fellas, it is gay to wander into a scary ritual forest with other men? i mean you're basically looking at wood with a bunch of dudes idk it seems kinda spicy to me /:

what would happen if The Witch starred LADS LADS LADS

As much as I admit to liking cheesy jump scares and sometimes dumb teenager based horror, David Bruckner’s The Ritual is exactly the kind of adult dread jam I was looking for: an unsettling, moody picture that’s both beautifully shot and well acted, all while drenched in a specific atmosphere that I f’n love. 

Utilizing the incredible landscape for some truly beautiful images, Bruckner’s film (based on novel of the same name) mixes elements of things we’ve seen before, executed maturely, confidently, and most importantly—effectively, as vibes reminiscent of (but not riffing on) The Blair Witch Project & The Descent covered in a rural folk-horror blanket of The Witch & The Wicker Man, all framed with a theme of guilt. The Ritual ignores jump scare tactics as our bickering group of men become more toxic as time goes on. This more than satisfied my lurking Deer Monster needs quite nicely and I’ll be revisiting this again soon.

this deserves a spot on the "films that force me to tell men apart for 2 hours" list

The Swedish Elk Project
The VVoods
The Deerscent

Erster Langfilm des Episoden- oder Kurzfilm-Könners. Ganz großer Pluspunkt: Hier wird Horror auch mal bei Tage zelebriert. Was anhand dieser so faszinierenden wie schaurigen Waldkulisse auch herrlich sitzt und wirkt. Ebenfalls groß: Die Musik. Über das ein wenig verschleppte Tempo ab der Hälfte und die Auflösung, die die Grundstimmung und -situation etwas zu einfach abhakt, kann man hinwegsehen. Die Auflösung ist nämlich ansonsten eine echt geile und formschöne Idee. Ein Film, der sich gediegen unter die Haut schleicht und Natur-Ängste abruft.

Set in Sweden but filmed in Romania, The Ritual still manages to deliver solid Norse folk horror, it was creepy & tense in all the right parts, the monster design is incredible, there's a sympathetic redemption arc, a great score from Ben Lovett, and my favorite assortment of "forest/mountain people who might as well be mutants" caricatures.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Nose si es porque estaba muy borracho o hacía mucho que no veía una película así, pero me gusto. De todas formas, le adjudico el triunfo al vino

As if summoned by (you guessed it) some ritual, this movie appeared on Netflix right after my book club had finished this read. We were all like "What great timing! Right?"

This is one of those rare instances where the movie far exceeds the book. That isn't to say that this is an UHmeeezing movie, but it's certainly a step up from the great first act of the book that resulted in the spiraling mess of WutThuhFukkery that is the second act of the book. Mind you, the movie eliminates some of the best and creepiest aspects of the book, which was disappointing, but on the whole it made the bizarre mess of a book into decent bite-sized horror fun. Not mad at it, but needs more little people.

A objetividade e decisões burras do começo, pareciam ir para mais um terror genérico, mas me surpreendeu bastante, o terror mitológico é o grande foco aqui, mas parece servir em virtude de um certo processo de individuação, carrega todo um peso envolta do personagem do Rafe spall. O filme contrasta a covardia do homem urbanizado moderno, com uma resignificação de espaços externos bem interessante, parti das massivas e belíssimas montanhas da Suécia que engolem os personagens, até a verticalidade da floresta que remete a uma prisão, uma prisão que funciona tanto como meio/espacial de uma iminência sobrenatural quanto condição psicológica de culpa e impotência, uma acaba se sobrepondo a outra. um homem entra numa floresta, e tem que enfrentar o deus nórdico de uma civilização bizarra, pra aí concluir seu processo de individuação.

Decent movie. However, the main problematic of the story is escaping from a forest which is basic  The creature seemed unreal and there is no clear explenation why the humans of the forest live there

this guy is really good at smoking cigarettes

One of those movies that feels derivative of enough things that it's hard to put your finger on all of them. Comparisons to the Blair Witch are most obvious at least until the ending. Being similar to other things isn't innately a problem but if you aren't enjoying a movie, it doesn't help.

Overall the movie's real problem is the characters. The ending is cool (though in my opinion they show way too much of the monster) but by the time you get there it's hard to care because of the lack of investment in the characters. Feels like the movie just needed to kill lots of time by having the characters make bad choice after bad choice before finally getting to the interesting part.

It's not bad but it could've been better.

its like midsommar for boys :)

there’s three of us, and one of it. and i’ve got a fucking knife.

I almost died of being bored watching this film. Too much drama.

It’s a bit of a film that feels dumb to watch, very over the top big monster horror but I enjoyed the human element and focus on overcoming regret, even if the cliches are there and it’s a bit of a ridiculous premise

Pretty good.

Don’t watch this if you’re high