The Ritual Review

“Deliver us, oh Lord.” – Father Theophilus

Yes indeed – deliver us from films like this one.

The Ritual is a film I saw accidentally. I didn’t mean to, but I did and here we are. Now, I guess the logical and reasonable question is how on Earth did I manage to see a film “accidentally”? Did I fall and land in a screening room that was locked behind me? Nope. But there IS a story.

Okay, so Steve and I had planned to see Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which incidentally is a ten out of ten movie. But for optimum effect, I’d suggest doing what we did – watch all the preceding ones first. There are several callbacks and referenced to those earlier movies, so best to refresh yourself so you don’t miss anything important.

We noticed that on the same day, Cineworld had scheduled a Secret Screaming event. That, for those of you who don’t know, is a preview screening of an upcoming horror movie, but you don’t know what it is until it actually starts. Even the cinema staff don’t know what it is. So, this is fun – right?

I had convinced myself that the movie we were going to see was the upcoming Clown in a Cornfield, which is right up my alley. Psychotic clowns slaughtering teenagers in cornfields, what’s not to like? For your reference, here’s the trailer.

I had even checked to see other likely films, like Together, Dangerous Animals – but Megan 2.0 seemed like a long shot. I had even told Steve that at least we’re not going to see any crappy exorcism film because I hadn’t seen any listed for release, nor had I seen a trailer. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I was certain to be right. Clown in a Cornfield, here I come. Having spent the afternoon blown away by how titanically great Mission: Impossible was, we had both eaten roughly our own body weight of a KFC family bucket (we should’ve been ashamed – but Junior and I live without regret at the fried chicken carnage) and we settled down to the mystery movie, which was certain to feature a clown and a cornfield. Until the person sitting behind me mentioned that the film was likely, in his opinion, to be The Ritual. (Ummmm… okaaaay.) And then explained that The Ritual was an exorcism movie. (Aw crap!)

When things unravel, they unravel fast.

The only footage of Clown in a Cornfield I was to see that evening was the trailer, which was shown in front of the movie we were about to see, which still hadn’t been announced, but my heart was sinking. When the classification certificate flashed on the screen proudly proclaiming The Ritual, I was seriously questioning my lifestyle choices and started eyeing the exit, bitterly envious of whoever was on the other side of it blissfully unaware of what they were being spared.

Okay, truth is, I was never going to hit that exit because I’m proud of the fact that I’ve never walked out of a screening. I’ve always stayed; however bad the film has been. (Full disclosure – I might take a nap, but I’ve always stayed.)

I might as well be honest – I don’t like exorcism movies. Other than The Exorcist (particularly the director’s cut) and the more recent Exorcist: Believer. Every other movie based on an exorcism has, to me, seemed to be nothing but a pale imitation of The Exorcist. And they ALL claim to be based on real events. (Yeah, sure they are.) The Ritual even has the additional claim of being based on and I quote: “the most documented exorcism in American history”. I have absolutely no claim to being a historian, but I’ve never heard of this case.

Another reason I dislike the exorcism sub-genre of horror, I guess is that I’m not a religious person. So, all the Christian iconography and imagery really doesn’t mean anything to me. (By freaky coincidence, I have just noticed that the last paragraph there took me up to a word count of 666.)

Seeing that I was there (trapped, like a fly in a web) I thought I’d make the most of it. After all, this one might have something different. Something to make me sit up and take notice. It might even be a better exorcism movie than The Exorcist, right? I mean anything’s possible. It could even shock me to Christianity.

Yeah – could’ve, should’ve, didn’t - as the saying goes.

Set in Ohio in 1923, this is the case of Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen) who is referred to a parish for exorcism, seeing that she’s suffering a nasty case of demonic possession. There she comes under the care of the local priest, Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) and his mentor in this case, the venerable Father Theophilus Reisinger (Al Pacino). Yes – Al Pacino is in this movie, and when he appeared I thought he might have been a saving grace, despite his monk’s robes making him look like a dishevelled Obi-Wan Kenobi. But no. Had he whipped out a cross and said “say hello to my li’l friend” in the middle of the exorcism I’d be lauding this as one of the greatest scenes in film history. But no… opportunity missed.

What we got instead was a tired, cliché-ridden ninety minutes retreading familiar territory. You could honestly have played exorcism bingo at this movie, or even a drinking game, except I’d be hammered and I had to drive home. Vomiting – check, incomprehensible Latin – check, younger priest questioning his faith – check, older priest with a history – check. Bingo – I win.

Yeah, I win except I’d have been a lot happier had they shown me Clown in a Cornfeld.

Oh – there was an odd event I need to mention before I go. We had a large bottle of Pepsi Max to put in the car after our meal. Standing behind the car parked next to minewas a guy in black jeans and a black hoodie with his back to me. He never turned around, so I never saw his face. Anyhow, I left the bottle in the car and attended the screening. Just under two hours later, back to the car to drive home – HE’S STILL THERE. Standing in exactly the same spot with his hood still up, his back still to me. He hadn’t moved an inch.

It crossed my mind that he might be a demon or the grim reaper, but I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that if a mysterious black clad figure is standing next to your car in a deserted car park – you get the hell out of there and live to tell the tale.

Back to the film, the rating is based on my mind’s need to amuse itself, so I was counting tiresome cliches to pass the time and that became more entertaining than the film.

Rob Rating = 2