The Ritual

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)

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)

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)

A technically solid trek through a Swedish forest, and when three reindeer meet, the joy multiplies and intestines hang from branches. Unfortunately, the acting is wooden, the tempo is very slow and there is not much originality or intensity in the first two thirds. The final third is quite sharp thanks to the Jötunn-redneck mash-up, but still hardly makes a dent. Netflix could slowly produce these "so-so" movies on an assembly line. (03/13/2018)

The first quality horror film of the year. For two thirds of its length, it’s a terrifying and mysterious forest madness and I was ready to give it the highest rating, because everything works perfectly genre-wise. It’s also further proof of how much better horror can be when the main characters aren’t only pretty young faces from a poster, but living characters – or normal people. The night sequence in the abandoned forest cabin was the creepiest movie experience I had a long time; it was really chilling. The closing third takes things a bit further than I would have expected, at the expense of the atmosphere the film was building up until that point. And the ending is proof of how valid the old wisdom is: that horror works better when the core evil is hidden. So I’m keeping the last star for myself, but otherwise, I’m very satisfied. (02/06/2018)