Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

  • Home
  • The Blog
  • Email List/Contact
  • Interviews
  • Apocalyptic
  • Horror
  • Historical thriller
  • Sci-fi/Fantasy
  • All books

THE RITUAL (2017)

February 10, 2018 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

The-Ritual

In THE RITUAL (2017), a Netflix movie based on the fine book of the same title by Adam Neville, a group of men who’d gone to school together decide to go hiking in Sweden as a vacation to honor a friend who’d passed away. Wet, cold, and unfit for this type of trip, they decide to take a shortcut through a forest and end up terrorized by a malevolent creature. The result is a very simple horror movie that got everything just right for me–story, pacing, direction, character, monster element, and the menacing desolate Scandinavian forest setting.

The characters are likeable, and their reactions are genuine; when they’re being hunted, they go from denial to terror to complete helplessness. Along the way, you see them all transform from men in civilization to exciting vacation to discomfort to crisis to hopelessness and confronting death. There’s a strong theme of how far you should go to put your life on the line for others and your own self worth. The last act of the movie deviates from the book, but in a streamlining way that makes sense of the medium and wraps up the theme nicely.

And wow, that monster. Very similar to what I pictured reading the book but even weirder and creepier. I found it incredible. Everything about that thing was terrific for me to watch.

Happy to recommend this one.

Be Sociable, Share!
  • Tweet

Filed Under: Movies, The Blog

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Categories

  • APOCALYPTIC/HORROR
    • Apocalyptic
    • Art
    • Film Shorts/TV
    • Movies
    • Music Videos
    • Reviews of Other Books
    • Weird/Funny
    • Zombies
  • COMICS
    • Comic Books
  • CRAIG'S WORK
    • Armor Series
    • Crash Dive Series
    • One of Us
    • Our War
    • Suffer the Children
    • The Alchemists
    • The Children of Red Peak
    • The End of the Road
    • The Front
    • The Infection
    • The Killing Floor
    • The Retreat Series
    • The Sacrifice
    • The Thin White Line
    • Tooth and Nail
  • GAMES
    • Video & Board Games
  • HISTORY
    • Other History
    • Submarines & WW2
  • MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE
    • Books
    • Film Shorts
    • Interesting Art
    • Movies & TV
    • Music
  • POLITICAL
    • Politics
  • SCIENCE
    • Cool Science
  • The Blog
  • WRITING LIFE
    • Craig at Work
    • Interviews with Craig
    • Reader Mail
    • Writing/Publishing

Copyright © 2021 · Author Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in