Ritual

2012 "Terror in the woods."
5.4| 1h27m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 26 April 2012 Released
Producted By: LifeLike Pictures
Country: Indonesia
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://modusanomali.com/
Info

A father on vacation wakes up separated from his family and races through the woods to find them.

Watch Online

Ritual (2012) is now streaming with subscription on Prime Video

Director

Joko Anwar

Production Companies

LifeLike Pictures

Ritual Videos and Images

Ritual Audience Reviews

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Edison Witt The first must-see film of the year.
Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.
Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
GL84 Awakening in the middle of the jungle, a man with no memory to his identity tries to piece together the disturbing events that lead to his condition and finds a far darker and more sinister secret at the root of the actions throughout his trip.While there's not a whole lot to like here, it does have some pleasing parts to it when it tried, Among the more impressive parts here is the fact that there's an actually suspenseful job here getting to the main set-up, as the wandering through the jungle and stumbling upon the abandoned cabin with the tape of his wife being held hostage and then finding the blood on the floor creates a really strong opening here as well as the later scenes of him being out in the wilderness alone with the sounds of the animals chirping away furthering this nicely. As well, his search through another cabin later on while trying to stay out-of-sight of a group of attackers outside lends itself to some really creepy moments especially once they light the casket on fire to deter him. The final half, though, where this one runs through an incredibly impressive and truly enjoyable twist ending that takes this on a much darker and far more chilling concept than what had been previously utilized, makes for a really fitting end to this one. Outside of these elements, though, there's not a whole lot worthwhile about this one. The main problem is the fact that far too much time is spent here doing absolutely nothing but simply enhancing the running time focusing on utterly bland and utterly uninteresting passages throughout here with the main parts of the film featuring him just simply wandering around the forest doing absolutely nothing. All we get are panicked shots of him trying to stay out of sight as he tries to piece everything together. There's very little dialog in here as well to help bring things along as the first half plays more like a silent effort without letting anything come out to help this one make more sense with the ability to help let it be known what's going on. With so little information to go on and rather little of interest here in terms of what's happening, this one takes quite a while to get interesting and makes for a challenging watch as it struggles to get it's footing under itself with the way this takes to get to it's good parts and really lowers this one significantly. As well, for as much good as the positives unleashed with it's fine twist does amount to, this one still undoes a lot of good by employing it which really renders far too much of what transpired earlier moot due to not being able to make it gel cohesively with the actions throughout the rest of the film, effectively making it seem more like the finale was written first and then reworked into the rest of film, making it seemingly obvious and sticks out quite readily. Still, this one does have some solid points to it.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and children-in-jeopardy.
kosmasp Actually you might just have done that. Or not, but maybe you have to watch this to be able to forget about it. As another reviewer writes, this movie will be made or break even further with the reveal towards the ending. I thought it wasn't as clever as it was trying to be, it was annoying as hell though. If the main character thinks he's disorientated, you can only imagine what goes on in the mind of the viewer of this movie throughout.While it's always fresh to see new takes, it also needs actors and a script to support that weight. Without those a good idea will be smashed very easily. Something that is the case with this movie right here, which is very unfortunate
Red-Barracuda A man wakes up in a shallow grave in a forest with no memories. He soon discovers scenes of horror and tries to discover what happened.This Indonesian thriller has clearly been pitched at an international market seeing as it's an English language film. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when lines of dialogue are spoken they are a bit clunky. However, there really is hardly any dialogue at all. The story is told virtually all via images. We work out details gradually and slowly put things together. To be honest, for the first hour I wasn't too impressed. There were occasionally effective moments such as when the protagonist hides in a shack to evade a mysterious opponent. But for the most part this opening two-thirds goes by a little too slowly and some character actions seem entirely bizarre. However, it has to be said that the final third is really rather good. It actually puts some of the frustrating moments from earlier into some kind of context and it ensures that the film ends in a satisfying way. This is for me an example of a film that is definitely saved, or even defined, by its clever denouement. For this reason it is worth sticking with for sure.
J. Davis This tale begins with a man waking up in a shallow grave with amnesia. Not knowing exactly what to do, he begins to wander aimlessly through this remote Indonesian forest, eventually finding a cabin with a car parked outside. Inside he's horrified to find the cabin empty except for the bloody corpse of what he believes to be his wife as he discovers a wedding ring on his finger. Then, after watching a video of a faceless attacker killing her, he ventures back into the forest, scared & confused, with only a lantern to guide his way. The atmosphere in the first thirty minutes was creepy & unpredictable as the viewer watches and waits to get a handle on what exactly is going on in the film. As more information is introduced, the level of suspense does come down a little and at times I found myself scratching my head a bit. Certain things happen that seem at the time a bit absurd, but if you stay patient and continue into the final act, there is a nice twist on things that IMO made it a very original worthwhile watch. Some camera work was a bit shaky, but for the budget the production value was just fine for the duration of the film. The acting wasn't a problem, there wasn't a whole lot of dialogue for it even to become an issue. It is an English speaking film despite it's locality & ethnicity of the cast. In all, it wasn't a highly suspenseful thriller or a gory horror flick, although it did contain some elements of each. If horror fans are looking for something different than the same old clichéd plot line than I do recommend taking a look, it's originality & clever end make for a solid 6/10.