Movies
‘The Ritual’ Clips Explore a Creepy Cabin in the Woods!
David Bruckner‘s cabin-in-the-woods horror film The Ritual is officially out in UK cinemas. The film follows a group of old college friends who embark on a hiking trip through an unnerving Scandinavian forest after the death of their friend.
Joe Lipsett reviewed the film out of its World Premiere, explaining that it “make audiences reconsider any plans they have to go for a hike in the woods anytime soon.“
We scored two eerie clips from the film that explore a cabin in the woods.
“When four old University friends set off into the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle, they aim to briefly escape the problems of their lives and reconnect with one another. But when Luke, the only man still single and living a precarious existence, finds he has little left in common with his well-heeled friends, tensions rise. With limited experience between them, a shortcut meant to ease their hike turns into a nightmare scenario that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry, and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, Luke figures things couldn’t possibly get any worse. But then they stumble across an old habitation. Ancient artifacts decorate the walls and there are bones scattered upon the dry floors. The residue of old rites and pagan sacrifice for something that still exists in the forest. Something responsible for the bestial presence that follows their every step. As the four friends stagger in the direction of salvation, they learn that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees…“
It stars Rafe Spall (The Big Short, Life of Pi), Robert James-Collier (Downton Abbey, Spike Island), Arsher Ali (Line of Duty, Four Lions) and Sam Troughton (Robin Hood, Alien vs. Predator).
The Ritual is an adaptation of Adam Nevill’s horror novel, which won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel in 2012. Joe Barton wrote the screenplay. Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ Andy Serkis(!) produced via his The Imaginarium outfit.
Bruckner is a part of the Bloody Disgusting family having directed the “Amateur Night” segment in V/H/S and the infamous surgical sequence in Southbound. He’s also one of the directors of The Signal (2007) and nearly ended up directing the next installment of Friday the 13th. This looks like an excellent consolation prize.
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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