Movie Review: The Ritual

The Ritual ** ½ / *****

Directed by: David Bruckner.

Written by: Joe Barton based on the novel by Adam Nevill.

Starring: Rafe Spall (Luke), Arsher Ali (Phil), Robert James-Collier (Hutch), Sam Troughton (Dom), Paul Reid (Robert).

 

Director David Bruckner is a talented filmmaker. He did my favorite segment of the horror omnibus films V/H/S (Amateur Night, about a group of horny college guys who get way more than they bargained for) and Southbound (The Accident, about a man on a remote highway looking at his cellphone, and runs over a young woman – which ends up being just the beginning of a horrible night). Both of those are stylish mini-horror films that do an expert job at building the tension, and then finally letting it out. His debut feature, The Ritual, shows some of that talent but is mainly undone by a rather lackluster script, that hits every story beat we expect it to and is essentially going through the motions of this type of horror film. Bruckner, mainly, does a fine job at directing, but there is only so much he can do with what he has to work with.

 

The film is about a group of four university friends, now in their 30s, who instead of the usual “man’s trip” to some party city, have decided to go hiking in Northern Sweden instead. In large part, this decision was made to honor a fifth friend – a man he see murdered in the opening sequence in a random convenience store robbery – a place he would not have been in if not for Luke (Rafe Spall) – who was able to hide during the robbery and escaped without a scratch. The four surviving friends are on their way back to the lodge they are staying at, when they decide to go off the defined path, and instead, to walk through the forest instead. After all, the forest is a more direct route, they can relax sooner, and one of the men, Dom (Sam Troughton), has just twisted his knee and won’t shut up about it. What can possibly go wrong in the dark, remote woods of Sweden?

 

Basically, what The Ritual wants to be is a more polished, all male version of The Blair Witch Project. For most of the movie, the horror comes from noises in the night, things hanging from or carved into trees, and a house in complete disrepair that has some weird stuff in it. As a director, Bruckner doesn’t go with the hand held camera on The Blair Witch Project, but a more polished look. He makes great use of darkness and the house, and all the trees – perhaps that’s easy, but he does a great job regardless.

 

What Bruckner cannot help is the basic plot of the movie, which builds and builds and builds towards a climax with an actual monster (which, to be honest, looks more strange than scary, and was clearly created on a budget). He can also not help the fact that other than Rafe Spall’s Luke, the other three men are ill defined and interchangeable. I do wish someone along the way questioned the need for all the flashbacks to “that night” that litter the film, since it doesn’t actually seem like it has anything to do with the plot at all.

 

I still do think that Bruckner is a talented horror film director. He got a chance to make a full feature after three omnibus segments (I have not seen The Signal – although several people have said that, like the others, his segment was the best) – and decided to take it. I think he does what he can with a script that doesn’t really work.

Movie Review: Southbound

Southbound
Directed by: Roxanne Benjamin (Siren) & David Bruckner (The Accident) & Patrick Horvath (The Jailbreak) & Radio Silence (The Way Out/The Way In).
Written by: Roxanne Benjamin & Susan Burke (Siren) and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (The Way Out/The Way In) and David Bruckner (The Accident) and Dallas Richard Hallam & Patrick Horvath (The Jailbreak)
Starring: Chad Villella (Mitch), Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (Jack), Kristina Pesic (Sutter), Fabianne Therese (Sadie), Nathalie Love (Kim), Hannah Marks (Ava), Dana Gould (Raymond Kensington), Anessa Ramsey (Bunny Kensington / Phone Operator), Susan Burke (Betty), Davey Johnson (Dale), Mather Zickel (Lucas), Karla Droege (EMT), Zoe Cooper (Dispatch), Justin Welborn (Surgeon), David Yow (Danny), Tipper Newton (Jesse), Matt Peters (Al), Maria Olsen (Sandy), Tyler Tuione (Warren), Kate Beahan (Cait), Gerald Downey (Daryl), Hassie Harrison (Jem), Tallulah Mounce (Kathryn), Courtney Bandeko (Maid), Max Folkman (The Kensington Twins), Nick Folkman (The Kensington Twins), Karina Fontes (Alex), Roxanne Benjamin (Claire), Damion Stephens (Shane), Larry Fessenden (The D.J.).

