As if we needed another reason not to go wandering through the woods
It has been a great few years for great horror movies, so it would make sense that one or two of the highlights may have fallen through the cracks. movies like The Ritual.
Quietly released in cinemas in 2017 to little fanfare, The Ritual kicks off with a truly shocking, properly upsetting act of random violence, when a robbery of a local store goes terribly wrong, resulting in the death of a young man.
A year later, his four best friends decide to go on a hiking trip through a Scandinavian forest – something their deceased buddy always wanted to do – in honour of his memory.
However, once they get to the forest, they discover that there are some truly weird things happening, and being out in the middle of nowhere with no real way of contacting anyone isn’t helping matters.
With the main foursome consisting of Rafe Spall (Hot Fuzz, Prometheus), Arshur Ali (Doctor Who, Line Of Duty), Robert James-Collier (Coronation Street, Downton Abbey), and Sam Troughton (Vera Drake, Alien V Predator), they all do a fantastic job of reacting realistically to the maddening situation they find themselves in.
Coming from the writer/director of the “Amateur Night” segment from V/H/S – the one with the lads who accidentally bring back a literal man-eater to their hotel room – there is a constant sense of brilliant foreboding as the menacing presence follows the men through the endless forests, forever upping the terror scales, until things descend into… well, we won’t spoil it for you here, but lets just say that the last half hour of the film is a total surprise.
The Ritual is available to watch on Netflix right now.
