Panic Fest 2024: The Ceremony is About to Begin

“The Ceremony is About to Begin” is a strange, darkly funny mockumentary that feels all too familiar — until it feels anything but.

Beginning in black and white, a film style that always intrigues and draws me in, The Ceremony is About to Begin is an interview-style mockumentary.

A man named Keith Evans (John Laird, one of the film’s writers) interviews a series of former members of a community known as the Osiris Collective. Led by a peaceful and nurturing older man named Father Osiris, the Osiris Collective was a community founded on a passion for ancient Egyptian culture.

Upon joining, each member, mostly young people, was required to donate all their belongings, adopt a new Egyptian name, and agree to start a new life as a child of the Collective.

By all accounts, the thriving mountain community in North Carolina of more than 200 people was like an adult summer camp full of good vibes, mutual respect, and contentment. Then, a new member, dubbed Anubis (Chad Westbrook Hinds, another of the film’s writers), shows up and immediately incites resentment and distrust. As he forms an uncomfortably close relationship with Father, members start to feel excluded and bullied by Anubis.

When Father mysteriously disappears following a mountain hike with Anubis, the latter appoints himself supreme leader, and members begin to flee in a mass exodus, leaving only about four dozen behind.

After we get all the backstory via the black-and-white interviews, the film transitions to color, and the story changes focus to Keith and his very personal reasons for being interested in the story.

When Keith receives an email from Anubis inviting him to visit the commune and film the truth about what they are all about, the story shifts gears and starts feeling remarkably like Creep.

That’s a strong compliment, even if it starts to feel a tad derivative.

When Keith arrives at the Collective, no one is there except the wildly eccentric, somewhat off-putting, almost certainly high out of his mind Anubis. There’s a secretive vibe from the get-go, and it’s clear Anubis is not the most reliable narrator.

As Anubis tells his story, he’s immediately woefully dislikable, even without knowing what we do from the previous ex-commune members. A narcissistic tool, he made millions as a freshman in college, launching something called JizzTube before the dominance of Pornhub. A series of photos showing him looking like an entitled frat boy stereotype makes it clear we are supposed to get a serious case of the ick from this man.

Despite that, he seems harmless enough, suffering more from delusions of grandeur than presenting any real threat.

All that changes when Anubis shows his true colors one night, extolling the mind-expanding virtues of drugs and alcohol. He starts acting extremely erratic — one minute, losing his temper over a simple, innocent question, and the next minute, being overly friendly and insisting they hug it out. He waxes poetic about Aleister Crowley, getting a gleam in his eye when he calls him “The Wickedest Man in the World.”

I’ll stop there because, from this point on, things take a dark turn, culminating in one of the weirdest and most unexpectedly batshit crazy endings I’ve seen in some time.

Does the ending work? That might be up for debate.

It’s disturbing but also darkly funny, and I certainly appreciated how weird and unhinged it gets. It goes completely off the rails in a way that couldn’t help but keep me invested. I was also happy to see the film take a sharp detour from Creep, showcasing some originality and taking the viewer places they are not prepared for.

Though there’s very little in the way of gore or true scares, there’s one scene near the end that definitely made me cringe and flinch in horror. It’s not something I recall seeing before, which is always quite a treat.

As with most films in this subgenre, The Ceremony is About to Begin is very low-budget and low-tech, but this limitation enhances the story and increases authenticity.

Writer-Director Sean Nichols Lynch

Because of where it’s shot (throughout various parts of California), the scenery is quite beautiful. I loved shots of the road leading up to the commune with the gorgeous Mountain in the background — the fateful location of Father’s disappearance and an important narrative device later in the story.

I’m curious how much of the set, taking place almost entirely at the commune, resulted from finding the perfect location or excellent set design.

It’s visually engaging, especially the elements reinforcing the community’s obsession with Egyptian culture. The setting nails the unnerving dichotomy between a place that feels peaceful and inviting and one that is shrouded in ominous foreboding.

I should also add that it’s only an hour long, which makes it a quick and easy watch that’s never once boring.

This film from writer-director Sean Nichols Lynch (who previously did the vampire horror comedy Red Snow, which I absolutely loved) won’t exactly stay with you the way films like the aforementioned Creep, Rec, or Lake Mungo do. But it’s a good time, and sometimes, that’s all you really want or need.

The Ceremony is About to Begin was fun and surprising, keeping me invested and leaving me with a smile on my face.