The Countdown to Halloween Day 3 The Ritual (2017)

 

 

 

When I first read the synopsis of this one, another film with nearly the same title came to mind.  Rituals, from 1977, is about five men who go hiking in a remote area of Canada to rough it in the wilderness.  Hal Holbrook starred, and I gave it two and a half out of five.  I wanted to watch this to see if a remake would be any better.  The Ritual is directed by David Bruckner (The Night House and The Signal) taken from the 2011 novel of the same name.  Wait a hot minute!  Rituals (the one with Hal Holbrook) is way older than that and wasn’t taken from any book.  I guess this isn’t a remake.  OK, fine, let’s go on.  This film is about a group of five college friends who go on vacation together in a remote part of Sweden.  Well, four go, one of them is killed before they even finalize their plans to go.  Well, that sounds familiar, so you see where I originally thought it was a remake.

 

The four men are hiking through Kunglseden which is a hiking trail that stretches out to nearly 300 miles.  Soon after they begin their trip one of the men, Dom, falls and injures his knee and is left nearly unable to walk.  Whoa!  In Rituals, one of the five friends falls and breaks his leg or ankle or something like that.  So, this really isn’t a remake?  WTF?  Well, after Dom falls and hurts his knee, the group decide to venture off the marked trail (first mistake) and go through the forest to shorten the trip.

 

Now this forest is what is known as “an old growth forest” which means it has been allowed to grow nearly undisturbed for a long time.  This leads to things happening in the forest that usually doesn’t occur in a forest that has people trekking through it on the reg.  Once these guys enter the forest, inevitably shit starts to go down.  I’ll tell you the first weird thing that happens and then the rest is up to you to decide if you want to see or not.

 

 Not long after they enter the forest, they find a large elk gutted and hanging from a tree.  All the surrounding trees have odd symbols carved into them.  That night, a monsoon hits, and they spend the night in a cabin they find.  In the cabin they discover necklaces with symbols on them that are like the ones on the trees they had seen earlier.  And that is where I will leave off because things get increasingly worse and the guys are in for a world of hurt. 

 

Before I go back to deciding if this is a remake or not let’s talk about the actors.  Starring is Rafe Spall (Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead) as Luke, Arsher Ali (Four Lions and A Patch of Fog) is Phil, Robert James-Collier (Downton Abbey) is Hutch, and Sam Troughton (Chernobyl and Mank) is Dom, the guy who hurts his knee causing all this mess.  He’s also Patrick Troughton’s grandson which makes him Doctor Who royalty, kind of, so I’ll give him a little bit of a pass.  He’s not completely off the hook though his clumsy ass started all this. 

 

The Ritual was not shot in Sweden interestingly enough, but rather in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania.  Romania just so happens to be where my ancestors are from.  Well according to Ancestry dot com is concerned anyway.  And if there is one thing I know about the Carpathian Mountains it’s that you don’t want to screw around with them.  Especially a big dark forest in the middle of them.  No matter how spooky or beautiful they may be because the forest is both spooky (at night) and gorgeous (during the day).  It’s also spooky in the day too.

 

OK, let’s get into it; the book the story is based on was written by Adam Neville who specializes in writing supernatural horror.  After doing some digging there’s no definitive proof that Neville ripped off the 1977 movie.  Although at first, it was claimed this was not a rip off at all and then after some back pedaling it was stated that it wasn’t a complete rip off.  Which means it is absolutely a rip off of the 1977 movie.  I mean even the title is almost the same.  Rituals from 1977 is also at least partially a rip off of Deliverance as well so what do I know.  The big question is how was The Ritual?  Well, I have to admit it’s pretty damn good.  Great cinematography.  A creepy story set in a creepy forest and when the “monster” is fully revealed it is impressive.  I mean I stared in awe.  So, I will have to go three and a half convenience store robberies out of five for Ritual which is definitely not a rip off.  Of any kind.  At all.  Probably.