The Ritual

Tonight's film was another Netflix number, The Ritual. Based on a novel of the same name, The Ritual finds a group of four college friends on a hiking trip together to honor a friend (Rob) who died as an unwitting victim of a robbery. A robbery at which, consequently, one of the friends (Luke) is present and doesn't do anything to save Rob from his fate. 

Luke spends the trip full of guilt at his inaction and feeling the silent judgement of his other friends. Things only get worse when an injury causes the group to take a shortcut through the forest (bad move, bros) and they find themselves beset upon an antlered demon-monster-horse-tree-thingy. Really, that's about the best description I got.

The Ritual is ultimately a mixed bag: at times it's horrifying in a way that never makes you want to go camping again and at other times feels confused and under realized. When the movie is scary it's scary, unnerving in all the right ways that a monster movie should be (although the argument could be made that this is a cult movie). The Ritual isn't wholly original and pulls from a lot of other horror movies (namely The Blair Witch Project lost-in-the-forest trope, which The Ritual gets way more right), but still manages to create a monster that genuinely gets under your skin. 

However, The Ritual still falls victim to the worst part of movies like The Blair Witch Project: not enough explanation. I'm all for movies that leave it up to the viewer to draw conclusions as to what the film is about, but there needs to be enough there for you to chew on to reach your own conclusion. It can't be all open ended with nothing but three lines from a single character to explain it, which is what literally happens here. I look at a movie like Hereditary, for example, where the bread crumb trail is brilliantly present but still open to interpretation. I get that The Ritual is trying for something deep with Luke's emotional struggle, but ultimately it gives you so little that you leave feeling underwhelmed. Which is shame, really, as this movie has brilliance. 

But hey, let's just be honest here: this movie is an obvious, thinly-veiled ploy by the National Park Service to warn visitors against wandering off the trail. Seriously, bravo. Killer propaganda. I mean, I would stay on the trail too if a spiny horse demon with antlers would impale me on a tree. Seriously, somebody get on some signs saying this in the parks: DON'T WANDER OFF TRAIL, DEMON HORSIES ABOUT. Or better yet, actually release horse demons into the National Parks! YAS. 

I demand royalties when this idea inevitably takes off.

7.5/10