Netflix is making my choices for me and since I have been watching quite a few horror films lately in a search for something fresh, for the most part they have recommended real duds to me. This is one of them.
The movie starts interestingly enough. A group of friends are reuniting and trying to decide where they should go together. One of the friends named Rob suggests they all go hiking in Sweden, which all the others reject. Later on that night Rob and one of the "crew," Luke are witness to a robbery which eventually results in Rob being killed even though Luke could have intervened but was too cowardly to do so.
Rob dies and in his honor the group of friends choose to hike and camp in Sweden in his honor. The next 20 minutes are quite boring as they make their way to an abandoned cabin in the spooky woods. This is where they start to have nightmares and encounter strange things that are obviously part of some sort of witchcraft or whatever, i dunno what to call it, but it isn't normal.
Thus begins the long, drawn-out eventuality of them encountering what this effigy is made in the likeness of. They eventually meet the people who are responsible for creating this thing after about an hour of filler material consisting of a group of friends constantly arguing with one another.
Basically, you have seen this movie before, except now everyone is British.
This tired story of city folk encountering a cult who live in a remote location is a sub-genre I could do without to be honest. The film relies on flashbacks and nightmares for dramatic effect and it happens so frequently that it stops being scary rather rapidly. The film is (of course) 90 minutes long and could have quite easily been encapsulated into a 15-minute short film. If i can say one good thing about this film it is that their location scout did a really good job finding some sweet spots for them to film in.... the rest of it, i can do without.
The acting is fine, but but the amount of filler in this film is annoying and I have a low tolerance threshold for unnecessary dialogue for the sake of achieving the mandatory 90 minutes of screen-time.
On a scale of "Urgh!" to "Wowsers" i give The Ritual an overall rating of.....
