Ah, the classic “friends go into the woods and everything goes horribly wrong” horror film. We’ve seen it many times before. Nevertheless, it’s often fun to revisit. Netflix has recently decided to be the latest company to tackle this concept with its film The Ritual. Yet this version does have a few things going for it that should make it stand out from the crowd. Based on the novel by Adam Nevill, The Ritual sees four friends taking a backpacking trip in memory of a friend. As to be expected, things go wrong once they decide to take a shortcut through the woods. Check out the trailer for yourself.
The first thing you may notice is that the film takes place in Sweden. Usually this wouldn’t mean a great deal other than alerting the audience that they may have to occasionally read subtitles. In this case, it appears that the film will draw heavily from Norse mythology in its scares. The Ritual seems to take cues from The Blair Witch Project, but whereas the latter concocted a small backstory for itself, The Ritual should have a wealth of lore to draw from.
Directed by David Bruckner and starring Rafe Spall and Robert James-Collier, The Ritual will arrive on Netflix on February 9.
