[Tales From The Crypt Presents:Ritual]
Plot:Dr. Alice Dodgson gets her medical license revoked after the death of one patient. She's facing the possibility of not get any job when she accepts to be the nurse for one young man who suffers of cephallitis called Wesley Claybourne. Aside from the sickness he's suffering Wesley believes he has been "touched" by some voodoo cult. While she stays in Jamaica, Dr. Dodgson will feel uncomfortable as she discovers that voodoo is not only a "state of mind" and could be a real threat to her life and Wesley's. She'll have to discover why she and her patient are targets of the voodoo curse.

Cast:Jennifer Grey, Craig Sheffer, Daniel Lapaine, Kristen Wilson, Gabriel Casseus, Tim Curry, Dorothy Cunningham, Ron Taylor, Trevor Rhone, Carl Bradshaw, Jessica Collins, Randolph Winston Jones, Scott Getlin, Erick Avari, Kathy Owen.

My Thoughts:That voodoo that you don't do so well.

Review:Voodoo horror movies are a strange breed. Sometimes, you get a pleasant surprise like 2005's "Venom" and "The Skeleton Key". Other times, you get poor pieces of crap like 1995's "Voodoo" starring Corey Feldman. "Ritual", the third "Tales From The Crypt" movie, which was originally made and finished in 2001...but never saw the light of day anywhere until 2007, falls somewhere in between. For a "Tales From The Crypt" movie...it is certainly not on par with "Demon Knight" and "Bordello Of Blood". But as a voodoo-related horror film...it certainly does have it's history and backgrounds correct. Now if there was just something we could do about the CGI trees and ever-so-cliche voodoo ceremonies.

The film follows a female doctor named Alice Dodgson...who loses one of her patients, and now has put her license to practice medicine in jeopardy. In fact, it's been pulled altogether. Now she can no longer practice medicine in the states. Which of course doesn't apply to practicing medicine in Jamaica...which is exactly where she ends up when she gets a call from a rich islanders brother named Wesley, who believes he's been the victim of a voodoo curse which has been placed upon him. The question then becomes, who perfomed the curse, and why?

Like most voodoo horror films, "Ritual" follows the typical P's and Q's in it's story. There are no surprises here, and this film really doesn't seem to care that it just exposes every twist and turn early on before the moment comes. Hell, it flaunts it's predictability in a sad, pathetic manner. We get a cast of characters that if you're a die hard horror fan, you can pretty much make up a flow chart of who'll live, who'll die, and who's behind the voodooesque hijinx. Yeah....it's that predictable of a film. Voodoo as a practice is always creepy, which is the one thing this film gets right.

It really pushes that fact throughout the film, that voodoo when used for harmful purposes...can be a scary thing. I must say, the scenes in this movie involving "touched" people, the ceremonies, and the hallucination scenes are very realistically done. Except that the ceremonial moments are far too cliche, but like I said.....this movie is proud of it's cliches and sheer predictability. Voodoo ceremonies have made an appearance in almost every voodoo-related horror film I can think of. And as usual, they always end up going wrong and getting a bunch of people killed. In "Ritual", this rule is no different.

Which is why they're such an annoying steeple of this sub-genre. If you're looking for the token horror vet to appear in "Ritual", look no further than the great Tim Curry, who cameos in the movie. However, I won't give away his fate here. The deaths in the film, speaking of fates...are pretty trippy in the style that they're filmed in...and the acting which goes along with them. I must say, every character who died in this movie went far over the top to get us to believe they had been "voodooed" and were about to die because of it.

But "Ritual" for all of it's good points, just plays out way too obviously to be a top notch horror film. Upon arriving on the island, Alice goes to find her patient but meets up with a mysterious island woman who may or may not be behind the "cursing" that's taking place on the island. And as Alice gets too close to the truth, when attention to her hospice care is diverted by the mysterious deaths on the island...the person behind the voodoo deaths of course begins to target her, and anyone helping her to discover the truth.

The film just doesn't offer up anything new, nor any real surprises. Then there's the cgi trees which show up in the movie. For what reason? I don't know...and quite frankly, if Stephen King could create living corn stalks for his low budget cult classic "Children Of The Corn", without using CGI...then there's no reason why this film couldn't do the same with it's "possessed" tree vines. "Ritual" does manage to end on a decent note, but by the time the finale rolls around....you've had your share of voodoo-related hijinx, and just want the sheer predictableness of it all to just end already. "Ritual" gives a good effort at upping the ante in the voodoo-horror subgenre. It just needed a better writer quite frankly.

Positives:Some convincing performances by a few members of the cast. A decent story, Tim Curry cameoing.

Negatives:Too paint-by-numbers, which kills any potential plot twists or turns ahead of time.

Overall:Doesn't really measure up.





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