PLOT: Two priests, one in crisis with his faith and the other confronting a turbulent past, must overcome their differences to perform a risky exorcism.
REVIEW: I’m not sure there’s anything to make me less interested in a horror movie than the moniker “Based on a true story.” Ever since the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, “based on” seems to do a lot of heavy lifting, with only small threads of truth even existing. It’s a marketing ploy, and it rarely works. If anything, it gives the audience an expectation that things can’t get too crazy, which is precisely why The Ritual doesn’t work. We’ve already seen this story done, and done with much more pomp and circumstance. Why watch a more dumbed-down version of what has become the blueprint for possession films?
The Ritual is a simple possession story of a girl being brought to a church in order to perform an exorcism in the 1920’s. The movie starts and stops with the exorcism itself, and the film doesn’t seem to care about anything else. That means we’re not getting much background on any character; at least nothing that doesn’t directly involve the demon. This includes Emma, the possessed girl, so we’re never able to see how she is prior to possession. Without that on-screen juxtaposition of Emma before and during, her transformation is less impactful. But that’s everything in this movie. So surface level that there’s never even an opportunity for it to get under your skin.
I feel like many people are going to be buying a ticket to The Ritual (all ten of us) simply to see Al Pacino in a horror movie. It’s not something that has happened often yet, with horror no longer having a massive stigma attached to it, actors seem more open to trying it. And part of me thinks Pacino saw Russell Crowe in Pope’s Exorcist and went “I want to do that!” While Pacino’s Father Theophilus Riesinger isn’t quite as zany, it’s clear he’s having a blast with the accent. The issue is that none of the characters, Riesinger included, feel like real people. They’re just miserable husks that solely exist within this church, with no lives outside of it.
They try to do something with Dan Stevens‘ Father Joseph Steiger having a crisis of faith, but it’s almost to the point of parody. We’ve seen this plot point done and done better in so many other films of the same nature. It simply doesn’t work. And between Abigail and his performance here, I’m officially convinced that Stevens can’t pull off an American accent. It becomes distracting how much it slips.
If there’s one performance that should be given some praise, it’s Abigail Cowen as Emma. I always love a good possessed performance, and Cowen does a tremendous job. There’s one scene in particular, where there’s no one else around for the demon to perform to, where we get to sit and watch Emma when the demon isn’t going crazy within her. It’s really well done, and I wish we got more of that. Instead, it’s just a scene after a scene of people of faith standing around this girl as she freaks out. There’s hardly even a ramp-up, and the “true story” element feels as false as these always do. What’s even more shocking is the R rating, which is entirely wasted on nothing more than a few bits of blood.
I was actually a bit surprised at how bland The Ritual ended up being. I know, the title and plot should have been heavy indicators, but I really was expecting more. Whether it’s a so bad it’s good energy or a couple of original ideas, this just falls in the middle. There’s nothing here that’s egregiously terrible, but there’s nothing here that makes the story even feel like it has a point. We’ve seen this story done before and better. This feels like a horror movie for people who don’t like to be scared but still want to participate. This results in a bland experience that will likely be forgotten by next month. If it even lasts that long.
THE RITUAL IS IN THEATERS ON JUNE 6TH, 2025.
