The Ritual film review

Score: 7/10

Directed by: David Bruckner

Written by: Joe Barton, Adam Nevill (novel)

Starring: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid

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I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Crazy cultists are boring! However, they do become considerably less boring when steeped in Scandinavian folklore (à la Midsommar), and less boring still when all of that is built upon a foundation of psychological horror; an exploration of grief, loss and guilt, in which our central characters – a group of four old college friends – trek through the Swedish wilderness after the brutal killing of a mutual friend during a botched store robbery. It’s this central cast that really grips the viewer from the off.

Rafe Spall leads in the role of Luke, who hid away as his friend Rob (Paul Reid) was murdered, and is now wracked with guilt over what he sees as his part in his friend’s death; and, unsurprisingly, he gives a superbly melancholic performance, full of nuance, understated gestures and hushed tones. He’s joined on his journey to honour Rob’s memory by the talents of Arsher Ali (Phil), Sam Troughton (Dom) and Robert James-Collier (Hutch), who, after Dom injures his leg, has the less than stellar idea of taking a shortcut through the nearby forest, to which Dom quips “If the shortcut was a shortcut, it wouldn’t be called a shortcut, it would be called a route.”. It’s a well-written group of characters, played by very talented actors; and it represents a small, close-knit group of very likeable people, whom we can all relate to on some level, and whose each individual loss we feel when things start to kick off (somewhere around the second act).

For the most part, writer Joe Barton and Director David Bruckner keep The Ritual on the back burner, refusing to let it boil over; instead, preferring a simmering pot of tension and suspense; an atmosphere of slow but inevitable impending doom. Cinematographer Andrew Shulkind’s work serves to accentuate the feeling of dread: he captures the forest in all its natural beauty and in such a way that its breadth and size are fully realised, and yet, there’s an atmosphere of unbearable closeness, crossing over into full-blown claustrophobia towards the middle of the film; achieved, also, through Ben Meechan’s superlative sound design, which allows for the ambience of the forest to sing melodiously and for the moments of unnatural, cautionary silence to ring aloud.

It all works exceptionally well. Indeed, The Ritual is at its absolute best when exploring psychological trauma - particularly in the form of guilt. The problem is the payoff at the end of the movie is more than a little underwhelming; after 90+ minutes of runtime, you can’t help but feel a little disappointed when the film devolves into the usual CGI-made monster flick during its third act.

The Ritual isn’t an entirely successful entry into the low-budget British horror genre; it buckles at modern horror’s most difficult hurdle—nailing the finale. However, it does buck the trend of crazy cultist films being a bit shit, and, for all its faults, it’s a solid piece of work that proves there’s life left in the genre yet.

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