought out on the screen ever got to be completed or brought full circle.

The acting performances in "The Red Book Ritual" were adequate. It was just a shame that the actors and actresses had so little to work with in terms of a properly written script and storyline. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in this movie, and that is usually something I enjoy when watching movies, but given the subpar script here, then I just found little enjoyment as the movie trotted on.

Visually then "The Red Book Ritual" was an adequate movie. However, the special effects just could do only so much to lift up an otherwise poorly written storyline.

If you enjoy horror movies, like I do obviously, then do yourself a favor and stay clear of directors Chris Beyrooty, Dean Law and Ariel Luque's 2022 horror movie.

My rating of "The Red Book Ritual" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

I say it all the time,but this one REALLY takes the cake because instead of ONE dumb movie,we have one dumb movie with three (four? Five?) dumb stories within it,just compounding the stupid and nonsensical. None of these stories had a beginning,we just get dumped confusingly in the middle of something,and most didn't even have an proper end. They just happened with no rhyme or reason given,including the "main" story of the witch. Just unremarkable recitations. Characters weren't fully developed into people you cared about-only character you worried about was the little brother because he was a kid in his pjs....he didn't ask to open the gates to hell. Overall just jumbled,inconsistent, and unexplained. The crap movie trifecta. I can't unsee this,bit it's not too late for you. Save yourself!

The appealing artwork on this makes it a bit of a letdown. To cut to the chase, this cannot be compared in the same class as some of the good or great anthology offerings. (It's no V/H/S, Creepshow, Tales of Halloween, Tales from the Darkside, Trick R Treat, or Cat's Eye- just to name a few). It's a random collection of amateur-acted horror shorts to walk through if you seek these out (horror film festival grade). That doesn't mean all the content is bad- a couple or few of the shorts are pretty decent, but most of them have no closure (and lack adequate cohesion to be a "short story"). One happens to be dubbed quite poorly over Korean actors (especially the young girl.. oof!). The synth track overlaying the last short caught my attention several times in a good way; it was probably the best entry (imo). Prepare for some daring nudity in the first short. My rating may be generous, but I'm a seeker.