Ceremony (1994)

Once Upon A Time, there were gingerbread castles built by capitalists for the express purpose of luring in movie fans and sucking all of their money out of their pockets. These castles were called "video rental stores" and they were located in the far away never never lands called Strip Malls. Within these video rental stores were rows and rows of shelves, covered in a thick layer of dried soda goo and dust which melded together to create a sticky amber carpet. When you picked a movie off of the shelf, there was an audible sucking sound as the plastic peeled away from the sugartape that had anchored it for months, sometimes years. If you decided you didn't want that movie, there was a perfect rectangular clean spot surrounded by a wall of gray lint, in which to replace the case. And more often than not, if you did rent the movie, you had to rewind it yourself when you got home because whoever had rented it previously never did, because they were Not Kind and did not Rewind. Those people go to Hell when they die and spend all eternity manually rewinding tapes with pencils.

There was - luckily for me - a video rental store right next door to my apartment when I was 18 and was finally allowed to rent R rated movies without a parent present. I worked my way through the horror movie section, and back then it was all dismal-budgeted DTV shit that would never see a DVD release and eventually disappeared into the same dimension where Ren & Stimpy found the
legendary mountain of missing left socks.

Okay, enough set up. Let's get to the point.

 

Ceremony

Year released: 1994
Directed by: Joe Castro
Starring: some girl, Uncle Forry, Freddy Krueger's mom and BoiledEggEyes McRamFace over there.

Synopsis: A million billion years ago, God got all pissy because one of His angels questioned his job title for one second and instead of learning how to accept constructive criticism, He banished her from Heaven forever and somehow she ended up getting imprisoned inside of a cheapshit grandfather clock which is slowly counting down the seconds until she'll be released to wreak havoc and a whole lotta other bad things. Some girl talks her religious study classmates into coming over to her house to confront the angel-turned-demon at the stroke of midnight and make sure she stays in the clock where she belongs. Oh, and some other freaky shit happens like Vampire Jesus, giant tequila worms, blue gargoyles, red boobs, green clovers, blue diamonds and fortified with 12 vitamins and minerals.

I rented this movie for the cover box. I didn't know what it was about and didn't care. It just looked cool. Unfortunately, the demon on the cover has about 3 minutes screen time total, has no dialogue and never gets to screw that chick in the red dress offered up in a circle of ceremonial candles. It's been over twenty years since I last saw this film, I can't find it online and I'm absolutely not going to waste $44.98 on a used VHS copy on amazon. I doubt this whole movie cost $44.98 to make, so fuck that.

I took some really shitty still shots from the trailer. Honestly, the one minute and 7 second long trailer

is as long as the whole movie should have been and features the best parts of the movie.

Forrest Ackerman, who would appear in any horror movie as long as he could wave his Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine around at some point, plays kindly grandpa in a wheelchair here, and he doesn't last long. A slo-mo dream sequence features him erupting like Mount Menstruation all over Virginal Granddaughter's white dress.

At some point, the One Annoying Girl who Freaks Out and threatens to ruin everything gets tied to a chair and left alone in the kitchen after the group has discussed how vitally important it is to stick together and not leave anyone by themselves. Fucking brilliant. She gets possessed by a giant worm which rams itself down her throat in a allegory for oral rape by mutant cock the likes of which hadn't been seen since John Hurt got face fucked by a giant clit in 1979. Or when Craig T. Nelson puked up a maggot with teeth in 1986. Take your pick.

I don't remember how this movie ends. I don't care. It ended and I took it back to the video rental store and rented something good. And despite the fact that it sucked, I rewound it. Because I am a better person than you are.