THE RITUAL (2017)

Studio:       Netflix
Director:    David Bruckner
Writer:       Joe Barton
Producer:  Jonathan Cavendish, Richard Holmes
Stars:     Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid, Maria Erwolter, Kerri McLean

Review Score:

---

Summary:

Four friends encounter an ancient evil while hiking in remote Swedish woods.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Over drinks at a pub, old college friends Luke, Phil, Hutch, Dom, and Robert agree to hike King’s Trail between Sweden and Norway for a reunion holiday. Afterward, Luke and Robert stop inside a liquor store in the midst of a robbery. Luke cowardly hides while Robert ends up murdered.

Northern Sweden – 6 Months Later – After Dom twists his knee, Luke, Phil, and Hutch agree to shorten the hike to their lodge destination by cutting through a forest. While losing their way, the four friends become alarmed after they come across a gutted deer impaled on tree branches overhead.

When a storm hits at nightfall, the men take shelter in an abandoned cabin adorned with unknown runic symbols. Upstairs, Phil finds a strange effigy built from twigs, antlers, and dry foliage. Although unsettled by the location, the men bed down for the night.

Luke wakes from a flashback to the liquor store to find himself in the forest with five bloody marks on his chest. Hutch and Dom wake screaming from terrifying nightmares. Phil is found kneeling naked in front of the effigy.

When the men leave the cabin, they find runes carved into all of the trees outside. The hike resumes as the men notice other oddities in the forest.

Luke glimpses a monstrous creature while scouting ahead. Luke races back to warn Phil, Hutch, and Dom. Tensions flare over the situation as well as accusations that Luke was responsible for Robert’s death.

Luke, Phil, Hutch, and Dom find a family’s tent and belongings buried in the ground for decades. Nightfall forces the men to camp for the evening. Luke has a nightmare involving the liquor store and the creature. Phil has a violent nightmare too.

Hutch goes missing in the night. Luke, Phil, and Dom hear Hutch’s screams as well as the creature’s cries coming from the distance, but are unable to search for Hutch in the darkness. In the morning, Luke, Phil, and Dom find Hutch gutted and impaled on tree branches like the deer.

Tensions rise once again as the three remaining friends realize something has been stalking them and haunting their heads since the cabin. The monster takes Phil. Luke runs into a tree while running away. While unconscious, Luke has another vision of the liquor store.

Luke recovers to regroup with Dom. The creature chases the duo down a pathway lit with torches. Running past Phil’s body suspended in tree branches above, Luke and Dom take shelter in another cabin. Both men are knocked unconscious.

Luke and Dom wake to find themselves chained up in a small room. Luke peeks outside to see a group of cultists building something from wood. An old witch brings Luke water and shows him that she has the same wounds as him on her chest. Several men take Dom away and torture him. A woman referred to as ‘The Host’ tells Luke that Dom is being prepared for sacrifice.

Dom is brought back to the room. He and Luke converse before Dom is tied to a stake outside where the cultists wait for nightfall. Everyone kneels when they hear the creature’s cry coming from the trees. Dom sees a vision of his wife Gayle emerging from the forest, but it morphs into the monster. The creature impales Dom on high tree branches.

The Host revisits Luke. She cryptically explains that the creature, whose name they do not say, is an ancient god that allows them to live without pain or death. The Host tells Luke that during his upcoming ritual, he will kneel before the creature or else it will hang him from the trees.

Having broken his thumb earlier to escape his rope restraints, Luke sneaks out of the room. Arming himself with a torch, Luke makes his way upstairs. There, Luke finds a roomful of living corpses marked with runes and seated in front of an ominous skeleton. Luke sets fire to the bodies and the house.

Luke punches the witch before retrieving a rifle. Outside, everyone bows before the monster. The creature grabs The Host and torturously tears out her eyes. Luke shoots a cultist in the house as the upset creature continues attacking outside.

Luke escapes the burning cabin. From a distance, Luke shoots the dying Host out of the creature’s clutches as it hoists her in the air. The creature pursues Luke through a liquor store vision.

The creature catches Luke, lifts him in the air, and then drops him into a kneeling position. The creature rears back into a fully upright stance. When Luke tries to get up, the creature forces him to kneel again. A vision of Robert shows Luke an ax on the ground. Luke recovers the ax and attacks the creature.

