The Ritual
I found it entertaining. It does not seem to me an extraordinary or especially original horror film, but it is one of those proposals that can be watched easily because it has a clear premise, a strong atmosphere and a group of characters with enough internal conflict for the walk through the forest not to be just an excuse to show trees, scares and creaking branches.
What I liked most is that it starts from a very specific guilt. It is not simply a group of friends going into a forest for no reason, but people carrying an absence, a trauma and a tension that has not been resolved. That change of energy within the group, with Luke carrying the guilt and the others looking at him differently, gives the story a little more weight. The external terror works better because there is an inner wound.
The forest is used very well. It has that feeling of being an immense space and a closed one at the same time, as if the more they walk, the more trapped they become. The film manages to make the trees, the fog, the shadows and the wrong paths create a constant discomfort. It is not always truly scary, but it conveys very well the idea of being lost in a place that does not respond to normal rules.
I also liked that for quite a while it does not show too much. The threat works better when it is sensed: noises, marks, figures among the trees, strange dreams, bodies found in impossible ways, small signs that something ancient and unpleasant lives there. That dosing is probably the film's most effective element, because it lets the imagination work before putting everything in front of our eyes.
Rafe Spall holds the emotional center quite well. Luke is not a clean or especially likeable hero, but someone blocked by fear and guilt. That interested me more than the typical protagonist who is determined from the beginning. The film plays with that idea of fragile masculinity, of friends who are no longer so young, who carry resentment, reproaches and cowardice, and who in the forest begin to break both inside and out.
The group of friends also works just enough. They are not very deep characters, but they are believable as a gang that has aged badly, that tries to maintain a friendship from another time and no longer really knows how to talk about what matters. There the film has more grace than it may seem: beneath the survival horror there is a story of shared guilt, emotional distance and reproaches that come out when everything goes to hell.
The visual side seems to me one of the best things. Without inventing anything new, it has very good images: the cabin, the symbols, the altars, the bodies, the impossible corridors of memory, the forest turned almost into a dark church. There is a work of atmosphere that elevates a fairly familiar story. You can tell David Bruckner knows how to build mood, and that makes the film feel more solid than it perhaps is on paper.
That said, it also has clear limitations. The structure is quite recognizable: lost friends, wrong shortcut, threatening forest, returning trauma, something hunting them and a more or less mythological final explanation. There is nothing wrong with using familiar ingredients, but it is true that in some stretches the mold is too visible. There are moments we have already seen in many other horror films.
The final stretch seems uneven to me. On the one hand, I appreciate that the film dares to show more and does not remain only in endless insinuations. On the other, when everything becomes more explicit, it loses part of the mystery it had built so well. The revelation does have visual force, and at least it does not fall into a ridiculous monster. But the film interested me more when the forest felt like a nightmare without a clear explanation.
Even so, it is very watchable. It has good rhythm, does not overstay its welcome, creates tension and offers enough unsettling moments for the journey to be worthwhile. It is not a masterpiece of folk horror, nor does it need to be, but it is an honest genre film, direct, dark and fairly effective. I understand that it may feel familiar, but it kept me inside.
In the end, it remains for me a decent and entertaining film, with a better atmosphere than story, better images than characters and a simple but effective emotional idea. I liked it for the forest, for the protagonist's guilt, for that threat that takes time to show itself and for the feeling that the friends are not only running away from something outside, but also from what they have not dared to look at for years.
What I liked most is that it starts from a very specific guilt. It is not simply a group of friends going into a forest for no reason, but people carrying an absence, a trauma and a tension that has not been resolved. That change of energy within the group, with Luke carrying the guilt and the others looking at him differently, gives the story a little more weight. The external terror works better because there is an inner wound.
The forest is used very well. It has that feeling of being an immense space and a closed one at the same time, as if the more they walk, the more trapped they become. The film manages to make the trees, the fog, the shadows and the wrong paths create a constant discomfort. It is not always truly scary, but it conveys very well the idea of being lost in a place that does not respond to normal rules.
I also liked that for quite a while it does not show too much. The threat works better when it is sensed: noises, marks, figures among the trees, strange dreams, bodies found in impossible ways, small signs that something ancient and unpleasant lives there. That dosing is probably the film's most effective element, because it lets the imagination work before putting everything in front of our eyes.
Rafe Spall holds the emotional center quite well. Luke is not a clean or especially likeable hero, but someone blocked by fear and guilt. That interested me more than the typical protagonist who is determined from the beginning. The film plays with that idea of fragile masculinity, of friends who are no longer so young, who carry resentment, reproaches and cowardice, and who in the forest begin to break both inside and out.
The group of friends also works just enough. They are not very deep characters, but they are believable as a gang that has aged badly, that tries to maintain a friendship from another time and no longer really knows how to talk about what matters. There the film has more grace than it may seem: beneath the survival horror there is a story of shared guilt, emotional distance and reproaches that come out when everything goes to hell.
The visual side seems to me one of the best things. Without inventing anything new, it has very good images: the cabin, the symbols, the altars, the bodies, the impossible corridors of memory, the forest turned almost into a dark church. There is a work of atmosphere that elevates a fairly familiar story. You can tell David Bruckner knows how to build mood, and that makes the film feel more solid than it perhaps is on paper.
That said, it also has clear limitations. The structure is quite recognizable: lost friends, wrong shortcut, threatening forest, returning trauma, something hunting them and a more or less mythological final explanation. There is nothing wrong with using familiar ingredients, but it is true that in some stretches the mold is too visible. There are moments we have already seen in many other horror films.
The final stretch seems uneven to me. On the one hand, I appreciate that the film dares to show more and does not remain only in endless insinuations. On the other, when everything becomes more explicit, it loses part of the mystery it had built so well. The revelation does have visual force, and at least it does not fall into a ridiculous monster. But the film interested me more when the forest felt like a nightmare without a clear explanation.
Even so, it is very watchable. It has good rhythm, does not overstay its welcome, creates tension and offers enough unsettling moments for the journey to be worthwhile. It is not a masterpiece of folk horror, nor does it need to be, but it is an honest genre film, direct, dark and fairly effective. I understand that it may feel familiar, but it kept me inside.
In the end, it remains for me a decent and entertaining film, with a better atmosphere than story, better images than characters and a simple but effective emotional idea. I liked it for the forest, for the protagonist's guilt, for that threat that takes time to show itself and for the feeling that the friends are not only running away from something outside, but also from what they have not dared to look at for years.
Mini Review: I found it entertaining. It does not seem to me an extraordinary or especially original horror film, but it is one of those proposals that can be watched easily because it has a clear premise, a strong atmosphere and a group of characters with enough internal conflict for the walk through the forest not to be just an excuse to show trees, scares and creaking branches. What I liked most is that it starts from a very specific guilt. It is not...
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