Movie Review: The Ritual

The Ritual ** ½ / *****

Directed by: David Bruckner.

Written by: Joe Barton based on the novel by Adam Nevill.

Starring: Rafe Spall (Luke), Arsher Ali (Phil), Robert James-Collier (Hutch), Sam Troughton (Dom), Paul Reid (Robert).

 

Director David Bruckner is a talented filmmaker. He did my favorite segment of the horror omnibus films V/H/S (Amateur Night, about a group of horny college guys who get way more than they bargained for) and Southbound (The Accident, about a man on a remote highway looking at his cellphone, and runs over a young woman – which ends up being just the beginning of a horrible night). Both of those are stylish mini-horror films that do an expert job at building the tension, and then finally letting it out. His debut feature, The Ritual, shows some of that talent but is mainly undone by a rather lackluster script, that hits every story beat we expect it to and is essentially going through the motions of this type of horror film. Bruckner, mainly, does a fine job at directing, but there is only so much he can do with what he has to work with.

 

The film is about a group of four university friends, now in their 30s, who instead of the usual “man’s trip” to some party city, have decided to go hiking in Northern Sweden instead. In large part, this decision was made to honor a fifth friend – a man he see murdered in the opening sequence in a random convenience store robbery – a place he would not have been in if not for Luke (Rafe Spall) – who was able to hide during the robbery and escaped without a scratch. The four surviving friends are on their way back to the lodge they are staying at, when they decide to go off the defined path, and instead, to walk through the forest instead. After all, the forest is a more direct route, they can relax sooner, and one of the men, Dom (Sam Troughton), has just twisted his knee and won’t shut up about it. What can possibly go wrong in the dark, remote woods of Sweden?

 

Basically, what The Ritual wants to be is a more polished, all male version of The Blair Witch Project. For most of the movie, the horror comes from noises in the night, things hanging from or carved into trees, and a house in complete disrepair that has some weird stuff in it. As a director, Bruckner doesn’t go with the hand held camera on The Blair Witch Project, but a more polished look. He makes great use of darkness and the house, and all the trees – perhaps that’s easy, but he does a great job regardless.

 

What Bruckner cannot help is the basic plot of the movie, which builds and builds and builds towards a climax with an actual monster (which, to be honest, looks more strange than scary, and was clearly created on a budget). He can also not help the fact that other than Rafe Spall’s Luke, the other three men are ill defined and interchangeable. I do wish someone along the way questioned the need for all the flashbacks to “that night” that litter the film, since it doesn’t actually seem like it has anything to do with the plot at all.

 

I still do think that Bruckner is a talented horror film director. He got a chance to make a full feature after three omnibus segments (I have not seen The Signal – although several people have said that, like the others, his segment was the best) – and decided to take it. I think he does what he can with a script that doesn’t really work.