The Ceremony is About to Begin



Seven years after his girlfriend Maddy left him, and clearly still harboring a slew of unaddressed feelings regarding the matter, a documentary filmmaker named Keith decides to do a story on the Osiris Collective, an Egyptian inspired cult based out in Northern California that his ex left him for. His sudden motivation to make the film after seven long years? Seven months ago Maddy emailed him saying how much she missed him and stated how concerned she was about some of the stuff going on at the cult compound, before she seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth and stopped responding to him. Now Anubis, the cult’s young, eccentric leader, has suddenly invited Keith to the compound to conduct an interview with him. Not wanting to waste this golden opportunity, Keith hops in the car and heads to the Osiris Collective, intent on finding out what happened to Maddy and learning all of the cult’s deepest, darkest secrets.


Secret #1: Who agreed to let this douche nozzle be in charge?

The Ceremony is About to Begin is an American found-footage horror film from 2024, made by a bunch of people you’ve likely never heard of before, and (apparently) partially shot at the Isis Oasis Sanctuary, an actual Egyptian cult based out of Geyersville, California that you’ve likely never heard about before. And to be honest, the whole Egypt angle is really the only reason I decided to watch this movie. Because let’s face it, found-footage films of people going out into the woods and looking for either missing people or urban legends are a dime a dozen, and I thought the whole Egyptian focus might be some kind of new, interesting angle. And if the film had had any real focus on Egyptian belief, I contend that it would have been. But that is not this movie. This is just another one of your standard ‘let me go see if I can find out what happened to my missing friend’ found footage films. So by the end any hopes I had for this film somehow being more unique were sort of dashed and scattered amongst the sands surrounding the Nile.


Oi vey…

In the film’s defense though, there were some things about it that I liked. The beginning, for instance, which is presented as part of Keith’s yet unfinished documentary, is very well done and looks like genuine documentary footage. There’s interviews with former members, and photos, and video, and I’d honestly probably happily sit through a three-part series about this place if it were real. And the overall creepy vibe the film slowly starts to build once Keith shows up at the Collective and can’t seem to find anyone at this ‘thriving’ cult except a bunch of birds and the creepy cult leader who’s running around in sandals, a tank top and baggy pants, and getting overly excited about mushrooms while also spouting absolute nonsense, is also pretty gosh darn effective in establishing a mood.


All the birds were nice, too. I liked the birds.

But after Keith finds Anubis the movie’s pacing comes to a screeching halt, because then the film’s focus solely becomes ‘lets follow this creepy dip-shit around for the next half hour’, and you’re forced to listen to him spout these ridiculous monologues that are meant to sound philosophical in some way, but just come across as utter nonsense. Also keep in mind that the movie is only a little over an hour long (70 minutes) and I’m not exaggerating about the time (it’s actually around 32 minutes). So when I say all this nonsense goes on for half an hour, that’s almost half the film. HALF! And despite stating that part of the reason he went there was so that he could uncover some deep, dark cult secret, Keith doesn’t even do any snooping during this time, either. Because heaven forbid we make the film interesting. No, instead he’s just placating the dip-shit and proving himself to be almost as equally stupid as the guy he’s interviewing, by doing things like accepting mixed drinks from creepy cult leaders. Making close to half of this film eye-rollingly maddening to watch.


Behold, the white male privilege of having ZERO suspicion when some weirdo offers you a drink, even AFTER people have told you he’s crazy and dangerous.

And meanwhile, here I sit during all of these ramblings, trying to pay attention to most of this gibberish, and wondering how any of it is supposed to tie into Ancient Egyptian belief systems.

Hint: it doesn’t. It’s just the ravings of some rich white boy too hopped up on shrooms to know what the hell he’s doing. Or at least that was my interpretation by the end, because by the time it’s over not only do you have no idea how anything was linked to Ancient Egypt, but you also have ZERO clue about what Anubis’s motives were for doing…. Well, for doing ANYTHING, really. Because whatever his end-goal was is still a mystery to me. Was he trying to resurrect his mentor Osiris, the cult’s original leader? This was somewhat implied as the credits started to roll (and any film that includes plot points during the closing credits immediately loses points with me.)



But if that was the case it’s never explained how his actions were supposed to bring that about, or if they were even effective in any way. And the closest you get to anything being linked to actual Ancient Egyptian culture are the mummies – that aren’t actually mummies – and that one instance where Anubis shows up in an Egyptian headdress and (partial) blue face paint. But while they’re both associated with death, the blue face is more associated with Osiris (Anubis is the one with the Jackal head), so I wonder if that was intentional or if they were getting their imagery mixed up (or if they just ran out of paint). I don’t know, but whatever is going on I’m still very confused.



So, uh, The Ceremony is About to Begin is not my favorite movie, I gotta say. On the technical side it’s fine, and the initial story showed potential. But overall the plot was confusing, the motivations were baffling, the characters were either obnoxious or dumb (Just leave, Keith! The road is Right There! I can see the cars driving by! LEAVE!), and to top it off the acting wasn’t all that great either. But (!) the beginning was decent, and the chase scene towards the end was okay, so… I say it’s still a toss up. I didn’t HATE hate it, but I can’t say I enjoyed all that much of it either. It’s sort of one of those films where once it ends you think “Well, glad that one’s over with.” So take that as you will. But if you learn one thing from this movie, let it be this: whatever you do, never, EVER accept drinks from creepy cult leaders.

The Ceremony is About to Begin is available on a variety of streaming services.

As far as I can tell The Ceremony is About to Begin is not yet available on any physical media.

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