The Ritual

This follow-up to Head Case is quite impressive. Spadaccini took a completely different direction in The Ritual and I like it. The Ritual takes the disturbing horror elements from its predecessor and adds some depth to the story. This film introduces some new characters. Jared, played by Joey Garrison, is one of my favorite characters. His performance was stellar. We also got to see more from Brinke Stevens, whose performance was also outstanding. She had such an intense presence in the film, even with little screen time. The characters all meshed together so well. The cinematography and editing improved dramatically in comparison to Head Case. Head Case was gritty and raw, while Ritual has a more elegant feel, yet maintains its realism.

The acting of the supporting cast left much to be desired. Don't get me wrong, the leads were great, story line was great but the supporting cast just could not keep up. Wayyyyy out-classed.

Good movie overall but the the actors that played Holly, Robert....etc. need to get more acting lessons before embarking on something as intricate as this. Hopefully they will get better with time.

I really look forward to more shorts and features from this director. Anthony appears to be a natural at this craft but it is almost like he cast some of his friends with little or no real training to play bit parts thus bringing down what was a film with potential.

I look forward to watching Post-Mortem but the supporting cast has some of the same names that did not impress me in this one. Hopefully, they give a better performance in Post-Mortem.

Alex