Rites of Spring (2012)

Very well executed

Too much of everything

As Good As It Gets

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Not terrible, actually the 35-40 minutes are pretty interesting and fairly creepy during the horror portions and tense during the crime portions. I have to take serious mark down for having a weak ending (that I think was really meant to imitate Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and some logic issues about how the scenes with the kidnapper in the barn plays out. (Everyone is that close to him, he's assaulting a friend, but no one tries to kick/shove him off? Then he goes down and a dude twice his size doesn't take the opportunity to beat his ass? C'mon now.) That said, it's as fairly solid effort with good atmosphere and is well shot. Worth a view on Netflix or whatnot.

RITES OF SPRINGThis film is not great, but not bad either.The main thing I like about this film is the way that there are 2 stories and they don't connect themselves until the second half of the film. The first story is a crime thriller. A group of people break into a wealthy families house and kidnaps their daughter for ransom, but in doing so they murder his wife and also takes the nanny. Whilst hiding out in an abandoned school they have no idea what is yet to come. The second story that is going on is about an old man who kidnaps women and tortures them and feeds them to this creature that he has hidden down in the cellar or him barn.The 2 stories don't collide until later on in the film and I thought this was a nice touch. I enjoyed flicking from one story to the next. It made me wonder how this was going to get connected and it was really well done.The crime story was really harsh and at times I though was a bit brutal, but it all made it better. You did actually start to hate these guys. The horror side of the story was OKish. Nothing really original. We have seen kidnap/torture/monster films like this before numerous times. The deaths and gore were OK, but felt watered down a bit. It would have made it better if we had seen more.When the 2 stories do get together, it was quite well done... but not very realistic. The reaction that the criminals in the school had made me laugh. There is no way these hardened criminals would have reacted the way that they did.The acting was bad! Nobody really did a good job with this. I am fully understanding why these guys have not made it to the big time yet. But they have got further than me so I can't really say too much. haha The movie stars A. J. Bowen, Anessa Ramsey, Sonny Marinelli, Katherine Randolph and James Bartz. They were just not very convincing... they were acting like they belonged in Prisoner Cell Block H or something. Poor.The ending was very disappointing. It felt like there wasn't much build up.. no suspense. It kind of just ended. When the credits started to roll I looked at my partner and said to her "Was that it?". I honestly thought that could have been stretched out a little bit more.The story was good and in general the film was OK, but more originality is what is needed these days in the horror genre... and of course better actors. Not a bad effort though.I will give this film 6 out of 10."Promise me you'll never leave me"For more reviews, please like my Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ordinary-Person-Movie- Reviews/456572047728204?ref=hl

Someone kidnaps two girls leaving a bar and hangs them from the wrists in a barn.Two guys and a girl plan some type of crime. One guy is the mastermind and he seems pretty nasty. The other guy is reluctant and seems nice. The girl is the nice guy's girlfriend but she seems to be up to something. Part of the plan is the nice guy's brother. Then they carry out their crime. The two guys enter a mansion, kidnap a little girl, kill the mother and tell the father to come up with money for the life of the girl. They also take the babysitter who saw the nasty guy's face in a scuffle.Back to the barn where the crazy guy washes a girl, asks her if she's pure, puts a cow paper mache head on her and drags her away. The other girl frees herself, finds her friend, but when she removes the mask finds no head. There is also some creature in the barns cellar that escapes. The crazy guy gives this creature offerings of blood. When the creature goes after the girl she starts running.Meanwhile the criminals meet at some abandoned school building. But there's a surprise. The rich guy is no dummy and surprised the brother with a weapon and now he too arrives at the meeting place. But there's yet another surprise. Plus at this point when people start shooting at each other, the escaped barn girl with the creature in tow ends up...at the school building as well. So the shootout between the robbers and the rich guy gets interrupted by the creature that's killing everyone with some sort of knife.Rites of Spring is interesting in that it offers these two seemingly unconnected stories. Both of them are interesting in their own right. And it manages to connect them fairly well. The story of the crazy farmer is intriguing. It's not entirely clear what he's offering the girls to. We don't get to learn much about the creature either. Overall, a strong and different horror movie that also has a neat ending.

Now in my headlining title I said "Not bad for a B-movie" But I really don't know what a B-movie is anymore with all the garbage that is in the theatres these days, they is far more worse being released than this film.I think this movie has merit as far as this type of genre goes. The acting is very well done, yes the film is clichéd to death and has a reminiscence of From Dusk Till Dawn, in a small way. But what I mean by this statement is that we have the classic storyline of a guy loosing his job and decides to take the big bosses child for ransom, and this whole ordeal is botched by the people involved it doesn't go so well in the end. Well at the end of the film you will understand what I mean by me saying expected and unexpected avenues....Then we also have the storyline of some hick living out in the middle of nowhere which leads us to both story lines converging into one another.Not bad cinematography at all for the money they had for this small production, the acting was above par with a little bit of twists and turns.I enjoyed watching this film it wasn't that bad as far as these types of films go. I definitely think it is worth a watch and deserves a look, compared to all the remakes and reboots in the theatres's these days it's a good little flick