Rites of Passage

While this movie is no award winning film, it does seem to get audiences attention. From beginning to end the film keeps a fast and thrilling pace, which help my attention. I was lucky enough to hear the directors speak in person, so I consider my self a little bias after really liking then men who made the film. In terms of the actual quality of the movie I think it was a fairly good movie. Definitely marketed towards a younger crowd. Includes a lot of sex, drugs, and partying so if your are into that you will find this movie entertaining. Also, the film includes a lot of blood and murder, so if you like funny thrillers it is the film for you. Would I buy a copy to own? Probably not. But it was enjoyable to watch since it was filmed in Isla Vista, where I currently live. All in all Rites of Passage is a goofy thriller good for a night in with popcorn, and a few laughs.

"Grandmother Malloy I've come to beg for your roots. I promise to do you no harm. I need to borrow your magic for tonight." After an anthropology student decides to take a few of his classmates to a family ranch in order to do a mock ritual for extra credit they get more then they expect. His brother seeing this as a chance to get revenge for his family decides to make the ritual a real thing. So going in I was thinking this was going to be decent. While I was not totally wrong it could have been way better. The beginning was actually pretty entertaining and a little funny. The longer it went on though the more it started to drag and I was just interested enough to want to find out what happened. What started off as an interesting idea devolved into the kids in an abandoned area start getting killed off one by one type movie. While this is not a terrible movie this is still just OK. Overall, a fun and entertaining beginning gives way to a formulaic ending that isn't as fun. I give it a C+.

Rites of Passage is a flawed piece of filmmaking about a college dweeb trying to prove his manhood to his peers by dragging two van loads of his peers plus a professor (played by Stephen Dorff in a nothing role) out on a field trip to his family home in order to observe ancient Indian land on his property and take ancient Indian hallucinogens.

In the meantime, his disturbed brother (Wes Bentley) is almost as obsessed with finding a woman as he is with Native American history. He, along with his deranged, grieving grounds keeper (Christian Slater), have been cooking, using, and selling the hallucinogenic flowers as well. Of course, it's bad news when these two unstable characters run up against a bunch of pretty young students, especially when a tragic coincidence turns out to link them in an unexpected way.

The short review of this movie is that it sucks. Essentially, it's just an overcomplicated dead teenager movie with an above average cast. In one of the few highlights of the movie, scream queen Brianna Evigan pops up in a smallish part and spends most of her screen time in her underwear. In fact, most of the actresses are either in their underwear or bikinis for most of the movie but there's no actual nudity. Not much gore, either. And the characters aren't remotely likable so this is the sort of movie where you're hoping for everyone to die but disappointed when the death scenes are generic, mostly bloodless and generally forgettable.

Rites of Passage is all over the place, silly, and kind of pointless. It's not really an anti drug movie, it's not hardly scary, and it's not often funny. The only entertainment value comes from Christian Slater's crazy, over-the-top acting as he scrambles around waving a shotgun, muttering to himself, and hallucinating. Basically, imagine Tucker and Dale vs. Evil made without any of the wit.

It starts with the poster being misleading I was hoping the movie would be cool like the poster. The poster is actually way better than the movie.

The movie is supposed to be about Native American stuff, however if you blink you will miss the parts that have actual Native Actors. This film reinforces some dangerous ideas about recreational use herbs as hallucinogenic drugs, Cultural Stereotypes about Native people and the objectification of women.

Native woman are 3x more likely to be raped than other groups. This movie glamorizes the abduction and assault of Native American women which is totally inexcusable as a substitute for entertainment.

This movie actually sucks to the max. The acting is shoddy and its a terrible misuse of Stephen Dorff's talent (which is huge) I am really bummed he was in this turkey. Nobody in this movie is even Chumash and they managed to P' off an entire tribe of Native Americans for this tomato of a film. Nice one, jerks.

DON'T SEE IT!! Save the popcorn for a better occasion.

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.