We all know that for the most part, anthology films are a much better idea in theory than they are in practice. The best ones have a few good segments, but are somewhat deflated by the bad segments they are also inevitably there – and are often marred by inconsistent style and tone from one film to the next, which means that the films can never really build to anything. Horror anthologies have always been popular – and the good ones are usually better than anthologies of other kinds, in part because they force the directors to cram what would normally be 90 minutes worth of scares into one, compact segment, which forces them to strip away all the filler, and just give the audience the good stuff. The two most popular anthology series in recent years have been the V/H/S movies (I liked the first one, was fairly indifferent to the second, and still haven’t seen the third) and The ABCs of Death (I hated the first one, and will probably never watch the second). Thankfully, the new film Southbound comes from some of the people behind the V/H/S series, and while I don’t think it reaches the heights of the best segments in those films, it is more consistent in tone, style and quality across its 4 segments. It’s hardly a great horror film, but it is a quietly creepy one – particularly in the first few segments.

The film opens with a mysterious segment – directed by the collective Radio Silence (who made one of the better segments on VHS – and then the not very good feature, Devil’s Due) as two men in a car, driving down a lonesome stretch of parched, desert highway – are haunted by mysterious wraiths, floating on the side of the road, before the stop at a rest stop, and then hit the road again, only to end up at the same rest stop again and again. This segment sets up the movie – and its themes, quite well. All of the stories will take place along this desolate highway, one leading to the other, and all will touch on themes of guilt, as the characters are haunted by things they cannot escape.

The next segment is one of the two I genuinely really liked. Directed by newcomer Roxanne Benjamin, it tells the story of an all-girl band, whose van gets a flat tire, and are seemingly trapped on the lonely highway – until a way too friendly couple stops and offers them a ride. That couple is, of course, not really that nice – and soon, one of the girls is running for her life – yet still haunted by what happened to the fourth member of the band.

The third segment is the best of the bunch – as a man, not paying attention and talking on his cellphone, runs over a young woman in the middle of the highway, and then tries to save her life – by calling 911, and then staying on the line with them as they talk him through what to do to get her to a hospital – and then what to do when he gets there, and finds it mysteriously deserted. This segment gets bloody as hell – the poor young woman’s body keeping breaking down more and more, with blood spurting all over the place. Directed by David Bruckner – who did my favorite segment, Amateur Night, of the original V/H/S – this mini body horror movie is just about perfect.

It does, unfortunately, lead into the films worst segment – The Jailbreak, directed Patrick Horvath – about a man, who enters a bar, looking for his long lost sister – who ends up getting more than he expected. This segment is the most obvious of the group (and none of them are exactly original), and dullest – which is odd, because it’s also the one that embraces the supernatural the most overtly. The segment leaves little impact however. Finally, the film loops back to Radio Silence, who do a competent, but not much more, home invasion story (set in a motel room), before returning to the beginning of the movie, and spelling things out too clearly for my taste.

So Southbound is basically five segments, and two of them are genuinely creepy and frightening, and the other are at least competently made, and executed. What’s more, none of them stand out as being off the wall or inconsistent with the rest. That is one of the problems with something like VHS, and its sequel, as each director has a wildly different take on the genre, so the frights don’t build. In Southbound, despite it being an anthology, it does feel like its all part of a cohesive whole – so even the weaker segments don’t drag the rest down that far.

Southbound is hardly a great movie – but it is a fun, low stakes horror movie, directed with style and atmosphere. Yes, it gets bloody, but it’s bloody in a clever way. The whole thing is satisfying, without ever being great. Still, if Southbound 2 ever gets made, I’ll watch it.

Movie Review: V/H/S

V/H/S

Diected by: Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glen McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence.

Written by: Simon Barrett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence, Nicholas Tecosky, Chad Villella, Ti West.

Starring: Calvin Reeder (Gary), Lane Hughes (Brad), Adam Wingard (Rock), Hannah Fierman (Lily), Mike Donlan (Shane), Joe Sykes (Patrick), Drew Sawyer (Clint), Jas Sams (Lisa), Joe Swanberg (Sam), Sophia Takal (Stephanie), Kate Lyn Sheil (The Stalker), Norma C. Quinones (Wendy), Drew Moerlein (Joey), Jason Yachanin (Spider), Helen Rogers (Emily), Daniel Kaufman (James), Chad Villella (Chad), Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (Matt), Tyler Gillett (Tyler), Paul Natonek (Paul).

