The Ritual

Dir: David Bruckner

2017

****

My first impressions of The Ritual were not good at all but it didn’t take long for David Bruckner’s 2017 horror to win me over. I don’t care what sub-genre of horror a horror film is as long as it is original and it achieves its goals. I don’t mind when a horror film treads old ground just as long as it does it better. On paper The Ritual doesn’t look that original but in reality I believe it is very unique, both in what it tries to achieve and what it produces. The film starts with five old university friends (Phil, Dom, Hutch, Luke and Rob) catching up over drinks in a pub. I found the chemistry between the men to be unconvincing, they didn’t seem to belong together and the dialogue between them was forced and unnatural. I was ready to switch off until I remembered how different myself and my old University buddies are. The group begin discussing a holiday together and agree hiking in Sweden would suit them all best. After leaving the pub Luke (Rafe Spall) and Rob (Paul Reid) decide to keep drinking and go into an off licence to buy a bottle of vodka. They are suddenly interrupted when armed robbers emerge from the back of the shop. Luke quickly hides behind a shelf at the end of the aisle, leaving Rob frozen in fear. The thieves antagonise Rob, demanding his wallet, watch, and wedding ring. Rob parts with the first two but refuses to give them his ring. Luke, still hidden, clutches a bottle in his hand and prepares to intervene but can’t bring himself to act. The robbers become impatient and they hack Rob to death with a machete. This is when I became intrigued. Six months after his death, to honour Rob's wish, the four embark on a hiking trip along the Kungsleden, or King's Trail, in northern Sweden. When Dom (Sam Troughton) loses his footing and injures his knee, impairing his ability to walk, Hutch (Robert James-Collier) consults the map and decides that an alternative route through a forest off of the trail will take them half the time. Upon entering the forest, the group encounters strange phenomena, including a gutted elk hanging from the tree branches and strange symbols carved on the trees. As night falls, a torrential rainstorm soaks the men. While looking for shelter, they come upon an abandoned cabin and decide to break in and stay overnight. Inside the cabin, they find necklaces hanging from the walls bearing symbols similar to those carved in the trees. While exploring the attic of the cabin, Phil (Arsher Ali) discovers a wooden statuette of a decapitated human torso with antlers for hands. During the night, the four are plagued by nightmares. Luke’s dream is of that night when Rob was killed. Upon waking the next morning, Luke finds that he has sustained a set of strange puncture wounds on his chest. The group finds Phil in the attic, naked and kneeling in prayer in front of the effigy. The group leaves the cabin to continue their travels deeper into the woods, trying to find a way out. Climbing a ridge to get an idea of their location, Luke sees a large figure in the trees. Dom doubts his report, and in an ensuing argument, Dom reveals that he blames Luke for Rob's death, and calls Luke cowardly for failing to act during the robbery. Later that night, screams awaken Luke from another nightmare. Discovering that Hutch's tent is empty, the other three men rush deeper into the woods, lured by Hutch's screams. By dawn, they realise that they have become lost and can't find their campsite. They decide to continue their search without their tents and supplies. The three come upon Hutch eviscerated and impaled on tree branches, much like the gutted deer they had found earlier. After retrieving his compass and knife, the men give Hutch an impromptu burial with tree branches. Luke leaves Phil and Dom on the lower part of a ridge to climb a hill that provides an overview of the entire forest, and discovers that they are relatively close to the edge of the forest. He also spots smoke rising from distant campfires. He rejoins the other two to find them pointing their torches towards the trees, saying they heard a noise. Suddenly, Phil is dragged away by an unseen creature. Seeking a hiding place, Luke encounters Dom and urges him to run with him. They get to their feet and begin to run, the creature giving chase. They pass Phil's body impaled on the branches of a tree near a path of lit torches that leads to a small village. They seek shelter in the first building they see, and collapse on the cabin floor, only to be knocked unconscious. When they awaken, they find themselves restrained in a basement. An elderly woman enters and inspects the puncture marks on Luke's chest. She pulls down her dress to reveal a similar pattern on her chest. She turns to leave the