The Ritual

Just saw the Ritual. Spoilers ahead.

With Altered Carbon, Annihilation and The Ritual all coming out this month I looked into getting Netflix, and surprise surprise; I found I could get a free month. So, on the spur of the moment and literally 10 minutes later I was watching the movie on my playstation (for the surround sound).

And it was awesome.

In the literal sense of that word. I might have mentioned before that I loathe hyperbole, so when I say something's awesome I very much mean it that way.

We follow four friends on their hike gone wrong as, to get to their lodgings quicker, they take a shortcut through one of Sweden's ancient forests. And then, already committed to their path, they find something streaming with blood, disemboweled, spitted on the branches of a tree.

Going in, it rapidly became clear that the music was going to be bloody phenomenal. And so it was. Music is something that has a direct line to my sense of immersion and whatever movie or series that doesn't pay attention to it will always be found lacking. But this one's sound design, score and tension building was just perfect.

Right from the moment the set-up has been revealed we switch scenes and to the insinuating sound of cellos and drums we are treated to a sprawling vista of some of the best of Sweden's cherry-picked desolation, and then the music just keeps going, all tension and atmosphere. Something looms ahead, and it's going to be nasty and dark.

It's a very good movie and a memorable horror film, even though it left me wanting more. It's so good there just couldn't be enough of it. But it also feels as if only Luke's background has been given enough time and build-up. There's clear there's something going on in Dom's family life, there are certainly enough references, and the book takes out time for it. Similarly Hutch and Phil get slight references to their family life but nothing much else. I'm hoping that parts were cut from the movie to retain tension and flow and that they'll be collected in an eventual director's cut somewhere down the line.

The movie still is very much better than the book. Though to be honest, there were a few sure-fire ways that could have happened.

And indeed: Some of the more bizarre, or outright distasteful moments of the novel have been taken out or altered completely, to the infinite betterment of the movie. The entire second half has been stripped of every annoyance that the book offered, and it's pretty much everything that I was hoping the movie would do.
Something else that's been altered, and I'm not sure if it's better or worse, or just a different way to approach the story, but the focus is more on our main(est) character Luke and his nightmares and residual trauma from the movie's instigating event. Luke becomes more relatable, and more haunted and the nightmare sequences (the incredibly good highlights of the book) play out differently but are handled with a surprising level of imagination. The downside to this is that we don't actually get to see anyone else's nightmares, like for instance, Hutch's nightmare in the cabin, which was one of the few things I've ever read in a book that made me pull the covers over my head when I went to bed that night. Whenever I think of the phrase 'Snorting with excitement' or of hooves banging with nervous anticipation on the inside of a coffin I still feel some of that original horror. For me, at the time, in that moment, those scenes had a very intimate and repelling effect, and it made me love the book. It's why this write up is unabashedly subjective. I'd been waiting a long time for this one.

The mythology is excellent.
I can't remember if it was like this in the book, but I'm pretty sure that whatever there was has been upgraded. From oddities and hidden folklore to something more recognizable to the mainstream masses, though it must be said, it's subtle. If you have no frame of reference you're going to be clueless, though in this day and age, with the attention some franchises get and I don't actually want to say it for fear of spoilers, but either way; you're likely to figure it out once names get dropped.

And then... Because I really need to talk about this...
This is a movie where something stalks four friends in an ancient wood. Not really a spoiler that one.
And with these types of films, the creature-features, the whole movie stands or falls on the delivery of its monster, human or otherwise, the final showcase where you'll get to see it, warts and all, and its the warts; the bad cgi or the shoddy practical effects that would be most detracting.

But this one delivers, gives you the money-shot and then proceeds to bask in it. It's very good and all the glimpses, tantalizing, edging you on, make you clamor for a full reveal. And then when at last it stands revealed, it looks very damn cool. And so you cheer:  "Hey, hey, it's a good one!" High-fives all around.

And then... and then the movie goes and one-ups itself. It's perfect and I can't describe it, because I don't want to; because this is where that awe comes in. It's all relative, how you process things, reactions differ, but for me it was literally jaw-dropping.
Common opinion is that it's a very good movie, though likely not that memorable. But for me it is. I had been anticipating this one for a long time and it blew my good expectations out of the water. It stuck close to the novel's excellent first half and dumped the excess shite from the second.
Then it took the visual image I had of the stalker, used that as a starting point and then went to town with unbridled creativity.

Bloody well loved it. hugely enjoyable. Long live the wild wood.

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I was supposed to be starting the write-up for Weaveworld but I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed with the movie. Also the two days of hard labour haven't helped.
Some hours got switched around this week, which means I'll be home tomorrow and do some of my writing then. I'm just going to have to exercise some willpower and refrain from watching something else now that there's so much just a click of a button away.