SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

gavin6942 Five doctors on a wilderness outing are stalked by disfigured, crazed killers.The only purpose of my writing this review is to stress the importance of watching a quality copy of a film. While this movie sits at 6 out of 10 (a decent rating, especially by horror standards), I cannot commit to anything more than a 5 because I simply was not able to see the film. I would probably have only given it a 4 if it was not for Hal Holbrook in a starring role.I watched this on CrypticTV, which is an incredible service for catching horror movies free on the internet or through devices like the Roku. Unfortunately, the version they used (presumably public domain) was so blurry that more often than not the screen was filled with green or brown splotches.

qormi Very good, intelligent Deliverance-type backwoods catastrophe flick. The simple fact that they got their boots stolen changed everything. From here, they had to back track to find help. Along the way, they are being stalked and toyed with by a sadistic fiend. The dialogue is interesting and authentic - these are doctors speaking and the script makes this clear. All too real. These men begin to unravel as the toll continues. The suffering is laid bare and is not for the squeamish. The ordeal continues day after day and the suspense is unrelenting. It was filmed on a shoestring budget and it showed. Had it benefited from better direction, editing, and cinematography, it would have been a classic. As is, it's still a very good film.

Tony Bush Taking its cue from Boorman's Deliverance, Rituals features a group of middle-aged city doctors heading off for a yearly holiday, this time a hiking trip in the Canadian wilderness. They are systematically terrorised, tortured and killed by a disfigured redneck. As (bad) luck would have it, this one has an axe to grind with the medical profession. So, they really picked the wrong craphole in the middle of nowhere to tramp through.Visually, this looks like your typically grainy, low budget seventies exploitation flick. What sets it apart is the quality of the writing, the performances by real actors with some pedigree to recommend them and a lack of gratuitous on screen violence. The damage inflicted to human flesh and bone is not sensationalised nor lingered upon, rather the effects and outcomes of that damage becomes the focus and defines how the story arc is affected.Rituals starts out sedately enough, and slowly cranks up the tension, as the good natured banter and leg-pulling between the "friends" (some of which is quite witty and amusing) quickly spirals into accusatory bile and recrimination as events spiral out of their control. Hal Holbrook gives a fine performance as Harry, the most moral and principled member of the group, nicely counterbalanced by Lawrence Danes' Mitzi, a cynical, self-serving and duplicitous flip-side. This gives some indication early on of who stands the best chance of survival at the end of the day.The location scenery shots are carefully rendered and provide that faint and haunting sense of "being there." The events, as the protagonists attempt to escape, are suitably gruelling and the final confrontation is escalated nicely to a satisfying climax that avoids the usual clichéd frills, shock double endings, killers who aren't really dead, and the like. The closing image of Holbrook sat in the middle of a deserted, barren highway as the sun slowly rises in a slow burn of muted golden shades lingers longest in the memory.It is pleasing to see the profile of this unassuming "lost" genre piece now being deservedly raised in a re-mastered release on DVD. Fans of Deliverance, its eerie imagery and unnerving ambiance, could do far worse than give this a spin. Hardcore slasher jockeys will most likely be disappointed by the lack of blood, guts, gore and naked teen breasts.By today's standards, Rituals is a very tame beast indeed that hasn't really maintained much power to shock the system. It does, however, engage as a fairly gripping story of human endurance in an alien environment and a depiction of civilised man's inhumanity to man. I wouldn't call it essential viewing, but it's certainly worth a look. Especially as the grotesque Stadtler and Waldorf of film critique, Siskel and Ebert, apparently didn't rate it. To me that's usually a sign of some quality, worth and meaning.

BA_Harrison The excellent Hal Holbrook leads a fine cast of relative unknowns in a fight for survival against a deranged killer amidst the natural dangers of the Canadian wilderness.Holbrook plays Harry, one of a group of five middle-aged surgeons who take to the 'great outdoors' for a spot of fishing and hiking, but wind up being hunted by a mysterious killer with a grudge against doctors. Rather than spending a relaxing six days away from the sight of flesh and blood, the guys see just as much as ever—only this time it's their own!Featuring credible acting throughout, natural dialogue, a well developed sense of dread, great use of stunning scenery, and some disturbing scenes of visceral violence (including a particularly gruesome severed head on a stick), little known Canadian horror Rituals is one of the best that the backwoods slasher/survivalist sub-genre has to offer—not quite rivalling the brilliance of John Boorman's Deliverance perhaps, but deserving of a much wider audience than it currently has (as I type, the film has only 29 reviews on IMDb, compared with Deliverance's 283).One could reasonably complain that the film's lack of exposition leads to confusion about the precise motive of the killer, thus detracting a little from the film's overall effectiveness, but even taking this into consideration, Rituals is still a tense, gruelling, eerie, and atmospheric chiller well worth hunting down.