V/H/S is an good example of two types of films that normally suck. The first is the anthology film, which always seems like a better idea in theory than it is in practice – normally, what happens is you get one great segment surrounded by a bunch of crap that you have to wade through to get to the good one. The second is the found footage horror film – that was popularized by good movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, but is normally just shaky camera work crap. But V/H/S is an example of why anthologies sometimes work and why found footage horror films can be extremely scary if done right. The film has two excellent shorts, one very good, one passable and only one that is downright awful to go along with  a framing device that grows more tired every time we revisit it. Yet, when the film works, and the first two segments work amazingly well, it scared me more than any other horror film I’ve seen this year.

The framing device for the film, directed by Adam Wingard, is about a group of 20 year assholes, who film themselves doing despicable things and then post them on YouTube. They get a job offer to rob an old house – the only thing the client wants is some old VHS tapes. They have no idea what is on them. They break into the house, find an old dead man in a chair in front of a bank of TVs, and then find the VHS tapes – which they play one after another in mounting horror. The framing device is effective, but grows a little more tiresome each time we revisit it. This really isn’t Wingard's fault, who has less freedom than the other directors since he needs to set up the whole film, but it is effective.

The first real segment is by personal favorite in the film – and the one that scared me the most. Three horny college boys hit the bar, one with a hidden camera in his glasses. They get drunk, and pick up two women, and take them back to a hotel room – and this is when all hell breaks loose. The film is a slow burn before its shocking climax, but it is brutally effective, and the line "I like you" will now never cease to send chills up my spine. Directed by David Bruckner, this segment is brutal, bloody and brilliant.

The second film is by the great Ti West – who with his segment here and his features The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers has established himself as one of the hopes for American horrors future. His segment stars Joe Swanberg and Sophia Takal as a young married couple on their second honeymoon, who are filming their adventures. First they get a strange fortune by one of those fortune telling machines seen in the movie Big. And then things get even creepier when it becomes clear someone is watching them – and films them while they sleep. Another slow burn of a horror film, leading to a truly shocking finale, this segment keeps the intensity of Bruckner’s segment going.

The third segment, directed by Glenn McQuaid, is the one that doesn’t work at all. It has an interesting, if well-worn setup, of a group of college kids heading out for a weekend in the wilderness – where of course, it has been long since rumored to be the hunting grounds of a demented serial killer, which of course, is true. I admire how McQuaid tries to put a new twist on this old as the hills concept, but what he actually puts onscreen is awful, cheesy and just not scary. This is the segment it’s safe to go to the bathroom during without the danger of missing anything.

The fourth segment is directed by Mumblecore mainstay Joe Swanberg, and takes place entirely over Skype (how a Skype conversation ended up on VHS is a question better left unasked). In it, a scared young woman, who just moved into a new apartment, talks to her boyfriend over Skype, and shares her interesting creepy stories of what is happening in her apartment. This segment is more creepy than scary and the ending, which like the others tries to add a twist, really doesn’t work at all. It may just be the best thing Swanberg has ever done – but considering I don’t normally like his films, that may be damning the film with faint praise.

The final segment is by a group who calls themselves Radio Silence, and is about a group of college kids who head out to a Halloween party – and gets in over their heads. This segment seems to have been the critic’s favorite when the film debuted at Sundance, and it’s easy to see why – out of all the segments, it is the one that keeps you guessing the most from one scene to the next. You’re never quite sure what is going to be around the next corner, what is going to happen next. And while I prefer Bruckner’s sequence – and maybe even Wests, it is creepy and scary in the extreme.

V/H/S is a good horror film – that has some great moments and perhaps proof that horror anthologies work better than most other genres. Perhaps that’s because the best part of horror films is usually the setup, but often has to pad its mid-section with needless bloodletting to get up to feature length. Here, by the time each segment is done with its setup, it’s already moved directly into its climax, so as not to overstay its welcome. Unfortunately, after the first two segments, the third one is a massive disappointment, and the film never quite regains its momentum – even though the Radio Silence directed finale comes close. I know a lot of people hate the found footage genre, with its constant shaky camera work – I often do as well. But perhaps I’m just getting used to it – more and more films are using the concept, and sometimes it works – as it does in the best segments here. V/H/S cannot sustain its effectiveness throughout the whole film – but there are moments that make it worthwhile.