The Ritual

The Ritual is certainly not beyond comparison with the cult-classic The Blair Witch Project (which I personally found quite mediocre). Here, instead of a trio of students searching for the supernatural in the woods on purpose, we have four friends who got into the woods and the supernatural found them by chance. (Spoiler alert!) On the one hand, Bruckner's film is a decently atmospheric one-off about confronting demons – both inner and ancient ones – but on the other hand, it limps because of the characters (who, thank God, die according to descending likeability) and the mythological evil, which, while having breathtaking and original visuals, has a blandly sketched background. I have mixed feelings about the film's conclusion. (11/26/2023)

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)

Due to a new job opportunity, I've had the opportunity to spend 2 days hiking through the Scandinavian wilderness. Before I did, I was advised to watch this piece for light "acclimatization" :-) I admit that it added a certain authenticity to the uneasiness and fear, because our woods after all end in a friendly village over the hill and an icy shower coupled with really bad weather is a bit rarer here. The behavior of the frustrated travelers was logical within limits, and you have to give credit to the fact that it is the invisible and yet clearly audible evil that robs you of sleep. 3/4 of the time you get chills down your spine and elsewhere, only to end up with a psychotic/action-film ending full of exaggerated occultism solidly kill the wonderfully constructed atmosphere. Considering how well made horror movies have been lately, the creators of Ritual have managed to conjure up a worthy representative of the genre. (05/11/2022)

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)