Rites of Passage (2012)

While most of these reviewers are critiquing Rites of Passage as a possible award winning film, I will review it from the point of view of a casual movie watcher. I enjoyed watching this film because it was fast paced and kept my attention the whole time. I also liked the fact that it was filmed entirely in Isla Vista. I grew up in the area so it is cool to see a movie that was filmed there. The movie is marketed towards the college audience with its main themes of sex, drugs, and partying. Though some people may say that the movie is demeaning to native American women, I think that it made the movie more interesting. Movie directors put their own twist on historical events and shouldn't be critiqued because of it. I am Asian American and there have been plenty of demeaning movies about Asian culture but I have no problem with it. This is the kind of movie that should be watched for pure entertainment without any preconception of native American culture. It is one of those movies that you invite some friends over to watch while eating some popcorn. Overall, I enjoyed the movie but I couldn't fully relate because I have never taken any psychedelic drugs. The whole movie revolves around the characters in paranoia and can be related by people who have taken similar drugs.

On my binary scale of Yea or Nay (ie 10 or 1) I give this flick a Yea meaning I didn't have to fast forward through any of it. Of course that doesn't mean you will like it. Maybe you hate it as many other reviewers seem to. Somebody said there's no likable characters. I didn't find that at all. The kids are all really nice, ordinary student types. I've been around University life for forty years. I can see normal when I see it. In fact, unlike most of these types of movies, I felt bad when so many of them got murdered. I really did. Of course the protagonist kid is a dweeb alright but so what? Aren't we all? In the old days we all would have been cheering at the end when he came through and did his thing. The evildoers are a couple of real rat bastards. I hated them thoroughly. Christian Slater did such a good job as a slimy rat psycho that I think I'll never be able to see him as a hero type again. Good character acting. I really dug the monkey too. That was great. The other psycho is such a putrid punk I was yelling at the monitor when he was doing his disgusting rat psycho stuff.

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.

By the looks of the previews, I expected this film to be like every other horror film out there. It actually was a lot better than I expected. Some moments kind of seemed strange to me, but the whole story tied in together well. There was really no loose ends or confusion. Not scary or anything like that, but pretty humorous and there were parts where I gasped or grew anxious. Also, the story takes place here in Santa Barbara and he really captured the way the town really is, especially in Isla Vista. I found that very interesting. For the movie being shot with such a low budget and with a single camera, Peter Illif gets a lot of credit for making this movie fairly descent and also for grabbing actors such as Wes Bentley and Christian Slater. My attention was captured a lot more than I thought it would be. I would recommend watching it if you are from the Santa Barbara area or are between 17-30.