The Ritual (2025)

1 Star (out of 4)

Possession Repression

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

An absolutely dismal exorcism movie, David Midell's so-called horror movie The Ritual is unpleasant-looking, un-suspenseful, not at all scary, not even the least bit interesting character-wise, and above all, boring.

It's 1928 in Earling, Iowa. Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) is informed that a sick young woman, Emma (Abigail Cowen), is being sent to his parish to receive an exorcism. Father Theophilus Riesinger (Al Pacino) will be performing the ritual. Father Steiger believes that the girl simply needs a doctor and balks at Father Riesinger's insistence on restraints during the procedure.

Before long Emma begins behaving violently, yanking part of the scalp off of a nun, Sister Rose (Ashley Greene). Things seem to grow worse with each daily ritual, with Emma growing sicker and more violent. To finally break through to the demon within, Father Steiger must re-assess his own faith.

To start The Ritual is cursed with ugly, pale, washed-out, hand-held cinematography, wobbly and annoying from the first second to the last. It somehow manages to wobble away from stuff that might have been scary, rendering several scenes inert. For example, Father Steiger finds several pages of scrawled writings by Emma/the demon, and the camera never holds still long enough for us to read them.

The cinematography also manages to take away from the feeling that this is supposed to be 1928, and makes it hard to believe that these were supposed to be "true incidents" (even with the addition of a pre-credits sequence with photos and details about what happened to all the characters afterward).

The movie has a lifeless quality that makes it difficult to care about anyone or what's happening. Dan Stevens gives a stiff, unforgiving performance that makes him seem like the villain of the piece, impossible to root for. And Al Pacino, who might have at least injected a dose of "hoo-AH!" campiness into the movie, looks absolutely bored.

There have been many terrible exorcism movies — The Devil Inside, The Vatican Tapes, Prey for the Devil, Deliver Us from Evil, The Exorcism, etc. — but The Ritual might take "possession" of the award for being the worst.

The Blu-ray release from Decal Releasing and XYZ Films only highlights this film's unappealing look, unfortunately. Bonuses include a "Making of" featurette (11 minutes), with cast and crew interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, three more short featurettes (2 minutes each), and the "Buzzfeed Interviews" (8 minutes). There are also optional English subtitles.