Some of the best folk horror movies of all time base their scares on the slow-burn creepiness of the rural setting. Others are terrifying movies about cults. David Bruckner’s 2017 horror film “The Ritual” dabbles in both, and adds in a haunted house aspect with a strange settlement in the middle of a Swedish forest. Then, it becomes something else altogether.
As a group of hikers finds out to their detriment, all the folk horror elements in the movie come courtesy of a single entity: A supernatural beast known as Moder, which is both terrifying to behold and so utterly powerful that it might be able to go toe to toe with just about any other horror movie monster out there. Let’s find out more about Moder, the animalistic horror movie god lurking at the center of “The Ritual”…
I recently re-watched this one, and I definitely agree with you. Not knowing what you’re getting into or why things are going down the way they are is part of what makes good horror. Less is often more in horror, and the terrors imagined rather than shown are what keeps you up at night.
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I’d even go one step further and say that what little exposition we get about the monster in the film is too much. The english-speaking cultist is unnecessary because we don’t need to understand the creature’s or cult’s motives to be afraid of them.
absolutely, I think you hit the nail on the head with all of that.
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with zero explanation, the monster would have been at least as effective as it already is.
I understood it as a wendigo initially, but its so much weirder when it starts physically clomping through the woods after them, the size and weight is eerie because it seems like a a shadowy hidden entity for so long.
it’s been a while, maybe I’ll watch it again.