Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A group of college friends reunite for a trip to the forest, but encounter a menacing presence in the woods that's stalking them.
The Ritual delivers genuinely atmospheric folk horror with strong forest cinematography that makes the Scandinavian wilderness feel oppressive and alive. The guilt-driven character backstory gives the plot more emotional weight than typical survival horror, and the performances are solid if unremarkable. However, the film loses its footing in the third act, with the cult reveal and monster design feeling rushed and tonally inconsistent with the slow-burn dread that precedes it. The Norse mythology angle gives it modest distinctiveness within the folk horror subgenre, but it doesn't fully reinvent the 'lost in the woods' formula.