#14 - The Ritual (2017)
(dir. David Bruckner)
Four friends travel to Sweden on holiday, where they plan to hike the remote King's Trail. When one of them injures his knee, they decide to take a shortcut through the forest to get back to civilization faster. You can probably guess that this turns out to be a bad idea. They are seriously creeped out when they encounter the eviscerated corpse of an elk hanging from a tree, and even more disturbed when they find a creepy headless effigy in the attic of an abandoned cabin... but the worst part is that they soon learn they are not alone in these woods.
I thought this was a legitimately scary movie. While it starts off with the tone of something like The Blair Witch Project, it soon transforms into something that I found pretty unique. Many similar films would keep things vague and mysterious throughout, without any real payoff, but The Ritual manages to explain what is happening and still remain really intense. I also like the use of Norse mythology here, something I don't think I've seen done before. I'm really enjoying the relatively recent wave of "folk horror", films centered around local myths, folklore, ritual, cults, etc. It mostly seems to be a British thing, the classic example is the original The Wicker Man but recently films like Kill List and The Witch have brought the sub-genre back into style.
I highly recommend this one. I just watched it last night and I'm already sure it is going to end up as one of my favorite horror films of the year. Available to stream on Netflix.
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