Al Pacino and Dan Stevens can’t save a muddled, underwhelming horror retread
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
“The Ritual” was probably doomed to be an inferior knockoff of “The Exorcist” from the start. Like William Peter Blatty’s sensational 1971 novel, “The Exorcist,” which was adapted to the screen by William Friedkin in 1973, “The Ritual” claims to be based on “true events” that allegedly took place in a Roman Catholic rectory in Iowa in 1928. A local bishop (Patrick Fabian) drops in on parish priest Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens), whose brother has just taken his own life, and orders the grieving cleric to perform an exorcism. The subject, a girl named Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen), is being delivered by car. Also soon to arrive is Father Theophilus Reisinger (Al Pacino), a beardo Capuchin Franciscan who will lead the exorcism. Father Steiger will “take notes,” and several nuns from the convent headed by Mother Superior (Patricia Heaton) will be in the room to pray and restrain Emma if necessary (it is). In an early scene, we see handsome Father Steiger flirt with attractive Sister Rose (Ashley Greene of the “Twilight” franchise) in the hallway outside of his room.
“Put on the armor of God,” a prayer in the film advises. Theophilus is a true believer in the devil and his legions. Steiger is a skeptic who believes that Emma’s problems may be psychological and that she needs to be examined by a doctor (played by actor Enrico Natale, who also served as editor and producer). Emma is dehydrated and malnourished and known to “hiss like a cat” at the sight of a church or when the food offered to her has been blessed. Can she spin her head?
At this point in our history of “Exorcist” copycats, we need films that strive to be almost as good as the celebrated original or very funny, if they are comic take-offs. “The Exorcist: Believer” (2023) was such a disaster that the director “left” or was booted from the planned sequel. The 2023 Russell Crowe vehicle “The Pope’s Exorcist” was not much better. “The Ritual” turns out to be a boring, dreary shaky-cam-ed mess with a screenplay attributed to director David Midell and Natale that is queasy on the shocking elements and otherwise obvious, vague and repetitive. Pacino goes on and on about the danger of not confronting and using one’s calling for good. The legendary Pacino appears to have fun as the nebbishy, unkempt Shakespeare-quoting Theophilus. But the joke is on us.
Stevens has had his ups and downs since he got (spoiler alert) killed off in “Downton Abbey.” He’s had a recurring role in those awful “Godzilla x Kong” movies. He’s been in genre crap like “Abigail” (2024). He was the Beast in Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast” (2017). He was a hoot as a bad guy in the 2024 oddball, low-budget horror film “Cuckoo.” One of his most memorable vehicles was the 2021 German-language sci-fi romance “I’m Your Man,” a film in which Stevens plays a flirty robot and delivers a charming performance entirely in German.
Pacino, Stevens and Heaton should have been a lot more fun to watch here. But the writing is so paltry that they have little to work with. In one scene, Steiger holds pages of paper that Emma has written on and reads some of the sentences, but fails to note the obviously different handwriting styles. When the exorcist participants gather around Emma’s bed and pray, she appears to dislocate her neck and other limbs. In 1973, Friedkin went a lot further than creaky contortions to frighten and shock us. In scenes set in the “catacombs” of the church, which look more like basements, Theophilus encounters a shadowy demonic figure, who is not at all frightening. Almost any episode of “Evil” is better than this.
“The Exorcist” was one of the rare times Hollywood took material that had been traditionally relegated to the B-movie business (demonic possession) and gave it a complete A-movie treatment: cast, writer, director, cinematographer, special effects, etc.. The result was a revelation. It was two years before “Jaws” and four years before “Star Wars.” “The Ritual” is a step back to the B-movie style, which produced some great films (“Night of the Living Dead,” anyone?), but not in this case. Boo.
‘The Ritual’
Rating: Not Rated, gruesome and grotesque images, violence, profanity.
Cast: Al Pacino, Dan Stevens, Ashley Greene, Patricia Heaton
Director: David Midell
Writers: Midell and Enrico Natale
Running time: 98 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters
Grade: C
Boston Movie News 