Review of Rituals (1977) by Trent R — 05 May 2010

I must confess that the reason I decided to watch Rituals, which was titled The Creeper on the DVD I had, was because the synopsis on the box made me laugh. It said that all but one member of a group of doctors camping in the Canadian wilderness have their shoes stolen in the middle of the night, and the person who still has shoes ventures out for help but never returns. Looking at that now, it's really not that funny. But even worse, this movie isn't that interesting either.

Rituals reminded me a lot of Deliverance, but in structure only. Both films have a group of vacation friends being the target of some backwoods menace, but Deliverance I feel handled this situation a lot better and made a much darker and more effective film. Rituals on the other hand felt like it wanted to shock its audiences, but neglected to develop the story properly or give any insight onto who this person was that was stalking them any why they were doing what they were doing to these people. Sure, there is a half-assed explanation, but I don't buy it.

I did like that the killer of the film remains off screen through the majority of the film. Essentially we just see the horrible traps he has set up for this group of campers, which includes a bee's nest falling from the side of a cliff and some bear traps hidden in the river the group tries to cross. It's when the killer is revealed where things get silly, and instead of coming to an ending that makes sense or was rewarding, Rituals goes out with a yawn.

Of the actors in the film, Hal Holbrook was the best of the bunch. Recently he got a lot of great buzz, and even an Oscar nomination, for his performance in Sean Penn's Into the Wild. He has been in a lot of great movies, but my personal favorite film of his was Creepshow, where he played doormat husband Henry Northup in "The Crate" segment of the film. I found him to be enjoyable in Rituals, and the one reason I managed to stick with the film to the end.

Other than that, Rituals is a disappointing horror film. I'm not for sure if this film was inspired by Deliverance, or if it was a rip-off, but I would recommend skipping this film and checking out Deliverance if you haven't already. Sure, that film has an anal rape scene in it, but it won't leave you with the frazzled felling Rituals as a whole left me with.