The creature chases Luke to the forest’s edge. Luke escapes into a clearing as day breaks. With the creature stopped at the trees, it and Luke scream at each other. The creature retreats into the woods as Luke continues hiking through the open field in the opposite direction.

---

Review:

Luke and his old college chums already had doubts about making their regular reunion trip a hiking holiday in Sweden.  Fitness concerns take a backseat however, when one of their own dies tragically and the long trek becomes a memorial for their mate.

Unfortunate circumstances are far from finished with the four friends.  When blisters and a busted knee force the quartet on an off-road shortcut through uncharted woods, they quickly find themselves facing unfathomable frights.  Strange runes carved into trees, gutted animal carcasses impaled on branches, and a bizarre effigy in an abandoned cabin put the men on edge.  Violently vivid nightmares, strange cries in the distance, and an unseen presence stalking from the shadows push them over it.

Considering how overdone ‘lost in a forest’ horror is, this setup probably sounds worthy of an eye roll.  But old dogs don’t need to do new tricks to earn attention.  While “The Ritual” doesn’t reinvent the woodland spookshow wheel, its rims shine with chrome-plated creeps, its tires inflate with tightly clenched tension, and carefully measured performances send slow-burn suspense down a nerve-wracking straightaway of wicked witchiness.  In less metaphoric terms, “The Ritual” impresses as a well-conceived standout in an often-underwhelming subgenre.

“The Ritual” starts setting itself apart from peers through its fantastically chilling location.  This isn’t an indistinguishable area of rural Burkittsville, the overly familiar trees of Vancouver, or a convenient patch of woods a few miles from a residential neighborhood.  “The Ritual” plants roots in the thick of a Romanian forest whose tree branches gnarl in distinctively spooky shapes, and whose unique vistas reset with each scene.  These weird woods don’t look like every other filmed forest of repetitive foliage and Xeroxed vertical trunk lines.  They create an inanimate character that unsettles atmosphere before any sinister actions take place.

The forest’s creep factor earns additional amplification from the foreign feel of Scandinavia via Eastern Europe.  Luke’s pals aren’t so far from home as to cross into some hopelessly remote location.  Yet they are cut off from their comfort zones enough for their situation to seem unsafe in intangible ways.  This stranger in a strange land vibe adds an unusualness that other fictional forests can’t capture with only local effort.

The men trapped within these haunting trees also aren’t a typical troupe of forgettable college kid fodder.  These middle-aged men may not be especially scholarly, but they aren’t disposable dopes either.  Everyone is different, and can be vaguely described as ‘the self-assured one,’ ‘the nebbish bumbler,’ ‘the repentant coward,’ etc.  Again with the “buts,” they aren’t exaggerated stereotypes like the jock, the nerd, the virgin, the princess, and so on.  Making the men of a more mature age gives their characters credibility that capable actors embody with personalized sincerity.

Based on the 2011 novel by British author Adam Nevill, “The Ritual” takes these basic blocks and builds macabre mood from fractured friendships, paranoid suspicions, pagan occultism, and classic creature-in-the-darkness scares.  Some may accuse director David Bruckner’s potpourri of not having an overtly original odor.  Anyone who wants to argue against how assured direction channels all of the above into cinematically effective eeriness has less of a firm leg to stand on.

Memorable moments, in particular an assembly of not-quite-dead corpses during the conclusion, have the ability to imprint nightmarish imagery not quickly to be forgotten.  Speaking of the climax, “The Ritual’s” last act trips its tempo once mysteries no longer need solving and the simplistic outcome lies in plain sight.  Not so much so that intrigue loses its luster though.  Even disappointing destinations can have bountiful journeys, and the harrowing one in “The Ritual” rarely feels false.  Authenticity in acting, staging, and scope remains realistic to the point that when plausibility bends for a Lovecraftian turn, the fantasy still seems grounded.

I’d call “The Ritual” a “good old-fashioned horror movie” if that didn’t make it sound so boringly dated.  More intense than “The Hallow” (review here), more dynamic than “The Blair Witch Project” (review here), and better than most other forest-set films that immediately spring to mind, “The Ritual” simply sizzles as a traditionally entertaining terror tale told with sharp visual flair.

Review Score:  85

---