Post by The Social Introvert on Feb 22, 2018 9:08:24 GMT
If you prefer a video version of the review see here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhyGOSNe6G8
(no spoilers)
The movie follows four British mates as they take a camping trip to Europe to see some scenery. On their way back after one of the party becomes injured they make the decision to take a shortcut through the woods. Along the way it becomes apparent that something is stalking them. I was told before I saw the film what the stalker was, so whether it was a ghost, another human being, an alien etc and I have to say that did knock my enjoyment of the film slightly as I suppose I would have been a lot more frightened if I wasn’t aware. The film’s story is a bit like Predator’s, except exchanging the commandos for regular mates and including only the horror elements. There’s nothing too original about the film but it is adeptly executed and well crafted.
The main cast did a fine job, and the characters are probably the thing you’ll remember about the film than anything else. Despite the four of them being friends there are undercurrents of tension given one of them, Luke, failed to act when confronted with a store robber several weeks before the trip, resulting in the death of one of their other friend who would have otherwise been on the trip with them. This guilt and internal conflict claws away at Luke throughout the film until he’s forced to confront it. Meanwhile he and other three are just trying to get home, panicky and lost and becoming increasingly aware that something is following them. There were refreshingly no female characters for the film to distract itself with an unnecessary romance subplot, and I found the way the characters talked with each other, both the banter during the tranquil scenes and the accusations and profanity during the hysterics, feeling real and genuine. In fact, I thought the way the characters acted came off as the way most normal people would act in real life, with them not making the idiotic decisions that characters usually make in horror flicks. No one goes off alone leaving themselves exposed to the bogeyman, and when there is an unnatural sound made characters don’t shrug it off – they actively try to deduce what exactly they heard. Sometimes they see something freaky in the distance and instead of investigating it they think “forget that” and carry on with their journey home. There one part in particular that actually had me laughing, when one of the characters is confronted with something sinister and instead of screaming, standing there, or running away he decks it, punching it square in the face.
The Ritual is a very well done horror film. It’s straightforward and modest. It feels tense and suspenseful, with much of the scares consisting of shots of the never-ending woods. You think something is going to jump out at the screen, or something creepy is going to move in the distance, revealing itself, but it seldom done, leaving you and the characters on your toes, uneasy and tense. Going back to predator, there’ is one scene in the film where Billy and Dutch stare into the trees, thinking that something is staring back. The camera slowly zooms in on the trees and holds the shot for several seconds. Nothing actually happens but it remained one of the most nail-biting scenes in the film. The Ritual has several scenes like this, and though they provide the bulk it’s not just the trees that provide an appropriate setting for the spookiness – a small cabin in the woods makes a cameo for the group to explore, which contains one of the film’s most spine-chilling scenes.
I do think that once the film uncovers the veil after reaching the third act it does lose its sense of mystique and becomes a little bit goofy. It’s almost like you’ve been dropped in a completely different film when you get to the climax with too much over-explaining and a bizarre change in the plot. All the eeriness evaporates in the last fifteen minutes or so which does sadly drag the film down a bit and takes away from just how creepy all the trekking through the woods was.
All in all The Ritual is a pure horror film, free from the shackles of atypical horror clichés and tropes. Despite being relatively unoriginal, it feels refreshing and was fun to watch. 7/10.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhyGOSNe6G8
(no spoilers)
The movie follows four British mates as they take a camping trip to Europe to see some scenery. On their way back after one of the party becomes injured they make the decision to take a shortcut through the woods. Along the way it becomes apparent that something is stalking them. I was told before I saw the film what the stalker was, so whether it was a ghost, another human being, an alien etc and I have to say that did knock my enjoyment of the film slightly as I suppose I would have been a lot more frightened if I wasn’t aware. The film’s story is a bit like Predator’s, except exchanging the commandos for regular mates and including only the horror elements. There’s nothing too original about the film but it is adeptly executed and well crafted.
The main cast did a fine job, and the characters are probably the thing you’ll remember about the film than anything else. Despite the four of them being friends there are undercurrents of tension given one of them, Luke, failed to act when confronted with a store robber several weeks before the trip, resulting in the death of one of their other friend who would have otherwise been on the trip with them. This guilt and internal conflict claws away at Luke throughout the film until he’s forced to confront it. Meanwhile he and other three are just trying to get home, panicky and lost and becoming increasingly aware that something is following them. There were refreshingly no female characters for the film to distract itself with an unnecessary romance subplot, and I found the way the characters talked with each other, both the banter during the tranquil scenes and the accusations and profanity during the hysterics, feeling real and genuine. In fact, I thought the way the characters acted came off as the way most normal people would act in real life, with them not making the idiotic decisions that characters usually make in horror flicks. No one goes off alone leaving themselves exposed to the bogeyman, and when there is an unnatural sound made characters don’t shrug it off – they actively try to deduce what exactly they heard. Sometimes they see something freaky in the distance and instead of investigating it they think “forget that” and carry on with their journey home. There one part in particular that actually had me laughing, when one of the characters is confronted with something sinister and instead of screaming, standing there, or running away he decks it, punching it square in the face.
The Ritual is a very well done horror film. It’s straightforward and modest. It feels tense and suspenseful, with much of the scares consisting of shots of the never-ending woods. You think something is going to jump out at the screen, or something creepy is going to move in the distance, revealing itself, but it seldom done, leaving you and the characters on your toes, uneasy and tense. Going back to predator, there’ is one scene in the film where Billy and Dutch stare into the trees, thinking that something is staring back. The camera slowly zooms in on the trees and holds the shot for several seconds. Nothing actually happens but it remained one of the most nail-biting scenes in the film. The Ritual has several scenes like this, and though they provide the bulk it’s not just the trees that provide an appropriate setting for the spookiness – a small cabin in the woods makes a cameo for the group to explore, which contains one of the film’s most spine-chilling scenes.
I do think that once the film uncovers the veil after reaching the third act it does lose its sense of mystique and becomes a little bit goofy. It’s almost like you’ve been dropped in a completely different film when you get to the climax with too much over-explaining and a bizarre change in the plot. All the eeriness evaporates in the last fifteen minutes or so which does sadly drag the film down a bit and takes away from just how creepy all the trekking through the woods was.
All in all The Ritual is a pure horror film, free from the shackles of atypical horror clichés and tropes. Despite being relatively unoriginal, it feels refreshing and was fun to watch. 7/10.
