The Ritual is a 2011 British horror novel by Adam Nevill that had a discrete success since it was released, in 2011 in the UK and 2012 in the USA. But despite its modest receiving, the novel’s critical reception was quite positive, being called “intense and creepy” and HorrorNews.net commenting “Nevill‘s writing style is top-notch and he is one of those guys who can just naturally tell a good story with little to no effort”. The South African paper Independent Online even mentioned “it would work well as a horror film”. Well, that eventually happened!
The big screen adaptation for The Ritual (2017) has been written for the screen by Joe Barton. The direction has been in charge of David Bruckner, which marks his debut as a solo director in a feature film, after being co-director in the films Southbound (2015), The Signal (2007) or V/H/S (2012) with the segment “Amateur Night“. The cast main is formed by Rafe Spall, Rob James-Collier, Arsher Ali, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid, Maria Erwolter and Kerri McLean.
The plot for the original novel is about a group of old college friends who have decided to reunite and reminisce about their past exploits while hiking through the Swedish Forests. As the group goes further and further into the woods, they are forced to take a shortcut due to them being injured by. However the shortcut ends up causing the group to become hopelessly lost and scared, especially after they discover a disemboweled animal corpse hanging from the trees. They eventually make their way to an ancient shack filled with bones and strange artifacts, where they discover that they are not alone in the woods and that something is intent on ensuring that they never leave.
The movie is currently in post-production, and its UK and Ireland release date is the 13th of October. If you want to take a peek of how it looks, check out its first official trailer here:
