The Ritual Review

Following the death of their friend Robert in a violent burglary, a group of friends continue with their plans to go for a lads’ weekend hiking through the Swedish Mountains to honour his memory. Among them, Luke (an as usual-convincing Rafe Spall) shoulders the guilt of Robert's death and is paranoid that the others blame him. But when they suffer an injury, they exchange their mountainous trek for an apparently shorter one through the shadowy forests in the valley, where group dynamics become the least of their worries. A malevolent presence soon makes itself known, and one-by-one, as is the case in this neck of the woods within the bleak horror-verse, the friends are hunted and mutilated.

The great thing about British horror isn’t just its usual down-to-earth acting and overall grit, it’s the humour that would, in reality, likely fill the spaces between expository dialogue and hellish screams. After all, we’re the moaning type, and if thrust into such a life-or-death situation, we’d be stripped down to our bare British bones. Fortunately The Ritual is a delightful concoction of both humour and horror, not once venturing too far into its own comedic side that it renders the scares ineffective. And scary this film is, with its tree-thick atmosphere that’s chillingly-reminiscent of the likes of The Blair Witch Project. But perhaps its most terrifying monster isn’t the literal one that lurks among the trees – it’s the trees themselves. The setting of the Swedish Forests, whose sense of age and vastness is both intimidating and unsettling, makes for a truly eerie addition to the film.  

Erm, Rafe - you've got red on you...

The plot, on the other hand, is as cliché as they come, as is the execution of the film itself:  foreboding dark clouds, deafening thunderstorms and bumps in the night, all of which, here at least, make for a pretty standard horror format that’s simply not interested in thinking outside the box – save for its rather innovative yet equally plain weird central monster. But none of this is a bad thing. In fact, it’s the simplicity and honesty of it all that make it exactly what horror should be – a series of genuine frights from fade-in to fade-out, ultimately proving that horror needs to think inside the box to work, and that less in this genre is somehow always more. 

While in its third act where the film somewhat writes itself up against a tree, with the plot at least compelling enough to make you fear for the characters’ lives, The Ritual - based on the novel of the same name by Adam Nevill - doesn’t get too lost in the woods.

For my full audio review which was aired on Swindon 105.5, click here.