‘The Ritual’ Review – The Latest Exorcism Horror Movie Commits the Cardinal Cinema Sin

Not even Dan Stevens (Abigail, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) or veteran actor Al Pacino can inject life into The Ritual, the latest exorcism horror movie that adapts the 1928 exorcism of Emma Schmidt. Framed with a documentary eye, director David Midell attempts to shake up the tired formula by stretching out the cleansing ritual typically reserved for the climax into a full feature. The problem is that there’s not enough substance or story to fill its plodding runtime, just more tired musings on faith and religion amidst stale possession horror cliches.

The Ritual drops viewers into a beleaguered convent already exhausted by the violent outbursts and eerie behavior exhibited by deeply unwell patient Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen). As Emma exhibits the telltale signs of possession, terrorizing the nuns that include yanking out clumps of hair from a terrified Sister Rose (Ashley Greene), the Church has already approved an exorcism. Enter the familiar dynamics first introduced in The Exorcist, which Emma Schmidt’s case is said to have inspired.

After a string of weirdo roles, Dan Stevens is stuck playing the straightlaced, faith-questioning Father Joseph Steiger to Al Pacino’s maverick Father Theophilus Riesinger, shrugging off visions of past demons – obvious but underdeveloped stand-ins for The Exorcist‘s Father Karras and Father Merrin. 

Midell, who co-wrote the script with Enrico Natale, approaches the possession case with a documentarian eye, complete with a cinéma vérité style and sickly color palette that desperately wants to impart a sense of authenticity and realism to the sluggish proceedings. Characters wind up feeling more like talking heads through understated performances and naturalistic camera work with an emphasis on close-ups. Midell is so committed to presenting The Ritual as a true story that its horror elements get forgotten entirely in favor of the usual tropes that have long made exorcism horror feel outdated. To be fair, The Ritual is meant to be set decades before The Exorcist flipped the subgenre on its head. That doesn’t make it any less exhausting to see the same exact tactics play out in a predictable fashion. Emma will taunt her caretakers, spew bodily fluids, and speak in tongues, with the convent utterly helpless to get her under control.

The formulaic exorcism tropes and the ham-fisted melodramatics it tends to yield are at odds with Midell’s overly somber approach. The Ritual takes itself too seriously yet doesn’t have much to say. Emma, who was actually in her forties when Riesinger delivered the final exorcism, is never presented as a person with a history but rather an empty vessel for two bland characters to tiptoe around for nearly two hours. The period setting is equally wasted, and The Ritual doesn’t even bother interrogating how this case may have influenced The Exorcist beyond superficial similarities.

Even Al Pacino seems bored, despite injecting his character with eccentricities like a heavy accent that comes and goes. Dan Stevens makes a more concerted effort to bring depth, but there’s simply none to be found in The Ritual. Instead, the “based on a true story” horror movie fails to evoke any emotion as it sleepwalks through a tired recreation of an exorcism movie’s third act without any depth or development to make us care, committing the ultimate cardinal sin in cinema: it’s boring. It’s another misguided, failed experiment that only further reminds that exorcism horror is in desperate need of a shakeup.

The Ritual releases in theaters on June 6, 2025.

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