This steely British import examines the cost of male-bonding rituals...it's nice to see a horror movie really go for it in the home stretch.

| Jul 31, 2018

The most disappointing kind of bad horror movie: the kind that's too smart to be this dumb.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 9, 2018

There'll be blood, and fire, and guns, and an axe. But there won't be satisfaction.

| Feb 9, 2018

Efficient and highly effective in its style, relying on sound, creepy production design, and the men's own fear and misjudgment to create the sense of pervasive doom.

| Feb 9, 2018

The Ritual, too, on occasion achieves a tense and devilish power, leaving you in the dark with these guys trying to figure out what that thing can mean. In these moments, the forest seems wilder than it is.

| Feb 7, 2018

Attempts to put a twist on the Blair Witch formula but demonstrates surprisingly little imagination.

| Original Score: C | Feb 7, 2018

The Ritual will feel like a trip to comfortably uncomfortable environs. And yet Bruckner's film has more meat on its bones than most, its mayhem splattered with not only blood but issues of guilt, regret and redemption.

| Feb 5, 2018

Eventually, the filmmakers reveal the secrets they'd previously withheld, spoiling the film's sustained mystique.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 4, 2018

[Rafe Spall is] daringly dislikeable, which is the film's boldest decision, but there's enough texture to the role that you root for him to realise his own value and man up.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 17, 2017

A superior B-movie shocker set in the hinterlands of northern Sweden.

| Oct 16, 2017

It's enjoyably gory but not in the same league as the films it emulates.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 15, 2017

Director David Bruckner knows how to jolt us out of our seats one moment and to repel us the next but there's nothing here we haven't encountered before...

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 12, 2017

The Ritual is an efficient, well-made if programmatic Brit horror, with good effects and a big monstrous reveal intelligently withheld.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 12, 2017

Director David Bruckner makes the most of the misty, twiggy Scandi location to conjure a memorable sense of unease, while his cut-above cast are believable as early middle-aged blokes whose once close friendship is tested.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 11, 2017

If it lacks the originality and sheer muscle of the best horror fare, this does offer an astute take on fragile thirtysomething machismo.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 11, 2017

Bruckner's genre timing is spot on even if the finished film could be a tad more terrifying. Winningly witchy, nonetheless.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2017

It may not rise above skilfully delivering horror tropes, but connoisseurs will eat up its refusal to wink at them.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 9, 2017

Like with any other intelligent horror movie, The Ritual is about so much more than scaring its audience senseless.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 22, 2017

Starts with an effective inciting incident but devolves into something that feels overly familiar.

| Sep 22, 2017

Directed by David Bruckner, the film's horror is engaging; its look, handsome. While thoughtfully done, the entertainment value of this sombre scare fiesta isn't high.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 11, 2017