There are bad movies, and then there are movies that feel like they crawled out of a shallow grave after being buried by accident in the early 90s, dusted off, and force-fed through your DVD player. Ritual is that kind of movie. It’s a remake of I Walked With a Zombie (1943), which was already a weird little number, but at least that film had atmosphere, shadows, and a pulse. This remake? It’s a sunburn in Jamaica, a cheap bottle of rum, and the sensation that your brain is rotting faster than the supposed zombies onscreen.
Yes, technically it’s a “horror” movie. But calling Ritual horror is like calling mayonnaise spicy—it’s inaccurate and offensive. It was shot in Jamaica, probably because tax breaks are cheaper than building sets, and it stars Jennifer Grey, Craig Sheffer, and Tim Curry, who clearly said “yes” to this role for reasons that must involve gambling debts or a voodoo curse of his own.
And if all that wasn’t bad enough, someone thought it would be fun to slap a Crypt Keeper intro on the U.S. DVD release to trick unsuspecting horror fans into believing this was a Tales from the Crypt spinoff. That’s like gluing a Ferrari hood ornament onto a busted tricycle and charging full price.
The Crypt Keeper Smokes a Fatty
Before the film even begins, we’re treated to the Crypt Keeper, decked out in fake dreadlocks, making jokes about “eye-popping honeys” in bikinis. That sound you hear is every Jamaican rolling their eyes in unison. It’s not clever, it’s not funny, and it’s not scary—it’s the comedy equivalent of watching your uncle tell a racist joke at a barbecue and waiting for the silence to kick in.
But it sets the tone, doesn’t it? Because what follows is equally tone-deaf, equally baffling, and equally devoid of quality.
Jennifer Grey vs. Voodoo
So Jennifer Grey plays Dr. Alice Dodgson, who’s been canned from her hospital gig because she accidentally killed a patient. The hospital didn’t like that, apparently. With her options limited, she takes a job in Jamaica caring for Wesley Claybourne (Daniel Lapaine), a guy who looks more like a frat boy on spring break than someone on the brink of death.
Alice quickly falls for him, because of course she does—this is a horror remake from the early 2000s. Female leads weren’t allowed to not swoon over their patients. Meanwhile, she begins to suspect that voodoo is involved in Wesley’s mysterious condition, because whenever something strange happens in Hollywood’s version of the Caribbean, it has to be “voodoo.” Forget about medical explanations. Forget about nuance. Nope, it’s all chicken bones and chanting in the moonlight.
Jennifer Grey deserves better. She went from Dirty Dancing to Ritual. That’s like graduating from fine dining to eating gas station sushi out of a Styrofoam clamshell.
Craig Sheffer, the Human Paperweight
Craig Sheffer is here too, playing Paul Claybourne, the family patriarch and general all-around bastard. Sheffer’s career is basically a case study in “almosts.” Almost a leading man, almost famous, almost remembered. Here he’s just kind of… there. A human paperweight in khakis. His dialogue lands with the same energy as a damp sponge hitting a countertop.
Tim Curry Collects a Paycheck
And then there’s Tim Curry. The man. The legend. The sweet transvestite from Rocky Horror, the terrifying clown from It, the flamboyant villain from every other movie in the 80s and 90s. And here? He’s reduced to playing Matthew Hope, some eccentric doctor with a vaguely Caribbean accent that wobbles more than a drunk tightrope walker.
Watching Tim Curry in Ritual is like seeing a lion forced to perform at a petting zoo. You remember his power, his majesty, his sheer command of the screen—but here he’s just trying to remember his lines and not laugh during the takes. Still, Curry has more charisma phoning it in than the rest of the cast giving their all.
The Plot (If You Can Call It That)
The “story” is this: Wesley’s half-sister Caro (Kristen Wilson) is pissed because their dad denied her inheritance, so she decides to get revenge by turning Wesley’s nurse into a zombie. That’s it. That’s the movie.
But the plan backfires, because apparently Jennifer Grey is too stubborn to zombify. Instead, Caro ends up as the zombie, which might sound like a cool twist if the execution wasn’t flatter than a pancake run over by a cement truck.
Alice and Wesley then decide to move back to the U.S.—because nothing screams happy ending like fleeing Jamaica after your half-sister tried to enslave you with black magic. Meanwhile, Caro’s fate is to be taken home by the local police chief, who… puts her in his bed. Yes, you read that right. The “zombie” is now essentially his bedmate. Roll credits.
It’s not just a weak ending. It’s offensive, lazy, and creepy all at once. Congratulations, Ritual, you found a way to fail on every possible level.
The Horror That Wasn’t
What’s most damning about Ritual is that it’s not even scary. Not a single moment raises a goosebump. There are no real scares, no atmosphere, no tension—just endless clichés. Strange noises in the night, mysterious locals whispering warnings, Jennifer Grey looking confused. The whole thing plays like a parody, except the filmmakers didn’t know it.
Even the zombie element is half-assed. There are no hordes of the undead, no dread, no suspense. Just Caro waving her hands around and making angry faces until she’s conveniently hoisted by her own voodoo petard.
Final Thoughts: Put It Back in the Grave
Ritual is the cinematic equivalent of lukewarm tap water: bland, unrefreshing, and vaguely unpleasant. It’s a remake nobody asked for, a horror film without scares, and a story so thin you could use it as tracing paper. The only thing “ritualistic” about it is the sense that the cast and crew gathered daily to sacrifice quality on the altar of mediocrity.
It’s sad, really. Jennifer Grey deserved better. Tim Curry deserved much better. Hell, even the Crypt Keeper deserved better. Instead, we got Ritual, a film that proves some movies should never be resurrected.
If you ever find yourself tempted to watch it, do yourself a favor: stick on Dirty Dancing, Rocky Horror, or even an episode of Tales from the Crypt. Anything but this. Because once you’ve sat through Ritual, you’ll know the true meaning of horror—not voodoo, not zombies, but wasted time.
