The Ritual (2017)

Dir - David Bruckner
Wir - Joe Barton

After a night of drinking at a pub, five friends make a stop to pick up
more booze at a shop. Their timing is unfortunate as thugs are in the
middle of robbing the place. Oblivious to their surroundings, two of the
friends enter the shop. A decision that will affect all the friend's
lives. At the end of the night one man lays dead. The other cowering
behind shelving, all courage drained from his soul.

Six months later, the four remaining friends are on a backpacking
excursion in Sweden to honour their dead friend. Tensions are a bit high
as some openly accuse Luke (Rafe Spall) of cowardice and blame him for
their friend's death. The rift between friends is widened when Dom (Sam
Troughton) hurts his knee and his mates (Arsher Ali and Robert
James-Collier) think he's being overly dramatic. As a compromise the
group goes off trail and takes a short cut through the woods in hopes of
arriving at their final destination earlier than planned. In these types
of films it's never a wise idea to stray from the path. Or to walk
through the woods.

With Dom's bad knee and his need to frequently rest the backpackers
don't make it far and decide to take refuge in an abandoned cabin for
the night. And that decision is made despite carvings in the trees by
the cabin and Luke thinking that he hears something prowling around the
forest. If I spotted weird pagan symbols carved into the trees
encircling a disused cabin in the woods I'd keep on marching, but then
we wouldn't have much of a film would we? Kipping for the night when
they awake they realize, but choose to ignore, that something really bad
happened during the night. One man pissed himself, another cries in the
corner, the third has odd marks on his chest and the fourth is kneeling
before a pagan idol made from wood, apparently worshiping it in his
sleep. Bags are packed and out the door they go. Deeper into the
seemingly unending woods.

I do enjoy a good folk horror film and this is a good one. While the set
up is reminiscent of many horror films, a group of people lost in the
woods, without phone service, being hunted by something, THE RITUAL is
smarter than most of them. For starters there aren't any scenes of them
walking and walking only to arrive back at the spot they started. The
few stupid mistakes they make are believable ones, ones that the average
person in dire straits may make themselves. There's no scene with a car
unable to turn over, or we knocked out the bad guy so let's run away
instead of finishing him off rubbish. With the exception of Luke, who
has a well defined character arc, the other characters aren't as fleshed
out but are likeable. The pagan themes tie in well to the forest where
most of the films takes place. The landscape, Romania filling in for the
film's setting of Sweden, is breathtaking. I'd hike there. If I had an
amulet to ward off the gods, creatures and minions of the old world.

Tense, scary and smarter than your average woodland animal, THE RITUAL
is a path worth exploring.

Director David Bruckner also helmed a segment of the excellent anthology
SOUTHBOUND.

*** out of ****

https://letterboxd.com/thevidiot/film/the-ritual-2017/