Panic Fest Film Festival Coverage
The Ceremony Is About to Begin review.
The documentary/found footage format provides a familiar road to somewhere new.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Ceremony Is About to Begin
Directed by Sean Nichols Lynch
Written by Chad Westbrook Hinds, John Laird and Sean Nichols Lynch
Starring Chad Westbrook Hinds, John Laird
The Ceremony Is About to Begin Review
I’ll try to make the usual preface about found footage movies short this time around. Yes, there are a lot of found footage horror movies. That is because they are cost effective for independent production. No, they are not all shaky cameras and screaming in the darkness (though some of the best ones are). In fact, the format has been used to fascinating effect as seen in movies like Late Night with the Devil and Horror in the High Desert. The former presents a lost episode of a talk show. The latter is like an episode of Unsolved Mysteries that uses found footage in place of reenactments. There are plenty of ways to do found footage well. And yes…I know that none of this is going to change your opinion.
The Ceremony Is About to Begin uses the format to show a documentary that goes off the rails. It will feel familiar to people who aren’t turned off by the found footage craze. The success of these ventures is often linked to two things. How believable the work is in what the footage is purported to be about…and how strong the ending is after the format breaks down into madness. Late Night with the Devil excels at both things. The Ceremony Is About to Begin does a bit better with the second part than the first.
Keith (John Laird) is investigating a strange Egyptian obsessed cult that an ex-girlfriend was supposedly a part of. He heads to the commune to interview their leader, Anubis (Chad Westbrook Hinds). When he arrives, he finds an empty compound. Empty…save for Anubis. Keith interviews Anubis…waiting for the right moment to inquire about his ex. Needless to say, things start to get weird.
Laird and Hinds do a good job keeping the conversations lively. Anubis is charismatic and you can see him start to turn the tables on Keith from time to time. It never feels as dangerous as you’d think. As if the movie is lulling you into believing that the story here is a non-story. We see testimonials from people who left the cult in 2018…not long after Anubis joined. He became leader under mysterious circumstances…which raises an immediate red flag. The fact that we can see so many former members got out, however, opens the door to the possibility that this is just a story of a cult leader without a flock.
It isn’t until Keith pushes for information about his ex (Maddy) that things begin to change. The more Anubis talks…the clearer it becomes that The Ceremony Is About to Begin is hiding something from us. Brevity benefits the first two acts of the story. The entire second act is, essentially, two people chatting about the history of the group, what happened to the former leader…and a bit of Anubis breaking through with Keith about his own issues. If this was a two-hour movie…they’d have had trouble maintaining viewer’s attention. As The Ceremony Is About to Begin only runs for 70 minutes in total, however, it can cruise by on the work of the two leads for a while.
Then we reach the third act. The final act of found footage movies are by far the most important. Even if the central concept isn’t the most compelling…what happens when all Hell breaks loose can leave a positive lasting impression. The first two acts of The Ceremony Is About to Begin aren’t bad. It’s familiar territory that doesn’t take a lot of risks. The third act is great. It gives us something new. Something befitting the story of the cult. It does, in fact, feature some of those shaky cameras and screaming in the dark moments. They feel like a nice change of pace after the extended conversations in the documentary. They also lead to something genuinely fun. Funny too…in a way that must have been intentional. The Ceremony Is About to Begin saves its best ideas for last and leaves that positive, lasting image with you.
Look, nothing I ever say about these movies is going to change your mind about the found footage format. That ship sailed long ago. No matter how many times a Deadstream or The Outwaters pushes the genre forward…you were either in or out before they called action. The Ceremony Is About to Begin doesn’t reinvent the wheel like those movies. It understands the benefits of the format and uses them to its advantage. While the first two acts may not be compelling enough on their own to carry a recommendation…they lead to a fun finale that is worth the (thankfully short) wait.
Scare Value
The Ceremony Is About to Begin will feel familiar to anyone who has dabbled in the format before. That’s not a bad thing. What matters is where the road paved by many before is leading us this time. A short 70 minutes with a unique final act…it’s a road worth taking. Just be careful who you choose to travel with.
