The Ritual

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.

I'm guessing that Russell Crowe was busy for this latest exercise in priestly exorcism so an hardly recognisable Al Pacino decided to have a go. He is a Capetian father drafted in to help the reluctant Fr. Joseph (Dan Stevens) with a particularly difficult task. Fr. Theophilus must help rid the poor young Emma (Abigail Cowen) of an unwanted bodily guest. His methods do not impress the rather naive young father, nor the sisters in attendance as she increasingly resorts to involuntary bleeding, foul language, violent outbursts and even the usual hanging upside down from the ceiling lamp trick whilst under relentless assault from the repetitious bible verses being read across what I counted are at least seven of those ritual attempts at expulsion. Sound familiar? Well that's because it is. Aside from Pacino turning in a slightly different style of performance from his norm, the rest of this hasn't an original bone in it's body. Indeed, its only claim to fame appears to be that it is based on the original, almost century old, transcriptions from Fr. Joseph of events that are really supposed to have happened but we've seen this all predictably play out so many times before that even the traditional collapsible bed doesn't turn an head - spiritual or metaphysically. The one element that does provoke a little interest is, perhaps, the clear indication that Catholicism in the 1920s was riddled with incantations, superstitions and a degree of symbolism that probably hadn't changed since much since there was a Borgia on the throne of St. Peter. This might work on the telly at Halloween of you're full of Grappa, but as a cinema experience it is disappointing and entirely forgettable, sorry.

As I'm almost 30 minutes into this movie, I'd like to say that I probably won't get through it. Not because it's too scary, but the cameraman is obviously crapping him/herself. The shaky shots are doing me 'ed in as they say. Plus Pacino is sleep walking through it too.

Ok. Longer review required. So I'll watch a bit more.

Every bloody angle is skewed. Is that supposed to add something? Every scene is plagued by the notion that this somehow makes the viewing experience more "authentic". Yeah really. I was an alter boy once upon a time and since then I've always wanted to ask someone, anyone, when was the last miracle amongst the faithful. Maybe the fact checkers are a more scary prospect. Peace.