The Ritual

The first notch of the year from Britain? I quite regret not going to the cinema the other day when I had the chance, the atmosphere of the film is very good. A group of friends take a trip to the Swedish woods, where they become hallucinated, paranoid and haunted by something supernatural. It keeps up the pace. the scenes in the cabin are decently creepy and the central evil is excellent, too bad they didn't pay attention to gore as well, but still a decent affair and one of the best this year. 75% (02/07/2018)

Ninety percent of this movie’s runtime comprises a very minimalist horror story working mainly with sound. A scary forest, witchcraft and an ancient demon whose concealment rouses the audience’s fear and imagination. The Ritual is a goose-bumps-inducing adventure for those who like to watch this type of thing over and over (this time you will be reminded of The Blair Witch Project and Predator). [Sitges FF] (10/08/2017)

It's a bit of a surprise to me that such a good horror film came from the UK, because I've recently become accustomed to seeing films from there that are almost at the C level. At least in the horror genre, anyway. However, The Ritual perfectly shows that there are filmmakers in the UK who know how to make a horror film. David Bruckner has the skills to do that. You can find good films in his filmography even before The Ritual. (03/30/2018)

We don't get a very revelatory ending and the characters aren’t too good, but that is compensated by a really thick atmosphere, an almost perfect narrative concept, and it's hard to find any weak spots in terms of style. The Ritual is both effective as horror and able to unnerve the viewer, as well as believable in the rapidly changing mood of the threatened group, which keeps it authentic for the first two-thirds and makes it essentially functional as a forest survival of sorts. It's really a shame that the explanatory finale pretty much ruins the existing tight structure and tension. Strong 3*. (02/09/2018)

At first, I thought like I was watching a more technically advanced version of the Blair Witch Project (and that’s not that difficult to achieve, let’s be honest here). Fortunately, this film gets more interesting, turning a bush craft horror into a proper fantasy one with Scandinavian gods, which elevated it to a new level. Marvel movies aside, not everyone dares to invite the Viking gods from Valhalla into their movie. It always seems strange, ethereal. And they made a good use of it in this movie. It does give Sweden a bit of a backwoods feel, but still better than if it took place in the Czech Giant Mountains. (05/14/2020)