Rites of Passage 2012

In the shadow of a notoriously wild campus culture, the University of Santa Barbara prides itself on a blistering 4.1 GPA threshold and a reputation as the country’s #4 party school. Amid the clamor of exams, social feeds, and reckless nights, Nathan Ryan Donowho, a diligent anthropology student, grows increasingly vocal about a deeper hunger: a ceremony to mark the passage from youth to adulthood that he feels his world sorely lacks. His professor, Stephen Dorff as Professor Nash, embodies a troubling mix of charisma and moral looseness; he openly pursues intimate liaisons with female students and feeds off Nathan’s suggestion that an old, unoccupied family ranch could cradle an ancient burial ground. The idea of hosting a ceremonial sweat lodge over the burial site wins Nash’s curiosity, and the plan quickly takes root.

Nathan’s longing for a rite of passage is intertwined with Dani Kate Maberly, a neurotic, attention-craving presence who both counters and complements Nathan’s seriousness. Encouraged by Nash’s eagerness to push boundaries, Nathan leads his circle of stressed, party-minded classmates to the ranch, where he is greeted by his brother Benny Wes Bentley. Benny is a study in contradiction: a man spiraling through drug addiction yet convinced that he is a Shaman, capable of shaping himself after ancestral figures. He tends a greenhouse where he extracts potent plant compounds and, through a meticulous heating process, concentrates hallucinogens. Benny’s self-image as a conduit to ritual power is fragile and combustible; he had not given consent for the night’s expedition, leaving the group to stumble into circumstances that will test loyalties and safety in brutal ways.

At Benny’s side, a disturbing dynamic unfolds as he escorts Penelope Briana Evigan to his hidden shaman space, a moment that seems to blur the line between fascination and danger. The following day, Penelope becomes part of a sequence of chaotic encounters that culminates in tragedy when she dies among shards of glass in Delgado’s glasshouse. Delgado, a crystal meth cook who harbors a personal vendetta, inhabits the ranch with a calculating quiet. He lost his wife and daughter in a car crash—an incident in which the other driver walked away unharmed—which fuels a burning grudge against the college-aged intruders who now inhabit his space. Delgado protects his illicit lab with bear traps and a chilling calm, keeping his work hidden from sight.

As Nash’s class settles into the northern coastline’s beach house retreat, the group—Nathan’s circle of friends and Dani—settles into a tense blend of camaraderie and fear. New faces appear, including Sandee Ashley Grace and Carly Carly Schroeder, who join the weekend’s mix of flirtation and fear. Mojo Guy Burnet becomes entangled in a troubling online past as he reconnects with Sandee. The tension intensifies when Squirrel Angelic Zambrana notices Benny spying on the group, sparking a confrontation that Delgado unexpectedly backs up, revealing how the night’s events will spiral out of control.

A deadly accident in Benny’s garage swiftly shatters the fragile balance: the death of a girl and her boyfriend after a collision of missteps and reckless acts, followed by Benny’s decision to remove the bodies and declare that the group has left abruptly. Delgado’s hunt now intensifies as he pursues the remaining students, stepping into gruesome action with a hallucinatory edge—owning a small, ominous voice in his head, a talking stuffed monkey named Pancho that he imagines as a moral interlocutor. The backstory of Delgado’s lost family bleeds into the present as he suspects Benny of Penelope’s fate and makes it his mission to extinguish the intruders.

The night’s terror escalates as Benny secretly drugs the group at dinner, unleashing a morphing landscape of visions while Delgado begins to kill with calculated precision. The first victim in Delgado’s spree is Carly, followed by a pair of overdoses that leave Nash and another student gravely altered. With keys and phones removed to hinder escape, Hart Travis Van Winkle becomes trapped in a web of traps and escalating danger, while Delgado tracks Mojo and Sandee in the glasshouse and fires his shotgun in a brutal assault.

As the surviving students rally, Squirrel returns with crucial information: Benny is the killer all along. Delgado’s pursuit leads to a decisive confrontation, and Sandee’s panicked discovery of Penelope’s dead body triggers a ferocious response from Delgado. In a bid to seize Dani, Benny is abducted to his own shaman hideout, where Nathan follows and confronts Delgado—only for Delgado to shoot Benny first. The moment of truth arrives when Nathan interrupts Delgado’s attempt to kill Dani and, in a dramatic reveal, Dani is the girl responsible for Delgado’s family tragedy. The aftermath unfolds with paramedics arriving as dawn breaks: some survive, some do not, and Delgado, wounded but alive, escapes into the shadows.

In the end, the film leaves a scarred landscape of trust betrayed, power abused, and the fragile line between ritual and violence. The ranch remains a crucible where old wounds surface, and the remaining players must reckon with the consequences of choices made in the heat of fear, curiosity, and bravado.