The horror-anthology of short films V/ H/ S opened a lot of talent to the general public, among them was the British director David Bruckner. After participating in this project, in 2015, David noted in another almanac Southbound, and in February of this year on Netflix released his second full-length film - The Ritual.
In fact - the world premiere took place in September last year, but, like the festival cinema, it went on a very limited number of screens and even on the Internet appeared relatively recently. A couple of nights ago I was happy to get acquainted with this film and hasten to share my impressions.
Five friends plan a vacation. Clash in Ibiza - no longer by age, walks in Amsterdam - too boring and the guys agree on a hike along the border of Sweden and Norway. Preserved places, a harsh climate - just what you need to temper the character and strengthen long-term friendship. However, almost immediately after this arrangement, one of the friends is killed during the robbery.
To honor his memory, after six months friends still go to this campaign and everything goes exactly according to plan, exactly as long as the characters do not face the next problem and decide to take advantage of the short road. Through a thick and gloomy forest.
For a long time the best representative of the genre of "forest horror" for me was the first Witch of Blair. A spectacular, unusual pitch, a dark atmosphere and mysticism, prancing from all the cracks made a proper impression. The continuations of the Witch, alas, left much to be desired and turned out to be quite average horror films, but by some miracle Bruckner managed to saddle this idea and pumping Scandinavian folklore with trolls, gods and other Yulupukki and bring it to a whole new level.
Gloomy coniferous forest, moss-covered rocks, drowning in the clouds of the mountain and jelly of the morning fog create an amazing atmosphere of a terrible fairy tale, and even though after the first night of the heroes you realize that they are not interested in getting out of this fairy tale, The clash of civilized Britons with the mythology of the severe north deserves praise. Yes, there are a couple of controversial moments and genre clichés - like the noise from the night forest, to which the hero hiding in the tent listens, but it looks quite organic and also works for the general mood of the film.
It's also worth to please the fans of special effects - Andy Gollum Serkis and his production company The Imaginarium Studios, who worked on setting up the effects and battles in The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, put his hand to the film, so the scare turned out to be not bad, so it's not worth it watching this movie with the kids.
If VHS were still in demand now, I would definitely have recorded the Ritual and the TrollHunter on one tape, since both films serve as an excellent example of how wonderfully horror characters of the Scandinavian fairy tales fit in.
Subjective assessment 8 out of 10
Sorry for possible errors - English is not my native language