O Ritual

The movie is not slow passed, it's just that nothing happens. There is barely any action, no character development. The jump scares break the monotony but even them seem outside of the main plot and feel like they could have been left out all together. Al Pacino's performance is the only thing this movie has going for it.

The parish priest seems there to fil in a spot so the movie can claim to be based on a real story. His only contribution feels squeezed in at the end so he can justify his place in the movie.

This middle ground between horror fiction and real story is hard to tread and the movie has failed to do so. I went in expecting more psychological horror rather then jump scares given the "real story" part and might have been a better direction for this movie.

This was a nice surprise that I was the only one in a theater room without hearing the same old popcorn chewing and munching besides me, I was amazed that I'm giving credit that watching this by myself at theaters is the same thing as watching it at home. One major problem that audiences does hate the most and is the shaky cameras if the enhanced frame per second was 60fps than it advanced movements. I did enjoyed how I never heard of this exorcism from the late 1920's, which we've seen hundreds of exorcism films in the past, Not this one, I've seen several exorcism films that are goods and one was ridiculous, the ridiculous one was, The Exorcist Believer. The worst Exorcism film(s) is Believer & Heretic.this was 9/10 so bad is good, two cast(s) Stevens & Pacino were amazing. Id ignore the shaky camera, I thought I was going to rate this lower but because it's just me in the theater I was extremely happy in years just to see myself in the movie theater.

I'm guessing that Russell Crowe was busy for this latest exercise in priestly exorcism so an hardly recognisable Al Pacino decided to have a go. He is a Capetian father drafted in to help the reluctant Fr. Joseph (Dan Stevens) with a particularly difficult task. Fr. Theophilus must help rid the poor young Emma (Abigail Cowen) of an unwanted bodily guest. His methods do not impress the rather naive young father, nor the sisters in attendance as she increasingly resorts to involuntary bleeding, foul language, violent outbursts and even the usual hanging upside down from the ceiling lamp trick whilst under relentless assault from the repetitious bible verses being read across what I counted are at least seven of those ritual attempts at expulsion. Sound familiar? Well that's because it is. Aside from Pacino turning in a slightly different style of performance from his norm, the rest of this hasn't an original bone in it's body. Indeed, its only claim to fame appears to be that it is based on the original, almost century old, transcriptions from Fr. Joseph of events that are really supposed to have happened but we've seen this all predictably play out so many times before that even the traditional collapsible bed doesn't turn an head - spiritual or metaphysically. The one element that does provoke a little interest is, perhaps, the clear indication that Catholicism in the 1920s was riddled with incantations, superstitions and a degree of symbolism that probably hadn't changed since much since there was a Borgia on the throne of St. Peter. This might work on the telly at Halloween of you're full of Grappa, but as a cinema experience it is disappointing and entirely forgettable, sorry.

Why are the reviews so bad? I almost skipped it because the low ratings...it's actually good for a possession/haunted house movie...it has zero jokes, no corny people trying to be funny, and actually has scary scenes...seeing close up shots of the shock and fear on the sister's and priests faces are frightening!! It makes you feel grateful to not be in these situations, the scariest scenes happened towards the Iast 30 minutes...Bring her back was still way better, but this was a decent scary film...If you want to see a possession film, GO SEE THIS...I know bad scary movies, this wasn't bad, It just didn't have those usual jokes and typical dialog you are used to...it's actually for adults and for people that don't like Horror comedies...

I thought that Russell Crowe had cornered the market in crappy exorcism films, but The Ritual proves me wrong: anything Crowe can do, Al Pacino can do just as bad, if not worse: Al's lackluster performance as elderly Father Theophilus Riesinger is a career low. Not that Pacino is all to blame for this tired and predictable possession flick: David Midell's direction is atrocious, with horrible, wobbly, reportage-style camerawork making the film a strain on the eyes, while his script is a messy hodge-podge of well-worn clichés that have been done to death ever since Regan first spewed up pea soup over 50 years ago.

In The Exorcist, it was easy for the viewer to feel empathy for the little girl who unwillingly played host to Pazuzu, since director William Friedkin was mindful to introduce us to her before the demon took hold. The fact that Linda Blair was so loveable and cherubic before becoming a foul-mouthed, head-turning beast with a crucifix up her snatch made her transformation all the more horrific. Not so with The Ritual, which immediately jumps into the deep end, poor possessed Emma writhing and drooling uncontrollably from the get go. We know very little about the woman, which makes it very hard for the viewer to care about what is happening to her. The only reason I was keen to see the demon driven from her body was that the film would finally be over.

Sadly, it takes several tedious rituals to achieve the desired result, none of which deliver anything we haven't seen many times before: we get some vomiting, guttural swearing, and levitation, with observer Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) struggling with his faith a la Damien Karras. One might imagine that the best would have been saved for last, but the final ritual, in which the priests successfully exorcise the demon, is a damp squib: it's loud and chaotic, but there's nothing shocking, and it's over before you can say Captain Howdy, everybody living happily ever after (as the film's closing captions inform us).

I rate The Ritual 1/10: it's formulaic, boring, unimaginative and utterly banal garbage. Those of us stupid enough to stay to the end exited the theatre in a hurry.