Rites of Spring (2011) starring AJ Bowen, Anessa Ramsey, Sonny Marinelli, Katherine Randolph, James Bartz directed by Padraig Reynolds Movie Review

Rites of Spring (2011)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Anessa Ramsey in Rites of Spring (2011)

No Hope Springs

For over 24 years the town of Hope Springs has been under some strange curse where every year on the first day of spring young girls just disappear. But life goes on and as the first day of spring rolls around friends Alyssa (Hannah Bryan) and Rachel (Anessa Ramsey) find themselves being kidnapped by a man who chloroforms them and then takes them to a remote barn where he hangs them up by their wrists. Meanwhile at the same time a guy called Ben (A.J. Bowen) finds himself involved in a scheme to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman and hold her to ransom which he is uneasy doing as in truth he is a nice guy.

"Rites of Spring" starts off with giving us the history as to what happens on the first day of spring every year which at that point you have to disengage your brain or else you begin to wonder why people aren't more cautious when spring comes around as well as thinking a few other things which blow the movie's plot to shreds before it has even started. But you think okay, go with it as this might be alright, except it isn't and on one hand we have this routine creature feature going on built around this decade old mystery surrounding vanishing girls which is not very entertaining and not full of the gore which someone told me it was.

But wait we have the secondary storyline involving the kidnapping and ransom of a young girl which you have absolutely no idea as to how it ties in to the other story. In fairness that aspect of needing to know the connection works reasonably well as it keeps you watching although it doesn't lift your expectations as to how things will tie up. And this whole kidnap story is as ordinary as the twenty some odd year mystery surrounding missing girls. Part of the trouble with "Rites of Spring" is once again this is a horror movie which doesn't care about characters and so gives the audience nothing to care about and in turn making them cold to what is happening on the screen.

What this all boils down to is that "Rites of Spring" not only ends up weak but also a strange mix of two separate stories which in truth don't work together. Maybe there will be someone out there who catches this late one night who might enjoy it but for me it comes up short of the mark.


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