The Ritual is a 2017 supernatural psychological folk horror about four friends who get lost in a forest in Sweden and well, start dying. It’s a Netflix original
I would like to think of The Ritual as one of those intermediary horror films that don’t do a lot of new things and therefore slip into the obscure but still are made very well, the production design in this film particularly comes first in the things it does good. The scenes where Luke our protagonist sees himself in a store aisle in the middle of the forest look as surreal as they should and that’s all thanks to the film’s commitment.
6.6/10 It’s not a tightly paced movie nor does it have particularly ingenious kills for a horror movie but it makes up for it in it’s atmosphere, intriguing lore and beautiful cinematography.
I give this movie my certified stamp of “I liked it”.
I think the sub genre of camping-horror is pretty underutilized outside of Blair Witch derivatives, or the “oh no we’re being hunted by a Sasquatch” slop that keeps getting made, so this movie doing something a little more unique was refreshing to see. The monster has a great design, and the surreal aspects of the convenience store incident popping up throughout was well done.
It had a lore and atmosphere, very well done