2017’s The Ritual, directed by David Bruckner, is one of the best horror films of the last decade. 2025’s The Ritual, co-written and directed by David Midell, and starring the likes of Al Pacino and Dan Stevens, is the exact opposite. It shares a name with a better movie, but this dull, ugly-looking film, which comes out on June 6, is nothing more than a near-beat-for-beat retread of The Exorcist. Exorcism-related horror films have been done to death, and if you’ve seen one, you’ve often seen them all. Most of them have the same tropes and characters (heroes and villains included), but you might think that if an all-time legend and a soon-to-be one like Pacino and Stevens are involved, then this one must offer something different. Nope. It’s painful to write it, but The Ritual will go down as one of the worst movies in both of their respective careers — and Pacino’s includes Jack and Jill.
What Is ‘The Ritual’ About?

The Ritual is based on the true story of Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen), a young woman from Iowa in 1928 who was supposedly possessed by a demon for decades, leading to the Catholic Church getting help for her in the form of Father Theophlius Riesinger (Pacino). When we first meet Emma, she’s already possessed and in a badly weakened state. She’s gaunt, pale, and sick, and at the end of her rope. Only God can save her now, it seems, so she’s brought to Father Riesinger’s church. Pacino, now 85, is effective enough as Riesinger, giving the Father a German accent that he doesn’t lay on too thick. He is a quiet, calm man, so don’t expect one of those classic Pacino raging monologues at any point. By Riesinger’s side is Father Joseph Stieger (Stevens), whose job it will be to take an account of Riesinger’s exorcism of Emma, which will be done through a series of rituals. They will be assisted by several nuns, including the scared Sister Rose (Ashley Greene). The Ritual also co-stars Patricia Heaton as the Mother Superior and Patrick Fabian as Bishop Edwards. It certainly has a high-quality cast, but that’s where the positives start and end.
‘The Ritual’ Has Every Lazy Exorcism Trope

Depending on when you read this review, you’ve probably never seen The Ritual, but in a way, you have many times. It’s not much more than a weak clone of The Exorcist. William Friedkin’s classic horror movie, often regarded as the best ever made, launched a subgenre of similar ilk that all hit the same beats without being able to recapture the magic of the original. The Ritual has every frustrating stereotype you can think of. Emma, whom we never get to know as a real person first, slowly transitions into being fully possessed. We see her getting weaker as she’s tied to a bed, crying and begging for help. As the possession gets stronger, she vomits, she breaks her restraints and attacks those that help her, and in the full grasp of the demon, she speaks in a creepy voice and makes suggestive sexual comments meant to attack the priests trying to help her. Sound familiar?

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Those priests are the biggest tropes of all. Father Theophilus Riesinger is our Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), the older, frail man who believes deeply in what he’s doing. Dan Stevens’ younger Father Joseph Steiger doesn’t believe as strongly in exorcisms. Time after time, he says that Emma needs to see a doctor and a psychiatrist. He’s also dealing with the grief of the recent death of his brother. Sounds exactly like the doubting Damien Karras (Jason Miller), who is grieving his mother’s passing, doesn’t it? Pacino, Stevens, and Greene do their best with the material they’re given, but it’s all so incredibly lazy and boring. Every single cookie-cutter beat is right on the nail, with not a single twist or alteration thrown in. Outside of a few creepy images, The Ritual is not even remotely scary.
The Frustrating Filming Style Makes ‘The Ritual’ Hard To Watch

Image via XYZ Films

Still, just like so many horror fans will watch any trope-filled slasher ever made (this writer among them), is The Ritual at least watchable? Perhaps exorcism films are your guilty pleasure, and you don’t need them to set themselves apart from what came before. Unfortunately, most infuriating of all is how unpleasant the film is to look at. This isn’t because of the set design per se, which is already dark, minimalistic, and entirely forgettable, but because of the absolutely atrocious cinematography. The Ritual makes the most bizarre filming choices. It’s not hyperbolic to say that the cinematography will want to make you look away from the screen. There could have been beautiful, sweeping shots, but the movie is entirely filmed with handheld cameras. That Adam Biddle, the cinematographer of Crank, is behind The Ritual makes a lot of sense, but the same style for Crank shouldn’t be used here. Perhaps the idea behind this was to make the film feel more real, almost as if you were watching a found footage movie, but it results in scenes that never stop shaking (even the quiet moments are full of this), with constant zoom-ins and zoom-outs. For most of the runtime, we get the closest shots of an actor’s face, as if the movie is begging us to find the emotion it can’t conjure up in the script. We miss everything going on around them because of this dizzying style. Case in point: what is supposed to be The Ritual’s most intense moment has Emma going through some sort of painful physical transformation. We see the other characters react in shock, but the camera is moving around so much that we barely see it. Hold still, already! Watching The Ritual is like putting a bad remake of The Exorcist on your phone, then pushing your face right next to the screen as you move your phone around in your hand constantly for over 90 minutes. The whole time I was watching it, the question that kept coming to me was Why? Why does this movie exist? Why did Al Pacino and Dan Stevens sign on to it? Do yourself a favor and skip The Ritual. You’ve already seen it before.

The Ritual

Al Pacino and Dan Stevens deserve so much better.

Release Date

June 6, 2025

Runtime

98 Minutes

Director

David Midell

Writers

David Midell, Enrico Natale

Al Pacino

Father Theophilus Riesinger

Pros & Cons

The actors prop up the script as much as they can.
There are a few genuinely creepy images.

The script is filled with every lazy trope imaginable.
The plot is dull and has no alterations or twists in a predictable subgenre.
The bad cinematography choices make the film difficult to watch.