The Ritual - L'Exorcisme d'Emma Schmidt

It's not a natural state for human beings to view the world in constant shaking, zooming in and odd angles - this felt like I was watching the world from a boat on waves. It really lets everything else down, and what could have been a great horror, becomes a motion sickness misadventure.

The atmosphere is great, leading actors are of course a stellar choice and the plot is (although been done a thousand times), solid. If you can get past whatever on earth the director was thinking giving the cameraman orders to 'shake like you're filming this on drugs' - it's not too bad. Last sentence: IMBD can you stop this ridiculous minimum character count.

The film is about satanic rituals. We can say it's based on cliché themes. A young girl gets possessed by a demon. There are two priests in the film. These priests try to save the girl from this situation by performing satanic rituals. And the whole film goes on like this... From a technical point of view, the first thing that caught my attention was the camera movements. There were a lot of unnecessary camera moves. I guess the camera was constantly moved to add some action. Even in a random scene, the camera moves in a strange way, it shakes. We saw unnecessary zooms. This was disturbing.

Let's move on to the second point. The script was a total fiasco. Maybe the story could have been expanded, the background of the female character could have been explored. The script felt very incomplete, and the events were presented to the audience in a very narrow way. There's almost no depth in the screenplay.

The theme of suspense was kept in the foreground, while horror was pushed to the background. They say it's based on true events. Maybe that's why they avoided exaggeration, I don't know. This looks like a horror movie, but it's not. Actually, it's not even suspense. It creates tension in a few moments but doesn't lead to anything. It's not what you expect. For me, it was a disappointment...

I know the reviews aren't great but I like Pacino and Dan Stevens, plus I'm usually overly forgiving with these type of movies, so I would have got some enjoyment from it.

I said would have because I couldn't get very far into it.

The reason was the camera which was so distracting. It was shaking with random zooms and unnecessary camera angles. I don't think I've experienced anything like this before, and hopefully nobody will attempt it ever again.

Baffling choice for such a movie. I guess if the director didn't want anyone to focus on his movie for a split second, then mission accomplished.

Here's a film with quite a dilemma. An exorcism story with little to no characterization, and no imagination. If the director was going for a more realistic approach, he failed.

This film performs almost every trick in the exorcism movie book and nothing more. It's quite a shame too. The direction is adept and offers some tension. The pacing is proper for this kind of storyline. The acting is pretty good. I've seen better, but I've also seen a lot worse. The setting is appropriately creepy and atmospheric.

The problem is it does little to tell us anything about it's characters and it strictly sticks with the exorcism. I felt like I learned nothing about this supposed "true story" throughout the runtime except how the rituals are performed. I believe that is where the critics and the audience are having a problem connecting with the film. It was just boring and uninspired.

Overall, I'd say it can wait until streaming. It won't be long before it gets there as nobody is rushing to the theaters to see this one. I was one of two people at my showing, and I completely understand why.

1.5 priests out of 5.

In 1928-based true-tale "The Ritual" priests Dan Stevens & Al Pacino (supported by nuns like Patricia Heaton & Ashley Greene) perform a three-week+ exorcism on Abigail Cowen (excellent). That exorcism though is basically just a repetition of rituals with similar outcomes (including everyone but Pacino getting deeply disturbed (and often injured)) and there's no real exploration of whether Cowen is actually mentally ill rather than possessed (it's mentioned - but dismissively). With solid performances and stylish direction (from writer David Midell) it is superior to most recent exorcist flicks (like the abysmal "The Pope's Exorcist")... but it still ain't too good.