basement and utters a command in a foreign language, which prompts two men to grab Dom and take him to the upper floor of the cabin. A younger woman enters the basement and explains in English that preparations are being made for sacrifice. Sometime later, Dom is escorted back to the basement, beaten and bloodied, but still alive. He explains to Luke that he will serve as a human sacrifice to the creature, and instructs him to find a way to escape and destroy the village. Dom is taken outside of the cabin and brought to a wooden post, where his hands are tied behind his back. As night falls, a roar is heard from the forest. The captors immediately fall to their knees in worship. Dom has a vision of his wife emerging from the trees and holding his face in her hands. This is, in reality, the creature that has been pursuing the men. The creature removes Dom from the post and impales him on the branches of a nearby tree, leaving him to die. Desperate to escape, Luke frees himself from one of his restraints by breaking his thumb, but is interrupted by the young woman's sudden entrance before he can remove the second. When Luke asks about the creature, she explains that it is called a Jötunn, a god-like figure from Scandinavian mythology that is a bastard child of Loki, and that they provide it sacrifices in return for immortality. She states that Luke will take part in a ritual where he will submit to the creature and join the cult, or be killed. After she leaves, Luke breaks free from his restraints and leaves the basement. He ventures to the upper floor of the cabin, hearing prayers and screaming coming from behind a closed door. Armed with a burning torch, he opens the door and finds a twisted congregation of mummified, but still living, humans, evidently the end result of the immortality granted by their worship of the creature. Following Dom's last wish, he sets the worshippers alight. This act attracts the Jötunn, who emerges from the forest to find the cabin burning. In a rage, the creature kills the young woman, seemingly gouging her eyes out after speaking with her angrily. Luke uses this opportunity to escape from the burning cabin after a couple of cultists almost stop him, and the creature bars his way from the front door. Before running into the woods, Luke aims and takes a shot at the creature as it is holding the young woman's body aloft. The creature pursues him, attempting to cripple his mind by causing hallucinations of his recurring nightmare. The creature eventually catches him, and forces him onto his knees multiple times, offering Luke a chance to submit. Luke uses an axe which he had previously taken from one of the worshippers to strike the creature, briefly incapacitating it. He follows the sunlight, emerging from the forest into an open field. Seemingly unable to leave the forest, the creature roars at him, and he screams back in triumph. Luke turns from the monster and heads in the direction of a paved road with a passing car, a sign of civilization. The film is based on the 2011 novel by Adam Nevill which I haven’t read, so I have no idea whether it is a faithful adaptation or not. I’m not a fan of horror films set in the woods, nor do I fear people who live in remote areas but there was something about this film that made good use of those familiar themes. It was a predictable film in many respects, although I didn’t see the conclusion coming, or at least I hadn’t guessed that the bad guy was a giant mythological creature. For me it was the perfect balance of authentic dread and absurdist fear. If you’re going to have a monster in your movie then you should make it big and ridiculous and you shouldn’t explain too much about it and that’s just what they did. On the flip-side, Luke’s real fear was his own regret and the fact that he couldn’t help his friend. I would argue that armed robbers in a shop was a far more real fear than Scandinavian monsters in the woods. The way Luke’s fears and memories interweaves with the scenes in the woods is phenomenal. In his first dream the woods suddenly make way for the interior of the shop which is somehow floating within the trees. It’s such a great scene. To be honest all you really need in a horror film is to have two or three really great scenes and you’re laughing. You can have any theme you like but you have to have a couple of really memorable scenes to capture the audiences imagination and anything wrong with the film can be excused. It’s not as easy as it sounds but for me The Ritual has around four amazing scenes that really make it a great horror film. Apart from the initial dodgy dialogue and cliché characters I thought it really worked. I’ve seen far too many bad horror films, this isn’t one of them, in fact it is something of a hidden gem.