Apparently Netflix has the re-release of this film where you don't get the added segments with the Crypt Kepper. That's probably okay because they put a dreadlock wig on him and he probably made semi-racist puns. That's if we're going with the original cannon from the EC comics where the Crypt Keeper was just a weathered white guy and the HBO puppet is just him continued. I think I accidentally just started writing Crypt Keeper fanfic...
So Ritual is actual a remake of the 1943 film I Walked With a Zombie. I have no knowledge of the original so I can't draw comparisons, and most of these films I start watching at midnight, so fuck all if you think I'm going to double feature any of these. Unless I would have rolled (Tales From the Crypt) Demon Night. Then I would probably watch it twice as that movie was pretty good back in the day.
But our heroine is Ferris Bueller's sister. She loses her medical license for two years for trying to save a child's life with lies... LIES!!!!... to use a special medicine. The child died. A#1 doctor all time U.S.A! So in turn goes to Jamaica where every person of color is a stereotype of some sort and all the white people are super scummy. Including Tim Curry who continues his run of "hey! Tim Curry is in this!" films by playing a vet that loves the "pom pom." It's not hard to tell they mean pussy. I'm sure Tim Curry slept with everyone there. Have you seen him sing in the Worst Witch!? Spooky! SCARY! Get your pants off!
She comes to be the doctor of a sick (actually crossed) brother. His illness is caused by his brother working with the darker magick vodou community there to keep him from being able to legally make decisions. There's a huge web of people in this shit show that are attempting to make a profit through what appears to be the gentrification of Jamaica? I'm not sure but it seems shady.
Supposedly the vodou stuff that they pull from is from the book The Serpent and the Rainbow (also a film), which is a pretty decent source. I still feel though that some liberties were taken to make certain things seem more dramatic and that was kind of annoying. I did at least like that they separated traditional vodou with healing and blessing aspects from the darker practices that tend to be done by those less than respectable practitioners. Jamaica was a random location though but maybe they didn't want to go with the obvious of Haiti and it is a Caribbean area religion.
Eventually it comes down to a bunch of bad CGI, zombie powder, and the woman Ferris's sister was closest with being the "evil" vodou priestess. The day gets saved, Ferris's sister marries the now "cured" brother, the other brother is dead, and the last shot is of the now zombified priestess in a wedding dress on a bed about to be sexually assaulted by the head police guy. Fuck them for including that gross shot. It's not funny, it's not some fucking warning, it's fucking gross!
For that shot alone I instantly give this film 0 copies of The Serpent and the Rainbow out of 5. The film itself was skating a one the whole time anyway:
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