Format: Streaming video from Pluto TV on various players.
The Ritual is one of those movies that feels like you’ve seen in pieces before. There are moments that are directly reminiscent of other films, places where other films have borrowed from it, and allusions to films that don’t on the surface have a lot to do with this one. Among the films that I could see shining through in The Ritual are The Blair Witch Project, King Kong, The Grey and The Descent. I also recognized films like Annihilation, Antlers and Midsommar, but these were released after The Ritual, making this a potential influence more than anything else.
We start out with a group of five guys in a pub deciding what they want to do as a group vacation. Every suggestion eventually gets shot down. The last one under discussion is a hiking trip through Sweden suggested by Rob (Paul Reid). Shortly thereafter, as Rob and Luke (Rafe Spall) go into a liquor store to buy wine, Rob is killed in a robbery gone wrong.
