El ritual

El 90% del metraje es una película de terror muy minimalista que trabaja sobre todo con el sonido. El bosque espantoso, la brujería y el antiguo demonio, cuyo ocultamiento provoca el miedo y estimula la fantasía del espectador. Una aventura que pone los pelos de punta a los que les gusta eso, aunque muy parecida a otras de este género (esta vez se acordarán de El proyecto de la bruja de Blair y Depredador). [Sitges FF] (08.10.2017)

At first, I thought like I was watching a more technically advanced version of the Blair Witch Project (and that’s not that difficult to achieve, let’s be honest here). Fortunately, this film gets more interesting, turning a bush craft horror into a proper fantasy one with Scandinavian gods, which elevated it to a new level. Marvel movies aside, not everyone dares to invite the Viking gods from Valhalla into their movie. It always seems strange, ethereal. And they made a good use of it in this movie. It does give Sweden a bit of a backwoods feel, but still better than if it took place in the Czech Giant Mountains. (14.05.2020)

The first notch of the year from Britain? I quite regret not going to the cinema the other day when I had the chance, the atmosphere of the film is very good. A group of friends take a trip to the Swedish woods, where they become hallucinated, paranoid and haunted by something supernatural. It keeps up the pace. the scenes in the cabin are decently creepy and the central evil is excellent, too bad they didn't pay attention to gore as well, but still a decent affair and one of the best this year. 75% (07.02.2018)

A technically solid trek through a Swedish forest, and when three reindeer meet, the joy multiplies and intestines hang from branches. Unfortunately, the acting is wooden, the tempo is very slow and there is not much originality or intensity in the first two thirds. The final third is quite sharp thanks to the Jötunn-redneck mash-up, but still hardly makes a dent. Netflix could slowly produce these "so-so" movies on an assembly line. (13.03.2018)

The first quality horror film of the year. For two thirds of its length, it’s a terrifying and mysterious forest madness and I was ready to give it the highest rating, because everything works perfectly genre-wise. It’s also further proof of how much better horror can be when the main characters aren’t only pretty young faces from a poster, but living characters – or normal people. The night sequence in the abandoned forest cabin was the creepiest movie experience I had a long time; it was really chilling. The closing third takes things a bit further than I would have expected, at the expense of the atmosphere the film was building up until that point. And the ending is proof of how valid the old wisdom is: that horror works better when the core evil is hidden. So I’m keeping the last star for myself, but otherwise, I’m very satisfied. (06.02.2018)