Do you like horror films? Have you seen loads of them? If the answer to BOTH of those questions is ‘Yes’ then you’re probably going to find ‘The Ritual’ a little hard going. Don’t get me wrong… there’s nothing particularly bad about the film, but there’s not enough that’s new to make it really stand out among the countless other horror films that have come, gone and subsequently been forgotten.
Four friends get lost in the woods. You’re probably already thinking of a dozen other similar horror films. Okay, so this time it’s some woods in Sweden, but a tree’s a tree, right? Anyway, I won’t dwell on why they find themselves there as it’s all just exposition to get them to a remote, out-of-the-way location to end up at the wrong end of something nasty. The first couple of thirds of the movie (and it’s actually a little bit longer than your average ninety minute horror flick) have a real ‘Blair Witch’ feel about them. Okay, so there’s no handheld shaky-cam ‘found footage’ aspect to the story, but it still hits all the same beats as our hapless heroes slowly find themselves being first messed with by whatever is out there, before finally being picked off one by one.The final third tries to offer something different, but only really succeeds in feeling like a different film to what’s gone before it. There are a few horror clichés here and you finally get a reasonable view of what’s been hunting them all this time (something the ‘Blair Witch Project’ deliberately left out). And then it’s over. And then, unless you’re really new to the genre, you instantly begin to forget everything you’ve spent the last couple of hours watching.
I know I’m sounding overly-negative about ‘The Ritual’ and I probably shouldn’t. Despite my bored tone, it’s not that bad; it’s just nothing I haven’t seen before. If you really want to watch – yet another – horror film and you have Netflix, you might as well put this on – you might like it.
5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back
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