TheRetroCritic

A Netflix-distributed release, The Ritual is a British horror film about a group of friends who decide to go hiking in Sweden (and soon find more than they bargained for) following the shocking death of one of their friends when a liquor store robbery goes off the rails. The lost-in-the-woods subgenre of horror movies is one that tends to either surprise (for better or for worse) or fall completely flat. The Ritual aims to be a modern take on The Blair Witch Project crossed with Deliverance  as the protagonists encounter strange twig-made structures in the woods then get picked off one by one by an unknown element. The film mercifully doesn't attempt a hand-held shaky-cam style of storytelling: this is a well paced and acted movie with some excellent cinematography throughout, especially near the climax. Some dream sequences give certain scenes a surreal quality but, unfortunately, they fail to add much in the way of substance. And this is probably the film's biggest sho

For a film that's sat on the shelves for so long, The Cabin In The Woods has done rather well for itself. It's been called a "game-changer" within the horror genre and it's been compared to Scream for its self-awareness and satiric take on a familiar horror template. The result? One hell of a fun movie! And pretty darn clever. ... and spoilers so if you haven't seen it: beware. As the trailers spoilered (new word), The Cabin In The Woods mixes sci-fi with Evil Dead -style slasher conventions to create something resembling a cross between Cabin Fever and The Truman Show but altogether infinitely better than the former, don't worry. Actually, the sci-fi twist isn't much of a "twist" at all: the film begins with both genres firmly meshed together. You've got the ever reliable Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford casually chatting in a futuristic Bond villain-style lab setting before the title bangs on the screen loudly in bloo