The Ritual review – fails to scare, entertain or convert

The release of a new exorcism movie has become a rather mundane ritual, but the latest, unimaginatively named The Ritual, follows in the footsteps of recent Russell Crowe vehicles The Pope’s Exorcist and The Exorcism by luring an unlikely older star to the project. Playing the “poor soul”, Father Theophilus, assigned the task of performing an exorcism on the stricken Emma (Abigail Cowen) is none other than gangster extraordinaire: Al Pacino. Reluctantly at his side is horror’s recurrent weirdo Dan Stevens as Father Joseph in his most straight laced genre role yet.

Beginning like any fake-real film with the statement that the following scenes are based on true events, The Ritual follows the most documented exorcism in American history: that of Emma Schmidt, 46 at the time of the alleged possession, in 1928. Even as The Ritual declares its authenticity it tries to blur the lines of fact and fiction, mainly done with handheld shaky camera work that attempts to create the feel of a documentary but ends up feeling more like The Office than Ghostwatch. The use of the crash-zoom is so relentless that had the camera technique managed to gain autonomy, it might have filed a cease and desist against all involved.

The umpteenth horror film in the last decade to be named The Ritual, David Midell’s film claws at realism as desperately as the demon scratches at its vessel, however one gnawingly distracting factor is the amount of nipped, tucked and filled faces among the cloister. Evil may have fallen over Father Joseph’s convent but the Holy Spirit has blessed all inside with surgical precision and poreless skin. And no matter how often the flock comment on how dangerously dehydrated Emma is – appearing here in her early 20s – even as her condition worsens, her skin remains incredibly dewy.

The fountain (or knife) of youth thankfully has refrained from touching Al Pacino, who appears as the scruffy granddaddy of exorcisms, complete with hair that sticks up like he’s just been electrocuted in an episode of Looney Tunes. He is here to dole out wisdom and to ground Father Joseph, whose wavering faith makes him a detriment to the cause. But an astoundingly inconsistent script breaks any trust audiences may have in Theophilus, especially when he insists that the priests and nuns involved must hold their resolve on the final eve of exorcism and “not let up” – only for everyone to inexplicably leave the possessed girl at the same time, presumably for a coffee break.

All of which would have been excusable if Midell had directed an exorcist film more akin to The Pope’s Exorcist, where Russell Crowe jauntily zips out from the Vatican on a bright red Vespa, rather than what is clearly intended as a sincere dramatisation of a real exorcism. With its insistence on truth even as it strays from the historical accounts it hinges on, The Ritual fails to scare, entertain or convert. Even though the seasoned professionals attached manage to hold their own, Pacino and Stevens can’t save The Ritual from itself.

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