This is the movie that will help prove once and for all that the found footage format is not a gimmick. Gimmick is the word they have used for 25 years since The Blair Witch Project uprooted indie cinema. That attitude ignored previous horror classics that used the same faux-documentary format, most notably 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust. The gimmick rejection also ignored the horror literary tradition found footage follows back 100 years to the age of Lovecraft. Lynch uses the same methods Lovecraft used to terrify the planet by presenting documents and journal accounts to build up an amorphous mass of ghastliness. While examining all the evidence, you don’t notice that you are slowly being boiled alive until everything is presented and the sums are added up.
I also have to applaud Lynch’s restraint from going full-blown comedy with material that almost screams for laughs. The dedication to playing it seriously results in a lot of truly sickening revelations that will wrap around your nerves like an invisible film of slime. This unsettling feeling of encroaching dread is the core of the best horror, a sensation that packs more revulsion than all the jump scares in the world. This is the level of explosive that Lynch is playing with. The Ceremony Is About To Begin ain’t no gimmick, believe me.
“The amount of world-building Lynch achieves in the first 10 minutes is astronomical.”
The amount of world-building Lynch achieves in the first 10 minutes is astronomical. The slick look of the faux documentary Laird is making could have easily jumped into your lap from Netflix, with a lot of curiosity built over the pyramid power mysticism that Delarosa immerses his followers in. When the Anubis character shows up, Lynch starts the ominous synth music with image after image of Hinds wearing Jim Jones-like sunglasses to get the cult dread feel across.
Yes, like many found footage films, this is a slow burn, almost at times too slow in the middle during the Anubis interview. However, what lays at the end of the fuse is a big-time terror jamboree, enough to satisfy the most hardened horror hound. In fact, you get a triple-decker fright finale with extra eyeballs smeared all over it. I am also obsessed with the Egyptian-themed cult compound in the film. Was this painstakingly built by the crew, or was this a leftover hippie house from the day that they built the cult concept around? Lynch also masterfully works the expectations set up by real cult documentaries to keep the viewer going until all Hell breaks loose. The Ceremony Is About To Begin is an indie horror powerhouse with the kind of sick moves that will leave your eyes bloodshot.
"…uses the same methods Lovecraft used to terrify the planet..."
