Review of The Ritual (2017) by Matt B — 09 Oct 2018

The film began with a promising foundation. It established an interesting pre-text of unlikely tragedy among a common entourage of male, 30-something pals. The pretext supported a dynamic character development around tension of grief, shame, and moral and experiential conflict. The intriguing foundation was well executed with strong dialogue and acting.

From the moment the group entered the forest, however, the film became gradually terrible. I became restlessly bored with the as the execution and progression of horror. All elements, and especially the ultimate premise, unraveled into cliche and plageristic unoriginality. The antagonist slowly revealed itself, hiding behind fewer trees each scene. We are eased into the fact that what we are looking at is something out of a children's movie, but sillier and with poorer CGI.

I had a hard time finishing this one. With thirty minutes remaining, I was already genuinely frustrated with my lost investment, an hour and a half of my life that I wanted back. My only return was the reminder that one cannot always judge a film by the critics' Tomatometer. Did most of them honestly think this was a good movie?