The Ritual (2018) - Movie Review

 

Stop me if this sounds familiar: A group of friends get together for a nature hike. They find themselves in a forest, possibly seeking shelter from the elements. However, it soon becomes apparent that someone, or something, is picking them off one-by-one and the resulting stress could be driving the hikers insane.

Yeah, all sounding more than a little Blair Witch at this stage, innit? Of course, around these parts, familiar premises aren’t something to instantly turn our noses up at (or at least that’s not the intention); execution is the key factor and director David Bruckner certainly delivers on that front. As a pagan-horror offering, this does well at channelling man vs. nature thrills, giving the eerily serene woods a terrifically tense atmosphere.

That’s with the scenery on its own; when combined with the literally nightmarish components of the characters, Luke (played by Rafe Spall) in particular, it results in some very trippy moments. It adds a dash of psychological character study into the mix, dealing with a suburban brand of survivor’s guilt, and the clashing of natural and man-made settings add to the oddity.

Then there’s the monster of the piece, which adds some mild Norse mythology, which is both well-designed and well-utilised. It looks like a deer, a human and several tree branches got into a transporter accident, but for the most part, being able to discern even that much isn’t possible. It mainly sticks to the shadows, letting the idea of it do most the scaring along with the grotesque sound design and Ben Lovett’s creaking soundtrack.

It also helps that the characters are worth watching an entire film about. They hit the tried-and-true staples of the genre in the modern age, where there is definite abrasiveness to be had, but it never tips into the realm of being a pain to watch. If anything, thanks to Joe Barton’s scripting, they come across like they are vehemently unwilling to realise just how fucked their situation is. It’s a classic trope of the genre, where the mythically impossible is so incomprehensible to mortal man that they simply refuse to acknowledge it, but done in a way that gives it agency. Much like the rest of the film, it’s familiar parts put together by people who know what they’re doing and the result is a quite entertaining flick.